A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O PQ R S T U V W XYZ
" we must believe in ourselves or no-one else will believe in us "
Rosalyn Yalow
HER NAME IS R..........
* Rachael Dixon
..... the FIRST female cadet in the East Lancashire Wing of 2301 Squadron A TD. Heywood, to be awarded an RAF flying scholarship. Rachael, a sixth form pupil at Withington Girls School, Fallowfield, Manchester, is one of only three girl cadets in the country to gain such an honour
* Rachel Beer
..... FIRST woman to edit a national newspaper when she owned and edited the Observer and The Sunday Times in the 189Os
* Rachel Bodley
born 1831 died 1888
..... FIRST woman chemist on the staff at the Women's Medical College and was its Dean from 1874. She studied at the Wesleyan Female College of Cinncinatti and took advanced chemistry and physics at the Polytechnic College. At the Women's Medical College, Philadelphia she studied anatomy and physiology and in 1879 gained her PhD
* Rachel Fuller Brown
born 1898
..... and Elizabeth Hazen
..... Americans who isolated the FIRST antifungal antibiotic - nystatin - in 1949. As well as it being used on human beings it also killed mildew on paintings and helped to fight Dutch Elm disease. In 1975 Rachel became the FIRST woman to receive the Pioneer Chemist award from the American Institute of Chemists
* Rachel Corrie
..... a tribute ..... when she died in March 2003 after being crushed by a bulldozer whilst a member of a handful of volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) she was proudly adopted by the town of Rafah on the Gaza Strip as the FIRST American 'shahid' (martyr) in the Palestinian cause
* Rachel Crothers
born 1878 died 1958
..... the FIRST play concerned with morality and the position women in the modern world - A Man's World - was written by her. Her first New York success, The Three of Us, was in 1906 and her other works include When Ladies Meet (1932) and a dramatisation of Mother Carey's Chickens (1917)
* Rachel Hammond
..... FIRST woman verger at the 1300-year old Ely cathedral in England. She was aged 18 at the time and had completed her youth Training Scheme course at Chelmsford Cathedral
* Rachel Heyhoe-Flint
born 1939
..... English cricketer who was Captain of the FIRST England women's team to play at Lord's Cricket Ground, FIRST woman to make a record 51 appearances for her country in the English women's cricket team and in 1990 she was the FIRST woman to apply to join the MCC. She was also the FIRST woman to get an MBE for services to cricket and the FIRST woman television sports reporter in the UK Between 1960 and 1977 and from 1979 she was a member of the English Women's Cricket Team and was also its Captain for eleven years. Under her captaincy England won the FIRST Women's World Cup in 1972. In 1999 became one of the FIRST 10 female honorary life members in the long history of the Marylebone Cricket Club ( see Netta Rheinberg)
* Rachel James
..... FIRST woman to take charge of a sub-division in Devon and Cornwall police in1979 when she moved from Exeter to head the Okehampton division
* Rachel Pisani
..... Salford graduate who was the FIRST woman in the UK to manage a power plant
* Rachel Ruysch
born 1664 died 1750
..... FIRST woman to achieve an international reputation as an artist. At the age of 15 she was apprenticed to one of Holland's finest painters and in 1701 was received into the Painters Guild at The Hague. She later became the court painter to the Elector in Dusseldorf. Although she had ten children, which brought heavy responsibility, she produced a total of 85 works and remained an active painter until three years before her death
* Rachel Speght
..... in 1617 in London she published a pamphlet, the FIRST woman in England to do so under her own name. A Mouzell for Melastomus argued that woman in man's equal
* Rachel Tetley
..... FIRST Farming and Wildlife advisor at Nottingham - 1981/82. Her appointment was backed by the Countryside Commission, the Farming and Wildlife Trust and Nottinghamshire farmers
* Ragna Nielsen
..... established the FIRST integrated school for girls and boys in Norway
* Raine Roberts
..... a police surgeon who set up the FIRST sexual assault referral centre in Manchester in 1986. In 1995 she was awarded an MBE for her work
* Raisa Gorbachev
..... FIRST Soviet leaders spouse to visit a private American home when she accepted an invitation to visit the home of Pamela Churchill Harriman in 1988. Pamela Harriman later became US Ambassador to France
* Raisa Smetanina
born 1952
..... Russian skier who was the oldest Winter Games medal winning athlete and the FIRST athlete to capture 10 medals which she won at the games at La Saisies, Albertville, France on 17th February 1992 a few days before her 40th birthday
* Rana Raslan
..... FIRST Arab Miss Israel
* Raquel Martinez
..... FIRST American woman to become a professional matador. She opened the only bull-fighting school in Texas, America, which was called the Santa Maria Bullring school. The killing of bulls in fights is banned in Texas
* Ray Eames
..... FIRST woman to win the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal (1979). She shared the award with her husband Charles, so making it the FIRST time that it had been won by a couple
* Ray Strachey
born 1887 died 1940
..... FIRST chairman of Cambridge University Women's Employment Board from 1930 to 1939
* Rayna Dean
..... FIRST woman partner at Price Waterhouse in the UK in 1983. At the time of her appointment she was also a director of Christie Hospital and the Royal Exchange, a governor of Manchester Metropolitan University and treasurer of Withington Girls' School, Manchester
* Reba Nell McEntire
born 28th March 1955
..... FIRST and only female to win the Country Music Associations Female Vocalist of the Year four times in a row - 1984 to 1987 and in 2002 received the FIRST ever ACM (Academy of Country Music) Humanitarian Award which was presented to her at the annual MCA Nashville ACM after-show party
* Rebecca Beer, Katie Lewis and Claire Buckley
..... on January 12th 1995 they became the FIRST girls to join the main choir at Manchester Cathedral in a history that goes back to the 15th century. Although the cathedral had a girl's choir and a mixed training choir, the main choir always consisted of men and boys. Like the boys the girls will have to leave the choir at the age of 15
* Rebecca J Cole
born 1846 died 1922
..... African-American woman who graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867 ( the second to become a medical doctor) and then joined Elizabeth Blackwell at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. In 1866 Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell had started the Blackwell's Tenement House Service, the FIRST of its kind in America and Rebecca became one of the FIRST "sanitary visitors" in this new service. She called on people living in slum neighbourhoods where she taught women the basics of hygiene and child care. When she returned to Philadelphia she continued her career in social medicine and helped to start the Women's Directory, which provided medical and legal assistance to women ( see also Rebecca Lee below)
* Rebecca Latimer Felton
..... on 7th October 1922 she became the FIRST woman Senator in the USA, although it was by appointment on the death of her husband rather than by election
* Rebecca Front
..... FIRST female President of the Oxford Revue in 1985
* Rebecca Gregory
..... in 2007 she made footballing history when she became the FIRST girl to play for an elite 'best of league' team from Salford. She was the only player chosen from her team Barr Hill Juniors to represent Salford Boys Inter League Team when they played Manchester Jewish Boys and won 5-1. However when she goes to high school in September 2007 she will no longer be able to represent the elite inter league team as the FA says that girls can't play mixed football once they go to high school
* Rebecca Hudson
..... in 2001 she made history when she won the English women's amateur title and became the FIRST to hold the four major titles - the English and British matchplay and strokeplay, at the same time. In 1989 Helen Dobson held three of the titles but did not capture the English strokeplay
* Rebecca Lee
..... the FIRST African- American woman doctor in the United States when she received her degree from the New England Female Medical College in 1864. She returned to the South after the Civil War and established a successful practice in Richmond, Virginia
* Rebecca Webb Lukens
born 1794 died 1854
..... FIRST woman manager in the iron industry in America. She was born in Pennsylvania and her father, Isaac Pennock, was founder of the Brandywine Rolling Mill, the FIRST in America to make boilerplate. After she married her husband took over the mill but when he died she took over and concentrated on expanding the market, dealt with distribution and with the transport of coal for her furnaces. She left the daily running of the mill to an overseer. Such was her reputation for high quality plate that she soon began exporting to England and it was used in the early railway engines. After her death the mill was renamed Lukens Mill in her memory
* Rebecca Elizabeth Marier
..... American who was the FIRST woman to top the class at West Point in June 1995 since the men only rule was scrapped in 1976
* Rebecca Ridgeway
..... FIRST woman to round Cape Horn in a canoe- January 22nd 1992. The 200-mile expedition through the Beagle Channel to Cape Horn Island took three weeks and the leader of the team was Nigel Dennis, who was the FIRST man to canoe around Britain in 1990
* Rebecca Stephens
..... FIRST British woman to climb Mt Everest when she reached the top on 17th May 1993. She planted a flag, paused for photographs and had a brief rest before setting off down. In 1994 she was set to become the FIRST British woman to climb the highest mountain in each of the world's seven continents. ( did she do it??)
* Reehaina Saddique
..... the FIRST Asian woman police constable in Lancashire in 1991
* Regina Dinwiddie
..... FIRST injunction under the new Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law was issued against her in 1995 when the Kansas City District Judge Joseph E Stevens Jr issued a preliminary injunction preventing her from going within 500 feet of any abortion clinic in Western Missouri
* Regina Jonas
..... FIRST woman to be ordained in the Jewish faith. Her existence came to light with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. She was forbidden to become a Rabbi but after the terrible events of 1938 in Germany was allowed to preach. Soon she drew standing-room-only crowds, even in the midst of Nazi storm troopers. In 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt and was ordained a Rabbi and ministered to the inmates up to the time of her death, in Auschwitz, a few weeks before the Liberation
* Regina von Siebold
born 1771 died 1849
..... one of the FIRST European women to be granted an academic degree in gynaecology. She studied under her husband, Dr Damien von Siebold from 1806 and in 1815 was finally awarded the title of Doctor in Obstetrics from the University of Giessen. This was just two years before the same title was earned by her daughter Charlotte who was aged 25 years. For the rest of their lives mother and daughter practised in Darmstadt. Another hundred years were to pass, however, before more women were to be officially recognised by orthodox medicine
* Reiko Masudo
..... FIRST woman editorial writer on Mainichi and the FIRST woman to receive the prestigious Press Club Award - May 1984
* Rene Danford
..... FIRST woman in the world to have a baby after taking Viagra
* Renee Elliott
..... opened Planet Organic in 1995, Britain's FIRST organic supermarket
* Renee Scott
born 1929
..... Englishwoman who was winner of the FIRST veteran's European 20km walk
* Rhiannon Chapman
..... FIRST woman director of the Industrial Society, the training and advisory body, in its 73-year history
* Rhiannon Williams
..... FIRST Choirgirl of the Year (1989)
* Rhona Howarth
..... FIRST woman on the board of the National Cooperative Development Agency
* Ria Mooney
born 1903 died 1973
..... FIRST woman director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1948
* Ricarda Huch
born 1864 died 1947
..... President of the FIRST congress of German writers in Berlin and FIRST woman to be admitted to the Prussian Academy of Literature (1931). She wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hugo, was a leader of the intellectual circles in the German women's movement and was called the 'First Lady of Germany'
* Rita Francis Dove
born 1952
..... FIRST black US Poet Laureate -1993/95
* Rita Dunn
..... deputy co-ordinator of Stockport Victims Support Scheme she was the FIRST social worker to be awarded a Churchill Travelling Fellowship to do an overseas fact-finding project on the schemes. She spent six weeks in Holland, travelling 1000 miles, visiting Utrecht, Amsterdam and Groningen
* Rita Hayworth
neé Margarita Carmen Cansino
born October 17th 1918 died May 15th 1987
..... FIRST Hollywood star to become a Princess in real life when she married the Prince Aly Khan and her daughter Princess Yasmin was the FIRST female descendant in 200 years of the Aga Khan family. During the war she was called "America's Secret Weapon" because nearly every GI carried her photograph and her profile was painted on the FIRST A-bomb which was nicknamed 'Gilda'. She was married five times and said "Men marry me for what I am, then try to change me"
* Rita Hurst , Pat Taylor and Ann Haslam
..... among the FIRST nurses in the UK to be allowed to prescribe drugs and medical appliances in 1994. They all worked in the same practice which was one of eight across the country to be selected for the pilot scheme
* Rita Johnston
..... FIRST woman Premier of Canada when appointed by British Columbia in April 1991 after the former Premier resigned over conflict-of interest allegations
* Rita Klimova
neé Batova
born 1931 died 1994
..... FIRST woman ambassador in the history of Czech diplomacy when appointed to the United States where she served until August 1992
* Rixi Markus
neé Erika Scharfstein
born June 27th 1910 died 1992
..... FIRST woman in the world to become a bridge grandmaster and with her partner Fritzi Gordon made up the most formidable women's bridge partnership in the world
* Robbie Hedges
..... FIRST woman elected as chief of the Peoria Indians of Oklahoma
* Roberta Achtenberg
..... American who was the FIRST lesbian to hold a high federal office when appointed to a top housing job by the US. Senate in 1993
* Roberta Winterton
..... the FIRST serving soldier to pose topless on Page Three of The Sun newspaper
* Robin Morgan
born 1841
..... American feminist writer and editor whose main work was to chronicle the American women's liberation movement from its early history. In 1970 she became the editor of the FIRST published anthology to collect feminist essays - Sisterhood Is Powerful
* Robyn Smith
born 1943
..... wife of Fred Astaire she was the FIRST woman jockey to win a stakes race when she rode North Sea to victory in time Paumonok Handicap in 1973
* Rodica Woodcock
..... FIRST person to win over £2m on the pools when she won £2,072,220.80 in October 1991. She was born in Romania and at the time of her record win was living in South London. Sadly her husband had died two months previously. Her cheque was presented by John Nettles, star of BBC TV's Bergerac. The win came after 25 years of doing the pools and using the same series of numbers made up of anniversaries, birthdays and other celebration dates. The previous record pools payout of £1,645,000 was also won by a woman , Mrs Peg Ryan from Essex
* Rolah Ann McCabe
..... FIRST Australian smoker to win a lawsuit against an international tobacco company when she was awarded £260,000 against British American Tobacco in April 2002
* Roma Flinders Mitchell
born October 2nd 1913 died 2000
..... Australian barrister who in 1962 became the FIRST woman QC in Australia and in 1965 was the FIRST woman judge of a Supreme Court. In 1981 she was the FIRST chairman of the Australian Rights Commission and in 1983 became the FIRST woman chancellor of an Australian university when appointed to Adelaide University. From 1991 to 1996 she was Governor of South Australia, the FIRST woman to be governor of a state
* Rona Robinson
died 1962
..... FIRST woman to gain a first class honours degree in chemistry at Victoria University, Manchester. In the fight for votes for women she was imprisoned at least twice and in 1909 went on hunger strike
* Rosa Bonhour
born 1822 died 1899
..... FIRST woman to be awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur in 1865. She was born in Bordeaux and became one of the most noted animal painters of the 19th century. From an early age she was making remarkable studies of animals and in 1841 exhibited in the Paris Salon. From 1842 she exhibited annually and in 1849 took over from her father as Director of l'Ecole Imperialé de Dessin where her sister Juliette was also an instructor. She began to dress in men's clothes so that she could go to the Paris slaughterhouses to observe anatomy and in 1852 eventually won official police permission to wear male dress. She never married and for 40 years lived with her friend Nathalie Micas. Along with the Legion d'Honneur she received many other international awards and was visited by royalty and leading figures in society. When she died she was buried beside her beloved Nathalie in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris
* Rosa Louise Parks
neé McCauley
born February 4th 1913 died 25th October 2005
..... FIRST woman to receive the Martin Luther King Jr Non-Violent Peace Prize in 1980 . She was the ninth person to receive the award and in the same year was honoured by Ebony magazine as the living black woman who had done the most to advance the cause of civil rights. Rosa refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. On her death she became the FIRST woman whose body was displayed for public viewing in the Rotunda of the Capitol, an honour normally reserved for presidents and war heroes
* Rosa Richter
..... known as Zazel she was the FIRST human cannon ball circus act on 2nd April 1877. She was presented by George Farini, the FIRST person to recognise the potential of human cannonballs and appeared at the Royal Aquarium Westminster. She then went on to tour Europe and America before returning to Britain in 1880, to appear in Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth
* Rosalba Giovanna Carriera
born 1675 died 1757
..... Italian artist who was the FIRST to paint on ivory rather than vellum and one of the FIRST to use pastels in portraits. She was awarded a place at the Roman Academy for her skill and soon she was employed to paint the portraits of noble visitors to Venice. In 1720 she went to Paris where she received many commissions and later went to Vienna where she received the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V1
* Rosalia Arteaga
..... FIRST woman President of Ecuador in 1997. She was previously vice-president and replaced the sacked President Abdala Bucaram
* Rosalind Bee
..... Englishwoman who was the FIRST European contortionist to perform in China in 1986 where she worked for five months. After that she did a gala show with a circus in Dusseldorf and performed at the FIRST Macht der Nacht house event in Cologne
* Rosalind Gilmore
..... FIRST woman chairman of the Building Societies Commission, the most senior post in the world of business and finance to be held by a woman and FIRST woman Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies in 1990. She also wrote the FIRST Banking Act
* Rosalind Sutherland
..... won the FIRST Elizabeth Harwood award in the competition for final year singing students in 1992. She received a cheque for £5,000 for continuing studies and planned to use the money to finance 16 weeks intensive study in Australia where her present singing teacher was opera consultant at the Queensland Conservatorium
* Rosalind Wright
..... became the FIRST British Women's Class I driver and Philippa Niel-Mee became the FIRST British Women's Class I navigator when they formed the FIRST women's challenge team for the World Offshore Powerboat Championship in Britain. It was also the FIRST time that John Player Special had sponsored a women's racing team - 1982/83
* Rosalyn Franklin
born July 25th 1920 died April 16th 1958
..... one of the FIRST scientists to discover that DNA existed in two forms. Born in London, the second of five children of an influential Jewish banking family, she went to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she graduated in 1941. She did post-graduate research on gas-phase chromotography under the distinguished chemist, Ronald Norrish, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1967. From 1942 to 1951 she held posts at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association and at the Central Laboratory of chemical Sciences in Paris. Her main interest then was the physical structure of coals and carbons, which she studied with the help of X-ray diffraction techniques. She later applied these techniques to the study of viruses and, pre-eminently, to the study of DNA. In January 1951 she went to King's College, London, to work on DNA with a leading expert, Maurice Wilkins. In November of that same year she announced her discovery that DNA existed in two forms, and that one of them, at least, was helical in structure. The X-ray pictures she made of the structure pointed to the possibility that it was in fact a 'double helix'. This was the conclusion reached by the British scientist Francis Crick and his colleague, the American James Watson, who had been given access to her pictures. When they published their sensational paper on the 'double helix' structure in April 1953, Francis Crick acknowledged that Dr Franklin was within weeks of reaching the same conclusion. Four years after her death in 1958 the Nobel committee honoured the DNA work by awarding the Medicine Prize jointly to Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins. After another six years, Watson's book The Double Helix was published and this gave most of the credit for the discovery to the men. Perhaps if Dr Franklin had not died in 1958 she would have shared the limelight with her co-workers and it is also said that she did not always see eye-to-eye with Norrish or Wilkins. However the DNA story can, plausibly, be seen as a paradigm of what actually happens to women scientists in the real world. Women make essential contributions to the work and the honours and recognition always go to the men. Maybe this will change in the 21st century but from 1901 when the Nobel Prizes were first issued to 1990 there were a total of 400 Nobel awards for science and of these only ten were to women, of which three went to Marie Curie and her daughter in the Physics and Chemistry categories. ( taken from Women in Science: Achieving the Balance : a Shell educational supplement)
* Rosalyn Higgins
born 1937
..... FIRST woman judge of the World Court at The Hague in 1995. An eminent British jurist she was a Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics
* Rosalyn Yalow
born July 19th 1921
..... FIRST woman to be admitted to the University of Illinois physics department since 1917 and in 1941 was the FIRST woman to graduate in physics from Hunter College, New York. She received her doctorate in 1945 and was responsible for the invention of a tool called radio-immunoassay which revolutionised medical diagnosis. In 1976 she was the FIRST woman to be awarded the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and was the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1977, the 6th woman to win in any science category in the 77-year history of the award
* Rose Ashkenazi
..... Britain's FIRST female Army helicopter Captain and on 23rd March 1995 became the Army Air Corps FIRST woman to fire a Target Optically Wired missile
* Rose Philippine Duchesne - Sister
..... FIRST missionary of the Society of the Sacred Heart which was founded by Madeleine Sophie Barat
* Rose Fitzgibbon
..... FIRST woman cricket secretary at Lancashire Cricket Club in May 1991, the only woman to hold the position in the English county game
* Rose Franco
..... FIRST Puerto Rican woman to become a Chief Warrant Officer in the U.S Marine Corps
* Rose Heilbron
born August 19th 1914
..... FIRST woman recorder in the UK in 1956, a position she held until 1974 and on January 4th 1972 she became the FIRST woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey and FIRST woman head of an Inn of Court. Educated at Belvedere School and Liverpool University, she graduated in 1935 with first class honours, won a scholarship to Gray’s Inn, took her LLM in 1937 and was called to the Bar in 1939. She was created a Dame in 1974 and became the second High Court Judge, after Elizabeth Lane, on the Northern Circuit of the Family Division. In 1979 she was the FIRST woman judge to sit in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in its 72-year history
* Rose Louise Hovick
born January 9th 1914 died 1970
..... known as 'Gypsy Rose' Lee she was the FIRST famous American striptease artist and was first taught her trade by Tessie the Tassel-Twirler in burlesque. She disapproved of nudity and was affectionately nick-named the 'G-string bluestocking'. She was also a successful writer of thrillers and a contributor to the New Yorker
* Rose McHugh
..... in November 1999 she became the FIRST person in Britain to receive photo dynamic therapy which helped to prevent her going blind when she was treated a St Paul's Eye Unit, Royal Liverpool University Hospitals. It was believed that the pioneering medical treatment could help more than 5,000 people in England and Wales who had sight problems caused by a condition connected with ageing
* Rose Schneiderman
born 1882 died 1972
..... FIRST woman's branch of the Jewish Socialist Hat and Cap Makers Union in 1903 was organised by her. In 1933-35 she was the only woman in the National Recovery Administration
* Rose-Maria Witschas
..... FIRST woman to clear 2 metres in the high jump on 26th August 1977
* Rosemary Anderson
..... FIRST woman canon at Manchester Cathedral in its 148- year history in 1995 and in April 1994 was one of the FIRST 32 women ordained as priests in the Greater Manchester area (as opposed to those ordained in Bristol in March)
* Rosemary Ball
..... FIRST women's Royal Naval Service officer to be appointed 1st Lieutenant of a major Royal Navy shore establishment in 1979 when appointed to HMS Mercury, the Royal Navy's signals school in the Hampshire Downs near Portsmouth
* Rosemary Butcher
born 1947
..... FIRST dance graduate of Dartington College, Devon
* Rosemary Follett
..... FIRST woman to head a government in Australia when made Chief Minister in a newly-elected legislative assembly. She supported anti-discrimination legislation and 50% representation of women on government advisory boards
* Rosemary Hawthorne
..... wrote the FIRST book devoted to knickers
* Rosemary Lunn
..... in 1988 she became the FIRST woman in training to become a bell tuner in Britain when she worked on the new bells for St Martin's in the Fields at the Whitechapel Foundry
* Rosemary Martin
born 17th December 1936 died 1998
..... actress who, in 1974, was cast as the model in David Storey's Life Class and the play's poster became the FIRST featuring nudity to be passed as fit for its hoardings by London Transport's Advertisement Selection Committee
* Rosemary Murray
..... FIRST woman Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge University
* Rosemary Theresa Rees
Lady Du Cros
born 23rd September 1901 died 1994
..... one of the FIRST women recruited in 1940 to ferry aircraft from the factories to operational squadrons
* Rosemary Squire
..... co-founder of the Ambassador Theatre Group and became the FIRST democratically elected president of the Society of London Theatre
* Rosemary Thorne
..... FIRST woman on the board of J Sainsbury when appointed Finance Director in 1992
* Rosemary Wood
..... FIRST woman to be treated successfully with a little 'black box' to overcome infertility when she gave birth to twins, the FIRST to be born as a result of the method known as the Pulsatile Infusion System. The 'box' is about the size of a cigarette box and injected a measured dose of a hormone into the body every 90 minutes
* Rosie Boycott
..... FIRST woman editor of the Independent in 1998
* Rosina Cianelli
..... in 1909 she was the FIRST camerawoman in the film industry in Brazil
* Rosina Ferrario
..... FIRST woman to earn a pilot's licence in Italy - 1912 or 1913 ( from Dave Lam)
* Rosina Harris
..... FIRST woman director in the 83-year history of the London Brick Company. She was the senior partner at Joynson-Hicks, solicitors and was a specialist in company, commercial and copyright law. She was also deputy chairman of Blundell-Permoglaze, the industrial paint makers and was once called "Britain's other Iron Lady" by German lawyers
* Rosy Gibb
neé Rosie Gibson
born 8th November 1942 died 1997
..... one of the FIRST women to be admitted to the Magic Circle, she was Britain's leading woman clown, a swimming international and possessed two first-class degrees. In 1961 at Trinity College she dressed as a man in order to enter the masculine preserve of the debating society . In her career as a social worker she initiated a literacy programme for London gypsies and became the Inner London Education Authority's FIRST officially designated travellers' teacher
* Rowena Burns
..... FIRST woman director at Manchester Airport on 10th September 1996. She was the only woman on the short list for the job which had attracted almost 300 applicants and had served as an adviser and company secretary to the airport board for the previous 4 years
* Rubina Winifred Humphries
..... the FIRST woman bowler to take all 10 wickets for 0 runs when she played for Dalton Ladies v Woodfield SC at Huddersfield on 26th June 1931
* Ruby Dee
neé Ruby Ann Wallace
born 1923
..... FIRST black actress to play major parts at the American Shakespeare Festival. She appeared in several films and also worked in television and because of her many and diverse performances she became one of America's most recognized black actresses. She is also a writer, storyteller and poet and published a collection of her poetry called My One Last Nerve
* Ruby Florence Campbell Murray
born March 29th 1935 died 1996
..... FIRST singer to have 5 different recordings in the British Top 20 in the same week in March 1955. Her recording of Softly Softly which went straight to the top of the hit parade, Heartbeat reached No.2, Happy Days and Lonely Nights was in at No.4, at No 5 was If Anyone Finds This I Love You and at No 6 was Evermore. Her name Murray also entered folklore as rhyming slang for curry, she appeared in a film in 1956 and was later seen on television
* Ruby Wax
..... in 1996 she was the FIRST woman to host the BAFTA Craft Awards on her own. Jeanne Moreau, the French cinema actress, became only the second woman to receive the Fellowship Award
* Ruth
* Ruzwana Bashir
..... FIRST British Asian woman to become president of the Oxford Union