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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O PQ R S T U V W XYZ

" I married him for life but so far he hasn't shown any"

Lulu Trimble

HER NAME IS L............

* Labrousse Mme

..... French woman who was the FIRST woman racing driver on record when she competed in the Paris-Spa race in July 1899. She was classed fifth in the first division for cars carrying at least 3 persons

* Lafontaine Mme

 born 1665 died 1738

..... FIRST woman dancer in the Academié Royale

* Lale Andersen

 born 1911

..... German singer whose song 'Lilli Marlene' was the first genuinely international war song hit and was the one which made her famous and brought her about a million fans. A film based on the song and featuring her was made in 1952. In 1960 her disc Never On Sunday sold 800,000 copies

* Larissa Latynina

 born 1935

..... Russian who was the FIRST internationally acclaimed star of gymnastics who won more Olympic gold medals than any other competitor. In the 1956 and 1960 Olympics she won medals in every event on the programme, taking nine gold, five silver and three bronze and had an unequalled total of 24 gold medals in Olympic, world and European championships

* Laura

* Lena Horne

 born 30th June 1917

..... American who was the FIRST black star to sign a long-term contract with a Hollywood studio when she signed with MGM in 1942. She was also the FIRST black woman in films to be glamorised as she insisted she would not play stereotypical roles, such as maids, that were being offered to black actresses at the time. From May 1981 to June 1982 she appeared in a one-person show on Broadway entitled Lena Horne : The Lady and her Music and for this longest-running one-woman show in the history of Broadway she received a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a special citation from the New York /Drama Critics Circle and the Handel Medallion, New York's  highest cultural award

* Leng Jie

..... Chinese caterer who opened China's FIRST British-style fish and chip shop in 2004 in the capital Beijing

* Lennie Sorenson and Karlene Cipriano and Dorothy Clegg

 ..... Americans who were the FIRST all-female crew to fly a commercial jet when they commanded a 10-hour flight from Honolulu to Sydney. Lennie Sorenson was also the FIRST woman captain of a major American airline and she piloted the DC10 for Continental Airlines

* Leona Lewis

..... on December 16th 2006 she became the FIRST female winner of the X Factor, the ITV Talent Show, when 8m votes were cast by telephone, text and digitally via television screens. The other finalist was Ray Quinn. In 2008 she became the FIRST British female artist to reach Number 1 in the U.S charts with a debut album

* Leona Marshall Libby

 born 1919 died 1986

..... American who helped to build the FIRST nuclear reactor and personally directed the construction of the FIRST thermal column. She was the only woman scientist assigned to the Manhattan Project - the group of scientists who built the Atomic Bomb in WW2

* Leonie Judith Kramer

 born 1924

..... FIRST ever Professor of Australian Literature at Sydney University from 1968-69

* Leonie Rouzade

 ..... FIRST woman to stand for municipal election in France in 1881

* Leonora Ison

 neé Payne

 born July 4th 1904 died 1996

..... FIRST woman to be awarded the Owen Jones Travelling Studentship in 1925. She was an illustrator of a wide variety of books, several of which were written by her husband and devoted to British architecture

* Leontyne Price

 born 1927

..... American who was the FIRST black opera singer to perform on television when she took the title role in Tosca

* Lesley Haresnape

..... FIRST woman partner at chartered accountants Downham, Train, Epstein in Bury, England in 1995

* Lesley Mazaitelli

..... FIRST person to secure a job at the new Trafford Centre in Manchester which opened in September 1998 and the FIRST graduate from the centre's revolutionary Recruitment and Training Foundation which was the FIRST of its kind in Britain to provide a new approach to specific training

* Lesley McDonagh

..... FIRST woman to be elected as managing partner of Lovell, White, Durrant solicitors in London in 1995, the FIRST firm to do so

* Lesley Monk

..... in 1988 she was the FIRST British woman to enter the Iditarod, a sled dog race across Alaska in which she finished last. It is the longest and most gruelling competition in the dog-sled racing calendar which attracts teams from all over the world

* Lesley Oram

..... when she graduated from Newcastle University in 1968 she became the FIRST female engineer at Electrosil in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

* Lesley Perry

..... FIRST woman on the archbishop's staff at Lambeth to seek ordination in 1997

* Lesley Vickers

..... one of the FIRST 36 carers to receive a certificate after completing a course on care for disabled children by Manchester City Council in 1994, the FIRST local authority in the UK to offer this specialist tuition

* Leslie Howie

.....  FIRST woman player in the brass section of the traditionally male Black Dyke Band in 1999. She played tenor horn and was a fourth-year student at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester

* Leslie Knox

..... FIRST woman director of the Bank of Scotland

* Letitia Ann Sage

..... on 29th June 1785 she became the FIRST woman to be carried aloft in a balloon in Britain when taken up in Lunardi's hydrogen balloon from St George's Fields, London

* Letitia Tyler

died 1842

..... American First Lady , wife of the 10th President, John Tyler, she was the FIRST presidential wife to die during her husband's term of office

* Lettice Curtis

.....  FIRST woman to fly a four-engined bomber when she was one of the women pilots in the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War ( see also Pauline Gower)

* Levassor Mme

..... French woman who was the FIRST woman to drive a motor car in 1892.  She was the wife of one of the partners in the Paris motoring concern, Panhard et Levassor, but was best known by her former name of Mme Sarazin. On the death of her first husband she acquired the French and Belgian rights of manufacture for the Daimler engine. In 1890 when she remarried, the patent rights passed to her new husband's firm and in 1891 they began manufacturing cars

* Leyla Zana

..... FIRST Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament one of 22 MPs elected in the October 1991 elections. The Kurdish Mps were members of the People's Labour party but were barred from fighting under this title and had to link themselves to the main opposition Social Democratic Party

* Li Zhen

 born 1907  died 1990

..... FIRST and only woman to be appointed a general of China's People's Liberation Army. She was also one of the few of that rank to survive the Cultural Revolution unharmed. In the mid-1930s she served in the political department of the 8th Route Army, the Communist's main force, and later with the Chinese People's Volunteers, the name given to Chinese units who fought UN-led troops in the Korean War. She was appointed major-general in 1955 and awarded the order of "Liberation" first class. Unlike many of her peers, her career was not interrupted by the Cultural Revolution and her name appeared frequently in the official media between 1966 and 1976

* Libby Riddles

..... FIRST woman to win the gruelling 1,135 mile Iditarod race in 1985 which takes place across the frozen wastelands of Alaska from Anchorage to Nome

* Libertad Lamarque

 born 1908

..... FIRST superstar of the Argentine cinema through her work in the tango-melodramas of the early sound cinema.  She made over two dozen films in Argentina, but in the 1940s moved on to Mexico and later to Spain and remained active in filmmaking until the late 1970s

* Lidia Zvereva

 ..... FIRST Russian woman to get a fixed-wing pilot's licence when she received licence number 31 on

22nd August 1911 at the Russian Aviation Association Flying School at Gatchina. On 19th May 1914 she looped a Morane, reportedly the FIRST woman to do so ( from Dave Lam)

* Lidiya Pavlovna Skoblikova

 born 1939

..... FIRST woman ever to achieve the Olympic 'Grand Slam' - 500m/1000m/1500m/3000m in speed skating. She was also the most decorated female Olympian of all time

* Lili Boulanger

 born 1893 died 1918

..... FIRST woman to win the Prix de Rome (1913) with her cantata - Faust et Helene. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire but halted her studies during the First World War so that she could care for the families of musicians in war service

* Lilian Barker

born 1874 died 1955

..... FIRST woman Assistant Commissioner of Prisons in 1935 and as such was responsible for all women prisoners in the UK

* Lilian Mary Baylis

 born 1874 died 1937

..... one of the FIRST two women to manage theatres before 1939. The other one was Dame Gladys Constance Cooper. When her aunt died in 1912 Lilian became sole manager of the Old Vic with a salary of £1 per week and through her untiring efforts it became one of the finest theatres in the world, the 'home of Shakespeare' with actors and actresses eager to belong to a company which gave some security of employment even though the wages were modest

* Lilian Hall

..... Salford's FIRST woman police officer who joined Salford City Police as an auxiliary in 1941. She retired in 1978 after 37 years service

* Lilian King

..... FIRST woman verger to be taken on at Manchester Cathedral and the only deaf cathedral apprentice in the country when she landed a place on the three-year training course after winning sponsorship from the financial services giant Prudential

* Lilian Murray

 (later Lindsay)

 born July 24th 1871 died January 31st 1960

..... FIRST English woman licentiate in dentistry on May 20th 1895, FIRST woman to be a branch president and FIRST to be President of the British Dental Association. She began her apprenticeship in 1889 and completed her three-year apprenticeship and passed a preliminary examination. However she was not allowed to register as a dental student by Henri Weiss, Dean of the National Dental Hospital and School in London, who flatly refused to allow women over the building's threshold. Lilian registered at the Edinburgh Hospital and School and paid her course fees with the help of a loan and qualified with honours in 1895 . She later published several academic papers as well as a book and between 1920 and 1959 received some 24 honours and distinctions. The Lindsay Club was established by the British Dental Association after her death, the only society in Britain committed to the study of dental history

* Lilian Mary Elizabeth Wyles

born 1885

..... in 1932 she was the FIRST woman Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Criminal Investigation Department, London

* Lillian Marie Disney

 neé Bounds

 born 1899 died 1997

..... one of Walt Disney's FIRST two employees in 1923. They were not married at this time but after they married she remained his wife for 41 years and it was she who thought up the name of his first and most celebrated creation, Mickey Mouse

* Lillian Gish

..... American who was the FIRST artiste whose life was insured for the duration of a picture when insured for $lm on the film Way Down East in 1920

* Lillian James

..... FIRST Australian woman to learn and regularly speak the Cornish language.  In 1988 along with Betty Eggleton, another Australian, they were made bards when they dressed like druids to be initiated with 19 others at the 60th Cornish Gorsedd or eisteddfod , an ancient cliff-top ceremony in the presence of 200 blue-robed bards

* Lillian Penson

..... on 24th June 1948 she became the FIRST woman Vice-Chancellor of London University

* Lily Marks

 born December 1st 1910

..... FIRST prima ballerina in Britain and FIRST British ballerina to dance Giselle. When ballet master Diaghilev enrolled her in his company in Monte Carlo she took a Russian name, as was the practice, and became Alicia Markova

* Lily Maxwell

..... Englishwoman who was the FIRST woman to vote in a Parliamentary election. She was the proprietor of a small shop selling kitchenware and went to the polls in a Manchester by-election on November 26th 1867. As a ratepayer (in itself unusual for a woman at this time) she had been put on the electoral register by mistake. The secretary of the Manchester Woman's Suffrage Society was Lydia Becker and she had canvassed Mrs Maxwell on behalf of the Liberal candidate, Mr Bright. When he was returned to Parliament he made a name for himself as one of the champions of the women's cause. Prior to the General Election in 1868 a number of female ratepayers succeeded in having their names placed on the electoral register. Eight women are known to have voted in Manchester and three in London but the rights assumed by these few women were called into question and by a decision of the Court of Common Pleas on 9th November 1868, female suffrage was declared to be illegal

* Lily Parr

.... FIRST and only woman to appear in the Footballing Hall of Fame. She started her career in 1919 and retired from football in 1951 ( from Barbara Jacobs)

* Lily Ramsden

..... FIRST Lady Mayor of Totnes

* Lily Waldern

..... on October 30th 1917 Lily Redding became Mrs Lily Waldern and so became the FIRST woman teacher to continue in service in Plymouth after getting married as until the Second World War women were obliged to leave the teaching profession after marriage

* Lina Wertmuller

..... Italian who was the FIRST woman film director to receive an Oscar nomination in 1976 for Seven Beauties

* Linda

* Lindsay MacFarlaine

..... FIRST civilian press officer with South Yorkshire Police

* Lindy Woodhead

..... FIRST woman director of Harvey Nichols

* Lis Phelan

..... FIRST female director of Manchester libraries and theatre in the services 150-year history

* Lisa Andersen

..... FIRST woman managing director of a major British record company - 1989 - RCA Records

* Lisa Battye

….. FIRST female chaplain in Salford when she took office of St. Thomas' Church in Clifton

* Lisa Budd

..... in September 1992 she was the FIRST Mistress of Ceremonies at a professional boxing bout when she took the microphone at Watford Town Hall to announce a fight between champion Wally Swift and milkman Andy Till

* Lisa Clayton

..... FIRST yachtsman to complete a solo unassisted circumnavigation of the world from the northern hemisphere in 1995. The 30,000 mile voyage took her 286 days

* Lisa Fonssagrives

 neé Anderson

 born 1910 died 1992

..... Swedish born she became the world's FIRST supermodel and one of the FIRST models to run, jump and dance along the catwalk as today's models do. She was also the FIRST model ever to be featured on the cover of Time magazine and sat for most of the celebrated fashion photographers of the 1940s and 1950s. She continued to be employed well into her 40s and as well as modelling she also tried her hand at sculpture, photography and designing clothes

* Lisa Millett

..... on May 23rd 1995 she became the FIRST woman to play the M.C in Cabaret, the musical set in 1930s Berlin

* Lisa Power

..... FIRST student at Bolton College to retain the title of Construction Technician of the Year when she was presented with the award during a ceremony at the college attended by 1,200 students

* Lisa Prior and Sarah Hudson and Caroline Withers

..... FIRST women to enlist in the British Army under a scheme that enables new-found friends to train together - 1990

* Lisa Ullman

 born 1907 died 1984

..... dance teacher who came to England in 1934 from Germany. In 1946 she founded the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester which eventually moved to Surrey and links were established with training colleges which paved the way for the FIRST dance course in England conferring fully qualified teacher status

* Lisa Voden-Decker

..... FIRST treasure registrar at the British Museum in London where she worked with the 'finders'

* Lisa Whiberley

..... FIRST woman speedway rider to be registered under contract in 1988 since the 192Os. She rode for the junior team of the Purfleet-based club, Radio Hammers, which was formerly known as Arena Essex 

* Lise de Baissac and Andree Burrell

..... members of the FANYs who were the FIRST women to be parachuted into France  November 1942

* Lise Meitner

born November 7th 1878 died October 27th 1968

..... Austrian who was the FIRST person to split the atom and the FIRST woman to receive the Enrico Fermi Award from the Atomic Energy Commission in 1966 and one of the FIRST women to receive a doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1906. In 1945 she was the third woman in history to be elected to the Swedish Academy of Science. She never approved of her discovery when she split the atom and said " women have a great responsibility and they are obliged to try as far as they can to prevent another war". When Hiroshima was bombed she retired from the field of atomic physics

* Lita Rosa

.... singer who had the FIRST number 1 hit in Liverpool

* Liv Arnesen

..... Norwegian who was the FIRST woman to reach the South Pole alone. Her journey began on 5th November 1994 and ended on 27th December 1994

* Liv Ullman

..... FIRST female recipient of Norway's Peer Gynt Award

* Liz Colburn

..... in 1991 she became the FIRST woman to win the New York Marathon

* Liz Hobson

..... in 1989 she became the FIRST woman President of Cambridge Athletic Club (Queen's)

* Liz Lamb

..... head of Britain's FIRST all-female shooting syndicate in 2002. They held their first meeting, a clay pigeon shoot in October 2002 in Doveridge, Derbyshire

*  Liz Newton

..... FIRST woman captain of the 125-year-old Bradford rowing club. She also made history when she became head of the Countryside Commission in the North West as the youngest woman to hold this senior post

* Liz Nuttall

..... FIRST member of the Women's Royal Naval Reserve ever to go to sea as a full member of a warship's crew when she sailed from Devonport in the 28500 ton carrier Hermes for sea trials in 1982/83. Permission was obtained because she had been working on board as a secretary to C.0 Captain Kenneth Snow and he was unwilling to change staff for the week long trials

* Liz Ratcliffe

..... in 1990 she became the FIRST woman in Australia to qualify as a beach inspector

* Liz Spierling

..... FIRST woman to he elected as a section chairman of the Institution of Gas Engineers in 1998 in its 135 year history

* Liz Wright

..... FIRST woman managing director in the car industry when appointed to Charlie Brown's AutoCentres and FIRST woman Vice-President of the National Tyre and Distributors Association in its 60-year history

* Loie Fuller

 born 1862 died 1927

..... FIRST person to use colour and light in the theatre as an aesthetic element in 1891 and FIRST to use phosphorescent material on stage

* Lois Lodge

.... as Lt-Col she was the FIRST woman to command a regular Army unit with a NATO role in September 1991, when she took command of the 24 Airmobile Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps. She was one of only three women in the 130-strong helicopter-borne unit and joined the force when the idea of a woman leading troops was inconceivable and vowed to battle her way to the top

* Lois Weber

..... American who was the FIRST woman director of a full-length feature film with Merchant of Venice in 1914

* Lombe Phyllis Chibesakunda

 born 1944

..... Zambian who was the FIRST woman State Advocate in the Ministry of Legal Affairs in Zambia. In 1975 she was appointed Ambassador to Japan and from 1977-81 was Zambian High Commissioner to the UK

* Lore Scheuplein-Lev

..... thought to be the FIRST German war widow to arrange that after her death her ashes be flown from Germany to be buried in her husband's grave in an English country churchyard. He was killed when his Junkers 88 was shot down over Sussex in 1940 and he was buried with twelve of his colleagues in the churchyard at Tangmere, which was a wartime fighter base. Frau Scheuplein regularly sent money for flowers to be placed on their graves

* Lores Bonney

neé Maude Rose Rubens

 born 20th November 1897 died March 2nd 1994

.....  FIRST woman pilot to circumnavigate Australia in 1932, FIRST American woman to fly from Australia to England in 1933 and in the same year was the FIRST person to fly from Australia to South Africa. In 1933 she was appointed MBE by George V and at the age of 93 years was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia

* Loretta Lyn

born 14th April 1935

..... FIRST female artist to win the CMA Entertainer of the Year Award - 1972

* Loretta Murphy

..... FIRST woman member of a Colwyn Bay (Wales) Conservative Club snooker team, she was also the secretary and player of Colwyn Bay ladies football club

* Loretta Perfectus Walsh

died August 6th 1925

..... FIRST woman to serve on active duty in the U.S Navy and the FIRST woman to serve in any of the U.S armed forces in a non-nurse occupation. She enlisted on March 17th 1917 clearing the path for about 13,000 female yeomen or "yeomanettes" and served actively until July 1919. She then continued on inactive reserve status until her enlistment period ended in March 1921. The yeomanettes enabled the freeing up if thousands of male troops for deployment overseas

* Lori Miles

..... FIRST woman editor in Fleet Street when appointed editor of the London Evening News. Two years previously she had launched the 'Chat' magazine

* Lori Piestewa

..... FIRST Native American woman to die in combat while serving with the U.S.military when she was killed in the Iraq war in 2003

* Lorna Fitzsimons

..... on November 15th 2000 she became the FIRST Member of Parliament to pass the Institute of Advanced Motorists driving test

* Lorna Simpson

 born 1960

..... FIRST black woman whose work was exhibited in the Venice Biennale (1990) and in the same year became the FIRST black woman to be given a solo exhibition in the Painting and Sculptor department of time Museum of Modern Art in New York City

* Lorna Wright

..... FIRST woman in Britain to enrol with the Institute of Plumbing. She began her own business in 1983 and later started teaching plumbing at Rochdale and Bury technical colleges until education cuts ended this

* Lorraine Allen

..... FIRST woman to be trained as a steeplejack (or jill) in Britain in 1990

* Lorraine Crapp

 born 1938

..... Australian who was the FIRST woman to break the five minutes for the 400m freestyle in swimming in a time of 4mins 50.8 secs

* Lorraine Hansberry

born 1930 died 1965

..... American who was the FIRST black woman author of a play produced in Broadway in 1959. The play was called Raisin in the Sun and illustrated the love, pride and strength that held many black families together. It was produced, directed and acted by African Americans including Sidney Poitier and became the longest running play by a black author up to that time. It was her most famous work and made her the FIRST African-American to win the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Play. She was also the youngest to win this award

* Lorraine Heggessey

..... FIRST woman in charge of the BBC's flagship channel BBC1 for the first time in its history when appointed in September 2000. She began her career in 1979 as a BBC news trainee and much of her time was spent in making current affairs and factual programmes for BBC, ITV and Channel 4. She is a former head of children's television and at the time of her appointment was the BBC's joint head of factual and learning programmes

* Lorraine Pascale

..... FIRST black British model to appear on the cover of American 'Elle' magazine

* Lorraine Sutherland

..... FIRST woman editor of Hansard, the Official Report of the House of Commons. It was founded by Kule Hansard who went to London from Norwich and joined Hughes, Printers to the House. In 1774 he became manager and by 1798 was the sole proprietor

* Lotte Eisner

 born 1896 died 1983

..... in 1927 she was the FIRST well-known film critic in Germany

* Lotte Reiniger

..... German woman who made the FIRST ever full-length animated feature film - Die Abenteur des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) in 1926

* Lou Ellis

 died November 2000

..... Englishwoman who was the FIRST person in the UK to die from Evans Syndrome, a devastating condition which attacks the immune system. Medically it is known as Auto Immune Haemolytic Anaemia

* Louella Parsons

..... began the FIRST movie column in America when she wrote for the Chicago Record-Herald

* Louie Calvert

..... died in 1926 when she became the FIRST woman to be hanged at Strangeways Jail in Manchester since 1886 when she was executed for the murder of Mrs Lily Waterhouse

* Louisa May Alcott

born 1832 died 1888

 .....  American author of Little Women, the story of the four March sisters, she was the FIRST woman to register to vote in her village of Concord

* Louisa Aldrich-Blake

..... in 1895 she became the FIRST woman Master of Surgery

* Louisa Swain

..... citizen of Laramie, Wyoming, she is believed to be the FIRST woman to vote in America when Wyoming became the FIRST state to grant equal rights and consideration for teaching posts in 1869 and in 1870 the right to vote in any election. Women were also allowed on juries for the FIRST time but the practice was short-lived when the trials with women jurors caused too much attention

* Louise

* Lucie ?????

..... FIRST woman crew member in the history of the Salcombe lifeboat. A keen sportswoman she rode a motorbike and drove in car rallies and having been made redundant from her milk round job she trained to be a car mechanic

* Lucile

 .....  great English dressmaker of the 1890s who was the FIRST dressmaker to use live mannequins and to have a show-room in the modern sense. She scandalised Victorian husbands by creating cobweb fine underwear instead of robust petticoats of nun's veiling. Her sister was the novelist Elinor Glynn and she was married to Sir Cosmo duff Gordon

* Lucille Ball

..... American whose show I Love Lucy was one of the FIRST shows to be filmed rather than performed live and the FIRST show to be filmed before a live audience. The show eventually won 200 awards including five Emmys and with the show she became the FIRST and only actress to raise slapstick comedy to a high art and helped to firmly establish the sitcom as a major entertainment form. Her reign as queen of situation comedy continued from 1962 to 1974 in two other series The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy

* Lucille Bremer

 ..... American screen star who was the FIRST colour cover for Life magazine in 1947. Her screen career covered a few years in the middle of the 1940s during which she co-starred with Fred Astaire twice, Ziegfield Follies (1944 released in 1946) and Yolande And The Thief (1945) She made her final film for MGM in 1947 entitled Dark Delusion after which she made two more films before marrying and retiring completely

* Lucille Mulhall

  born October 21st 1885

..... born in Saint Louis she was America's FIRST well known "cowgirl". She threw steers and busted broncs, stalked prairie wolves, branded cattle and roped as many as eight running range horses at once. Considered a top cowhand by the time she was ten years old she was later featured as a performer with the Miller Bros shows of the 101 ranch and set world records in steer roping becoming known as the "Queen of the West". Her trick horse was called "Governor"

* Lucina Hagman

..... Finnish woman who was the FIRST woman President of UNIONI and helped to found the FIRST co-educational school in Finland

* Lucinda Ballard

 born April 3rd 1908 died August 20th1993

..... distinguished and prolific designer and the FIRST Broadway designer to participate directly in the interpretation of character and left her mark on musicals and plays such as Annie Get Your Gun, Streetcar Named Desire, The Sound of Music and I Remember Mama. In 1947, when the Tony's awards were instituted she received the award for costume design

* Lucretia Mott

 born 1793 died 1880

..... FIRST Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls was organised by her and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts and after moving to the mainland in 1804 she was educated in a Quaker school where she later taught. Seven years later she married James Mott and they moved to Philadelphia. He later became a Quaker minister. She was an active abolitionist and founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and in 1840 attended the Anti-Slavery Convention in London where women delegates were refused a seat. It was here that she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. During the next few years she founded and ran the Philadelphia Association for the Relief and Employment of Poor Women. She was the most prominent woman in the abolitionist movement, sheltered runaway slaves, organised aid during the Civil War and continued to fight for freed men's rights when the war was over. Her fight for women's rights continued and she tried to unite the different wings of the suffrage movement until her death

* Lucy

* Luisa Diogo

..... FIRST woman to become prime minister of the African republic of Mozambique

* Luisa Roldán

born 1656 died 1704

..... FIRST celebrated woman sculptor in Spain when in 1692 she was appointed Sculptor of the Chamber to Charles 11.  She was born in Seville and with her sisters and brothers was trained to paint sculpture in the workshops of their father and became famous for her religious groups in painted wood and terracotta

* Luise Rainier

..... FIRST performer, male or female, to win two Academy Awards back-to-back when she received the first in 1936 for The Great Ziegfield and the second in 1937 for The Good Earth

* Lurline Champagnie

..... Jamaican who was the FIRST black woman selected to fight a Parliamentary seat for the Conservative party in 1990 when chosen to contest Islington North

* Lydia

..... from the Bible and said to be the FIRST Christian convert in Europe

* Lydia Ernestine Becker

 born 1827 died 1890

..... pioneer orator of the women's movement and the  FIRST woman elected to the new School Boards when in 1870 W E Forster's Elementary Education Act gave women the right to vote for and become members of them. She held her position on the Manchester School Board through several triennial elections until her death

* Lydia Maria Child

 born 1802 died 1880

..... established the FIRST children's periodical in America in 1926 with the Juvenile Miscellany. Massachusetts abolitionist whose Appeal in Favour of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833) won many to the anti-slavery cause. In 1828 she married lawyer and reformer David Lee Child and their stand on the abolition of slavery led to their ostracism from Boston society. She also published pamphlets such as the Anti-Slavery Catechism (1836) and from 1840 to 1844 edited the weekly Anti-slavery Standard with her husband. Her novel Hobomok was the FIRST historical novel published in the United States. Other publications include works on domestic subjects, a magazine, a history of the condition of women (1835) and several biographies. During the 1850s she became interested in religion and wrote A Progress of Religious Ideas (1855) but she was thrown back into controversy by her offer to nurse John Brown in hospital. Her Correspondence between L M Child and Governor Wise and Mrs Mason of Virginia (1860) sold over 300,000 copies. Her final book, Aspirations of the World, was in 1878, two years before her death

* Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya

 born March 24th 1907 died 1996

..... Russian writer who was awarded the FIRST Sakharov Prize in 1990.  She was a respected novelist among a generation of Russian writers which included Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. In 1973 she wrote an open letter in defence of Andrei Sakharov who was being hounded by the secret police and the press and the following year was expelled from the official Soviet Writer's Union and so banned from earning a living as a writer

* Lydia Dunn

..... FIRST Dame of Hong Kong in 1989 and FIRST Chinese woman member of the House of Lords. She was a politician and businesswoman and when she was made a Dame it caused a few problems in the colony as there was no Chinese equivalent for the term. It was finally decided to call her ' Lydia Churk-See' which means Sir Lydia

* Lydia Folger Fowler

 born 1822 died 1879

..... American who was the FIRST woman to hold a chair at a legally authorized school when appointed Professor of Midwifery and Diseases of Women and Children at Rochester. In 1850 she was the FIRST American woman to receive an MD. She practised preventative medicine through writing and lecturing on medico-social subjects and also held a private practice in New York City. In 1858 she and her husband went to England where she was limited to volunteer practice in the slums. She died there of pneumonia

*  Lydia Simmons

..... FIRST black woman mayor in Britain when she was made Mayor of Slough in Berkshire from 1983/84. Aged 45 she said that she was determined to help recruit more black people into the police force

* Lydia Thompson

..... Burlesque's FIRST superstar came from London. In 1867 her troupe were taken to the U.S.A by the impresario P T Barnum and became an instant hit, spawning a whole industry of new starlets and troupes. Burlesque comes from the Italian word "burla" for joke

* Lyn Fletcher

..... in 1996 she became the FIRST woman leader of the Hallé Orchestra in its 138-year history where she will lead about 60% of the concerts and share the chair with Kees Hulsmann

* Lyn Harris

..... FIRST person to create bespoke perfumes in Britain

* Lyn Johnson

..... RAF squadron leader who was the FIRST woman to join the Red Arrows acrobatic team

* Lyn Metcalfe

..... FIRST head of the pioneering Ordsall Nursery Centre in Salford, England, one of the FIRST in the country in 1974

* Lyn Price

..... in April 1998 she became the FIRST lady Secretary of Cradoc Golf Club. She had joined the club in 1975 and served as Administrative Assistant for 12 years . In 1979 she was captain of the Ladies Section

* Lynda Cash

..... in 1998 she was the FIRST trans-sexual to march in the Remembrance Day Parade. She was formerly Brian Waling and had served alongside Prince Andrew during the Falklands War

* Lynda Johnson

..... FIRST woman equerry for Prince Philip in 1999. She was a Royal Air Force air traffic controller and would arrange the Prince's diary and accompany him on official engagements. At the time of her appointment she was a Squadron Leader and was based at the RAF's fast jet training school at Valley, Anglesey

* Lynda Waters

..... in 1986 she was the FIRST woman chairman of the South Glamorgan Chambers of Trade

* Lynde Francis

..... FIRST woman in Zimbabwe to go public with her HIV-positive status

* Lynette Woodard

born 1959

..... African - American who was the FIRST woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team after she captained the 1984 US women's basketball team. In 1986 the Women's Sports Foundation selected her as Professional Sportswoman of the Year

* Lynn Draper Rush and Melanie MacCullum

..... Englishwomen who were the FIRST women prison officers at Dartmoor Prison on November 7th 1988 after completing a Home Office training course. Dartmoor Prison had had an all-male staff since it was built by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic wars

* Lynn Lawton

..... FIRST woman partner at the accountancy firm of KPMG Peat Marwick McLintock in 1991. She was a computer audit specialist, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Internal Auditors' North West District Committee

* Lynn Norman

..... FIRST woman to win the Inter Services gliding championship. A Senior Aircrafts woman with the RAF, she joined in 1979 as a photographer

* Lynn Ridgway

..... FIRST female apprentice on the shop floor at Vickers Shipbuilders in Barrow

* Lynn Rippelmeyer

..... FIRST woman to captain a 747 jumbo jet across the Atlantic from Newark, New Jersey when she took over the flight deck of a People's Express airliner

* Lynne Connolly

..... among the FIRST wave of women priests in 1994 and in 1996 became the FIRST woman rector in Manchester when appointed to St Nicholas' in Burnage, Manchester

* Lynne Cox

..... FIRST person to swim from the USA to Russia when she crossed the Bering Strait from Alaska to siberia in 2 hours 12 minutes on 7th August 1987

* Lynne Franks

..... FIRST non-executive chair of Viva, the FIRST women's radio station ( see also Katy Turner) which began broadcasting on July 3rd 1995

* Lynne Peacock

..... English woman who was the FIRST woman executive director of a top 10 company when appointed operations director by the Woolwich Building Society on July 5th 1996. This made her the most senior woman in the male-dominated building society movement . Before joining the Woolwich in 1983 she was involved with marketing at Tate and Lyle and Unilever and was previously marketing director with the Woolwich

* Lyudmila Bragina

.....  winner of the FIRST Women's 1500 metre race in 1972 in a winning time of 4mins 1.4 sec, five seconds faster than the winner of the men's race in 1900

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