A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O PQ R S T U V W XYZ
" I don't like men of action without thought. Action must be interpenetrated with imagination to be remembered. If not it is like a bull in a china shop or perhaps even a donkey in a parlour "
Lady Ottoline Morrell
HER NAME IS O.........
* Odaline de Ia Mantinez
..... made musical history when she became the FIRST woman to conduct an entire Proms concert and founded and conducted London's FIRST and only professional community orchestra, the Contemporary Chamber Orchestra which resided at Islington's Almeida Theatre
* Odette Marie Celine Hallowes (Sansom)
neé Brailly
born 26th April 1912 died 1995
..... FIRST woman (surviving) to be awarded the George Cross in 1946 after being brutally tortured by the Gestapo while working for the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. She was condemned by the Germans and in May 1944 was taken to Germany along with six other women agents. Three were executed at Dachau concentration camp and three at Natzweiller. Odette was held and in April 1945 was unexpectedly released. During her ordeal and torture she never revealed anything to her captors and maintained throughout that she was a relative of the Prime Minister Winston Churchill which probably helped her to survive. After the war she returned to England deeply shocked and in 1947 married Capt Peter Churchill. They divorced in 1953 and she then married Geoffrey Hallowes. Her first husband was Roy Sansom. In 1945 she was appointed MBE and in 1950 the Legion d'Honneur. She was vice-president of the Women's Transport Service (FANY) and regularly attended FANY reunions. In 1950 her story was told in the film Odette starring Anna Neagle
* Odila Sosa de Narvaez
..... Ecuadorian who was the FIRST woman to preside over a Provincial Electoral Board in Pinchincha Province
* Olave Baden-Powell - Lady
born October 27th 1889 died 1977
..... wife of Sir Robert Baden-Powell she was the FIRST and only World Chief Guide from 1918 to 1977. She was born in Dorset, the daughter of a wealthy man and during her childhood lived in 17 different homes. In 1912, whilst on a trip to the West Indies with her father, she met Robert and they were married the same year. Their honeymoon was spent in a tent in the Algerian desert. During WW1 she began recruiting and organising the Girl Guides in Sussex and in 1916 was made Chief Commander re-titled Chief Guide in 1918. During the 1920s she helped to build up the Scout and Guide organisations and in 1930 was elected Chief Guide of the World. She toured and was received by heads of state as well as by ordinary guide troops. Between 1930 and 1970 she was called the world's most travelled woman having flown 487,777 miles. In 1932 she was created a Dame and received numerous other awards including the Order of the White Rose from Finland and the Order of the Sun from Peru. At the time of her death in 1977 the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts had 6.5 million members
* Olga Korbut
born 1958
..... FIRST woman to perform a backward somersault on the beam
* Olga St
born c890 died c969
..... possibly Russia's FIRST female ruler when her husband Prince Igor of Kiev was murdered and the FIRST member of the ruling family there to embrace Christianity. She was also the FIRST saint of the Russian Orthodox Church
* Olga Nikolaevna Uvarov - Dame
born July 9th 1910 died 2001
..... born in Moscow she arrived in Britain as a child émigré from the Russian Revolution and after qualifying as a vet in 1934 went on to become the FIRST woman president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1976. At the time she qualified in 1934 there were only 34 women registered by the Royal Veterinary College, the first of these being a Miss Cust who had had to wait 32 years after qualifying before being allowed in
* Olgavon Oertzen - Dr
..... American, who in 1895 became the FIRST qualified woman dental surgeon to practise in Britain when she established a surgery in Kensington
* Olive Lanyon Farquharson
neé Gamlin
born October 19th 1908 died 1998
..... FIRST British President of the Associated Country Women of the World in 1971. For many years she worked for the National Federation of Women's Institutes in Britain and in 1972 was given the name Nozizwe "Mother of Nations" by the Ciskeian Zanzele Women's Association to mark her visit to South Africa
* Olive Frances Gibbs
neé Cox
born February 17th 1918 died 1995
..... formidable Labour politician who was the FIRST woman chairman of Oxfordshire County Council. At Oxford she served twice as Lord Mayor and once as Lady Mayoress and was chairman of CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1964 to 1967. Her commitment to nuclear disarmament was a passionate one and when CND was founded in 1958 she took charge of the Oxford Group and led it on several Aldermaston marches. She turned the group around financially when she took over as chairman in 1964 and revived the Aldermaston March ( which had lapsed in 1964)
* Olive Milbourne
born June 16th 1909 died 1994
..... English character actress who had an important role in the FIRST television transmission of a play in Britain in 1938 when she starred in The Marvellous History of St Bernard. She was also in Sixpenny Corner, the FIRST soap opera on commercial television which was broadcast daily in 1955
* Olive Schreiner
born 1855 died 1920
..... FIRST major South African novelist and one of the great precursors of modern feminism and a champion of socialism anti-pacifism
* Olwyn Hocking
..... FIRST woman regional news editor with the BBC and the FIRST woman head of news and current affairs at Tyne Tees Television, Newcastle, in its 32-year history
* Olympia Brown
born 1835 died 1926
..... FlRST American woman to be ordained by full denominational authority when ordained by the Northern Universalist Association in Malone, New York
* Oonagh Keogh
..... FIRST woman member of a Stock Exchange when she entered the Dublin Stock Exchange on July 9th 1925 at the age of 22. She was able to make her application under a provision of the Irish Free State Constitution that guaranteed equality of opportunity to every citizen over the age of 21 years. At first a number of the male brokers ignored her on the floor but she soon won their respect and remained an active broker until her resignation in 1939
* Opha Mae Johnson
..... FIRST female U.S Marine
* Oprah Winfrey
born January 29th 1954
..... talk show Queen who was the FIRST black woman to own a large television studio, FIRST woman to own and produce her own talk show and the FIRST black female co-anchor on the evening news in Nashville. The Oprah Winfrey Show won three Emmy Awards when aired nationally and then later won a further five Emmy's and four NAACP Image Awards. For her acting debut in The Color Purple she was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1993 she was the FIRST woman to top Forbes magazine's annual list of showbiz millionaires with a fortune of £ 66m and in 2002 she was the FIRST black woman to be on Forbes magazine's list of billionaires
* Osa Johnson
born 1894 died 1953
..... pioneered the fashion for shooting wild life with the camera and with her husband were the FIRST to make successful films of cannibals and gibbons. In 1917 they had enough money to photograph the wild life in North Borneo and their pictures made their name in America. From 1921 they made five expeditions to Africa filming from their two planes which Osa piloted herself. They also discovered Lake Paradise. Her husband Martin was killed in 1937 and she was left in charge of the team making the film Stanley and Livingstone for 20th Fox
* Ota Fusae
….. FIRST woman governor in Japan. In March 2000 she fought for the right to present prizes at a Sumo wrestling tournament . She maintained that she wished to continue the tradition that the governor hands prizes to victorious wrestlers but the Sumo Association refused her request because its traditions dictated that women cannot enter the sand-covered Sumo ring, the dohyo. The ban was on the grounds that under Japanese custom females are considered unclean and would contaminate the sacred enclosure
* Oxana Federova
..... FIRST Russian to become Miss Universe when crowned in 2002. Afterwards, for the FIRST time in the history of the competition the crown passed to the runner-up as Oxana found that she could not carry out her engagements as required