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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

" Any woman who is a first in a field previously dominated by men has the responsibility of opening doors for other women"

Pauline Crabbe

HER NAME IS P.........

* Pam Beggs

..... Australian who was the FIRST woman Labour member in the assembly to be elevated to the cabinet

* Pam Loosemore

..... FIRST woman in Wales to qualify as a professional tennis coach

* Pamela Gordon

..... in 1997 she became the FIRST woman Prime Minister in Bermuda. She was the daughter of a renowned Bermuda civil rights leader and was chosen by the United Bermuda party

* Pamela Gordon

..... in 1985 she became the FIRST female chief executive of the London Borough of Hackney, at the time one of only five women in the country to hold the office of Chief Executive

* Pamela Huntly - Marchioness

 neé Mary Pamela Berry

 born June 13th 1918 died 1998

..... one of the FIRST women to go into Berlin after the war when she went as a representative of Kemsley Newspapers and owned the FIRST car in Scotland to have a full-harness seat belt when she bought a French Facel Vega in 1959. She was also a keen pilot and after qualifying in 1963 took part in a race for the world's best women pilots competing with eight others over an 87 mile course. Sheila Scott was the winner

* Pamela Schwerdt  and  Sibylle Kreutzberger

.....  FIRST British winners of the Carlo Scarpa Prize and its £9,500 prize money which is given by the Fondazione Benetton in Italy

* Pansy Constance Thorne (Lady Mar)

 born December 16th 1921 died 1996

..... staunch supporter of charitable causes she chaired the FIRST UN International Year of the Child in Scotland in 1979, was President of Unicef from 1979 to 1984 and chairman of the Scottish Advisory Group for Unicef

* Parbati Barua

..... Indian woman who was the FIRST and only female trainer of elephants in her country

* Parisa

..... FIRST woman singer to give a public performance in Iran in 1991 since the Islamic revolution in 1979. She sang 10 mostly religious songs to an audience of 200 women at a house in Teheran after being given permission by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance

* Pat Hartley

..... Englishwoman who set up the world's FIRST support group for sufferers of anorexia and their families. When a member of her own family was taken ill as a child and it took two years for doctors to discover that she had anorexia she changed her career and became a top expert in eating disorders. She was an English teacher but retrained as a psychologist and counsellor. Within a year of setting up her support group there were 33 groups and 1000 members. Eventually there were more than 50 groups nationwide. Her pioneering work was twice honoured by the American Academy of Eating Disorders Association

* Pat Hawkins

..... FIRST Briton to sit on a panel of judges at the European cheerleading championships in Berlin when she joined experts from all over the world to judge more than 30 troupes from eight European countries

* Pat Ikin

..... in April 1999 she was made Tameside's FIRST ever Market Trader of the Year

* Pat Jones

..... member of the Catholic Women's Network, she was the FIRST woman assistant general secretary to the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales

* Pat McCormick

 born 1930

..... American swimmer who was the FIRST person to win the 3 metre springboard and the 10 metre platform at successive Olympics. Between 1952 and 1956 she dominated the world of women's diving and won a total of 27 national championships in addition to both gold medals at the 1955 Pan American Games

* Pat Nixon

 neé Thelma Catherine Ryan

 born 16th March 1912 died 1993

..... former First Lady of the U.S.A. wife of Richard Nixon, who resigned as president through his involvement in the Watergate affair. She was the FIRST incumbent First Lady to publicly support the Equal Rights Amendment and also held, against her husband, that abortion should be a matter for individual choice

* Pat Riley

  ..... the FIRST Australian woman to wear a bikini in 1946 but was ordered by the police to leave Bondi Beach in Sydney

* Pat Young

born  6th July 1922 died 1998

..... FIRST woman journalist to be appointed to the editorial staff of the Radio Times. Also a talented actress she won the Silver Medal of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Poetry Society's Shakespeare Plaque and Silver Medal for verse speaking. She was a regular broadcaster on local radio in Sussex and wrote books about cats and music

* Patricia

* Patsy Burt

 born July 10th 1928 died 2001

..... possibly the most successful post-war British lady driver who set many records and received numerous awards. In 1961 she became the FIRST British driver to compete in a full season of the European Mountain championship and  in 1968  became the FIRST woman to win the Brighton Speed Trials. In the process she set a kilometre course record which stood for seven years. Again in 1970 she was the FIRST woman to win a British national motor sporting title when she won the RAC National Sprint championship in a McLaren-Oldsmobile after which she retired from racing

* Patsy Cline

born Virginia Petterson Hensley

 born September 8th 1932 died March 5th 1963

..... considered to be the FIRST great female country star. She achieved world-wide fame despite only 11 chart singles and two number one hits in the country charts. Her most famous hits were Walking After Midnight, I Fall To Pieces and Crazy

* Patsy Cohen

..... FIRST woman to hole-in-one at the new St. Andrew's Major Golf Club in the Vale of Glamorgan on 10th June 1997

* Patsy Montana

neé Ruby Rebecca Blevins

 born 30th October 1908 died May 3rd 1996

..... FIRST female country singer to sell a million records with her single " I Want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart". She was also Country's FIRST female sessions musician when she played harmonica and fiddle as backing on several recordings by Jimmie Davis

* Pattie Menzies

 neé Pattie Laie Leckie

 born March 2nd 1899 died 1995

..... wife of Sir Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, she was the FIRST person to receive the Outstanding Service Award of the Liberal Party in Australia

* Patty Hopkins

 neé Wainwright

born c1942

..... English architect, who with her husband became, in 1994, the FIRST British couple to win the RIBA Gold Medal

* Paula Mullineux

..... FIRST woman general manager for American Airlines at Manchester Airport ( then known as Ringway) where she began as an information desk assistant

* Paula Radcliffe

..... FIRST woman to run the London Marathon in under 2 hours 16 mins, beating her own record, in April 2003

* Paula Rego

born 1935

..... Portuguese - in 1990 she was the FIRST artist-in-residence at the National Gallery where her brief was to make work 'directly related to paintings in the Collection'

* Paula Waters

..... FIRST female head of CAMRA ( the Campaign for Real Ale)

* Paulette Randall

..... in 1984 she became the FIRST black woman to have a play performed in a West End Theatre when her work Fishing was produced at the Royal Court Theatre, London

* Pauline

 * Pearl Buck

 neé Sydenstricker

 born June 26th 1892 died March 6th 1973

..... author who was the FIRST American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. She received many awards and honorary degrees and was elected one of the two women life members of the American Association of Arts and Letters in 1951. Her book about China, where she lived for much of her life, The Good Earth, made her a household name

* Pearl Connor-Mogotsi

born 13th May 1924 died 11th February 2005

neé Pearl Martin

..... she was born  in Trinidad and in 1963 helped to set up the Negro Theatre workshop, one of the FIRST black theatre workshops in Britain. In 1989 she received a Scarlet Ibis Award from Trinidad and Tobago for outstanding and meritorious service and in 1993 was awarded the National Black Women's Achievement Award

* Pearl McCafferty

..... Scottish woman who made history in 1990 when she became the FIRST woman superintendent with the Automobile Association in its 80-year existence

* Pearl Piggott

..... female half of the FIRST married couple in the UK to have heart surgery on the same day and by the same surgeon and at the same time they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary

* Pearl Primus

 born November 19th 1919 died 1994

..... pioneered the expression of black themes in American dance and was FIRST director of the Liberian Cultural Centre in Monrovia in 1959. She was a choreographer and performer, opened her own dance studio and toured with her own company. In 1948 she won a scholarship to study in Africa and worked in Liberia with local performers. She wrote extensively on dance and theatre in Africa and earned a PhD in anthropology at New York University. In 1991 she was awarded the National Medal of the Arts

* Pearl Fay White

born 1889 died 1938

..... resourceful heroine of the  cliff-hanger serials The Perils Of Pauline, she was the best known movie star of her day and the FIRST star to publish her autobiography Just Me in 1916. She was also the FIRST film star to gross $10,000 a week and earned an estimated $2m in her career. She usually did her own stunts but when she became a valuable property her stunts were done by men in drag

* Peggy McKenna

..... wrote the FIRST fan letter actress Carole Landis ever received. She invited her to go to California as her house guest and Peggy stayed on to become Carole's long-time stand-in

* Peggy Whitehead

 neé Dorothy Mary Verity

 born 15th October 1912 died 2000

..... in 1948 she was joint winner of the horn-blowing competition at the Horseman's Ball at the Park Lane Hotel, the FIRST woman to win it. In show-jumping she was one of the FIRST to ride abroad after the war and attended Germany's FIRST post-war international meeting at Aachen

* Peggy Whitson and Pamela Melroy

..... U.S astronauts who are the FIRST two women to command  International Space Station expeditions. Both commanded separate missions and when they met in space 220 miles above the Earth on

 October 26th 2007 it was an historic moment for space travel

* Penelope Fitzgerald

 neé Penelope Mary Knox

 born December 17th 1916 died 2000

..... English novelist who did not begin writing novels until she was 60 and won not only the Booker Prize, but also the National Book Critic's Circle Prize, the top American literary award, becoming the FIRST non-American to do so

* Penelope Heyns

..... South African who won the FIRST medals for her country since it was barred from the games for its policies of apartheid when she won two golds for swimming in the 1996 games in Atlanta. She won the first gold when she broke her own world record in the 100 metre breaststroke and went on to win a second in the 200 metre event

* Pennie Bellas

..... FIRST woman station manager with British Rail in 1980 when she took charge at Burgess Hill station in West Sussex

* Penny Anstis

..... FIRST woman rugby referee in Cardiff in Wales when she took charge of a match between Cardiff Medics and Exeter Medics which Cardiff lost 16-0. In the same weekend the Welsh women's rugby team gave England a run for their money at the Arms Park - the FIRST time they'd been allowed to play at the National Ground

* Penny Badcoe

..... FIRST woman to become head of a major section at Manchester City Council when made director of the direct works department in 1992, one of the biggest in the country, with responsibility for a workforce of 3,500 bricklayers, plasterers, joiners and builders

* Penny J Harrington

..... FIRST woman police chief in America (Portland)

* Penny Jamieson

..... FIRST woman Anglican bishop in charge of a diocese when ordained in New Zealand as Bishop of Dunedin in the South Island in 1990 . She was the second woman to be appointed an Anglican bishop (see Barbara Harris ) but the first to head a diocese

* Penny Lumley

..... FIRST woman to capture the Grand Slam of international titles  when she took the US. Open Championship in Newport, Rhode Island in 1997. Earlier in the season she had won the French, Australian, British and World Crowns and the US title was the final leg of her 'slam'. She was also four times world champion

* Pepita Simpson

..... led the FIRST platoon of female cadets through Sandhurst and went on to become the FIRST woman to command a Royal Military Police company

* Peta Fordham

 neé Eugenie Freeman

born October 12th 1905 died 1991

..... editor of the FIRST issue of Which? the Consumer Association's magazine in 1957 and writer of two successful books about the criminal underworld The Robbers Tale (1965) and Inside the Underworld (1972)

* Petra Drummond

..... FIRST deaf person to win a place at the Glasgow School of Art but, when she was 16, she took a modelling course. Two years later she beat 1400 other entrants to win the Model of the Year competition and eventually became on of Britain's top fashion models

* Petronilla de Meath

..... died in 1324 when she became the FIRST witch to be burned at the stake in Ireland. She was the maid of Lady Alice Kyteler and claimed that her mistress had taught her everything. Petronilla believed that there was no more powerful witch in the world than her ladyship. Lady Alice was tried and found guilty ‘in absentia’ but remained safe as long as she stayed away from Ireland. The case became a landmark  in Ireland and 14th century records show that by her instruction and teaching Lady Alice set the complete witch creed for centuries to come

* Phantog

..... on 27th May 1975 she became the FIRST Chinese woman to climb Mt Everest

* Philippa Foster Back

..... FIRST woman President of the Association of Corporate Treasurers in 1998 when her appointment was announced at the annual dinner

* Philippa Tattersall - Captain

..... in May 2002 she became the FIRST woman Green Beret with the Royal Marines

* Philippa Wood

..... with her daughter Cressida Grant, they became the FIRST mother and daughter to enter a major beauty contest at the same time when they joined the Miss Great Britain 2006

* Phillis Wheatley

 born 1753 died 1784

..... on December 21st 1767 she became the FIRST African-American female to be published when one of her poems "On Messrs.Hussey & Coffin" appeared in the Newport Mercury. At the age of eight she was stolen from her parents and taken to America where she was bought by John Wheatley, a Northern white merchant where unlike other slaves, she was taught to read and write. By the time she was 14 she had written her first poem and soon many people began to read them.  At the age of 20 she was taken ill, was freed by the Wheatley's and sent to England where a London publishing company printed her first volume of verse, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

* Philomena Davidson-Davis

..... in 1990 she became the FIRST woman President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in its 86-year history