International Women’s Day 2018

Annie Besant was an activist, theosophist and supporter of Indian self-rule. Recognized as a brilliant crater, she campaigned on behalf of workers’ rights, particularly the matchgirls and women’s rights, and in 1989 was elected to the London School Board. Her socialist vision was international in scope and she eventually moved to India in 1893, where she toured the country advocating improved education, women’s rights and self-rule. Following her death she was commemorated throughout India but in London there are just a few reminders including Annie Besant Close in Bow and plaques at Bow Quarter and on her home at No. 39 Colby Road, Gipsy Hill.

Beatrice Webb

1857 – 1947

Renunciation – that is the great fact we all, individuals and classes, have to learn. In trying to avoid it we bring misery to ourselves and others.

Elizabeth Fry was a prison reformer and the second woman to be depicted on a British bank note. As a teenager she visited prisons, took an interest in the treatment of female inmates and is particularly associated with reforming London’s notorious Newgate Prison. She campaigned for improved conditions on ships transporting felons and migrants to Australia and established night shelters for the homeless and a School of Discipline for Girls in Chelsea. Between 1860 and 1913 the Elizabeth Fry Institute for Reformation of Women Prisoners, established in her honor, operated from 195 Mare Street, Hackney, a late 17th-century mansion. London’s criminal law court, the Old Bailey, stands on the site of Newgate Prison and a statue of Elizabeth stands in the vestibule. A street is named after her in Upton Park and the 5-pound note with her image was in circulation between 2002 and 2017.

Emmeline Pankhurst

1858 – 1928

I suppose I had always been an unconscious suffragist. With my temperament and my surroundings, I could scarcely have been otherwise.

Through her execution Edith Cavell became a symbol for patriotism and bravery. She trained as a nurse at the London Hospital in 1896, where she is commemorated by a BP, the Cavell Entrance and Cavell Street. In 1907 she was invited to Brussels to establish a nurses’ training establishment based on the Florence Nightingale model. Her hospital, used by the Red Cross, nursed all soldiers, but Edith provided additional assistance to the allies including safe houses, false papers and passage to neutral territory. In August 1915 she was arrested, found guilty of treason and executed two months later on 12 October. After the war her body was returned to England where, following a memorial service at Westminster Abbey, she was buried at Norwich Cathedral. In 1920 Queen Alexandra unveiled a statue if Edith at St. Martin’s Place, near the National Portrait Gallery and in 1924 Edith’s words Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone’ were added.

Olive Morris

1952 – 1979

My heart will always be in Brixton.

Founder of Britain’s first black weekly newspaper The West Indian Gazette, Claudia Jones is also known as the mother of the Notting Hill Carnival. Born in Trinidad, she lived in New York for over 30 years, working as a community leader and journalist. As a Communist she was deported, finding refuge in London in 1955. In 1959 she devised a small indoor festival to build bridges between the Caribbean and white communities following the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. In 1965 Rhaune Laslett-O’Brien 1919 – 2002, a London-born activist of Native American and Russian descent, initiated the Notting Hill Street Party. This and Claudia’s indoor festival developed into the Notting Hill Carnival, an August Bank Holiday extravaganza of vibrant costumes, music and dancing. Plaques at the junction of Portobello and Tavistock Roads commemorate both Claudia and Rhaune.

Slum Sisters

Until 1977 the only people who could drive the iconic London black cabs were men. Trainee drivers study ‘the Knowledge’ for years, mastering the labyrinth of over 26,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross. Only then can they gain the coveted London-wide Green Badge. In 1976 Marie White (died 1993), married to cab driver Jack, became the first woman to ‘learn the Knowledge.’ She trained using a Mini rather than the usual moped for the first ten months and in 1977 became the proud owner of Badge 25292. She and Jack were the first married couple both to be licensed cab drivers. In 1983 she joined Dial-a- Cab (now Computer Cab) and in 1988 joined their Board of Management, the first woman to do so. Today however, 40 years after Marie’s achievement, it is estimated that just 2 percent of London cab drivers are women.

To learn more about women of London, grab a copy of Women’s London: A Tour Guide to Great Lives—Guidebook to the Women Who Shaped London Through the Centuries and the Legacy They Left Behind; Scientists, Suffragettes, & Pioneers by Rachel Kolsky..