To book your place please see follow the link below.
National
Archives
Bessant
Drive
KEW,
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DW
United
Kingdom.
Wednesday, 13 January 2016
Workshop on researching the lives of women in WW1, Kew, Wednesday, 10th February 2016 2 - 4 pm
For anyone interested in researching the lives of women
during WW1 who lives within easy reach of London or who can easily travel to
London, there is a workshop to be held on Wednesday, 10th February
2016 from 2 pm until 4 pm. The event
will be held at the National Archives, in Kew.
For
further details please see:
Monday, 11 January 2016
'Canary Girls' a touring show about female munitions workers in WW1 - Mikron Theatre Company, Marsden, Yorks., UK
‘Canary Girls’ is the title, reflecting the nick-name given to the munitions workers of WW1 because the chemicals involved in the making of the ammunition turned their skin yellow. Written by Laurence Peacock with music composed by O’Howley and Tidlow, designer Kate Morton, directed by Marianne McNamara, the show promises to be fantastic. Performances begin on 23rd April at Marsden Royal British Legion at 7.30 p.m.
For details see http://www.mikron.org.uk/shows
A show about women munitions workers in WW1 - 'Canary Girls' - Mikron Theatre Company
Eleanor Rathbone (1872 - 1946) - British campaigner for women's rights
of servicemen. She also set up a women's group which still meets today.
Susan Cohen will be giving a free talk about the life and work of Liverpool’s unsung heroine Eleanor Rathbone at St. George’s Hall in Liverpool – opposite Lime Street Station on Thursday, 14th January 2016 at 5 pm. Entre free.
Further details from
https://rememberingeleanorrathbone.wordpress.com/events/
From early January until March 2016 there will be an
exhibition about the life and work of Liverpool’s Eleanor Rathbone at Liverpool
Central Library, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EW entitled ‘The Making of
Women The Life and Campaigns of Eleanor Rathbone’.
And an exhibition about the life and work of Eleanor
Rathbone will also run at the University of Liverpool Library from 8th
January until 11th April 2016
Monday, 14 December 2015
Katherine Harley, Croix de Guerre (1855 - 1917) - British suffragist.
Katherine Mary Harley was born in Kent, UK, on 3rd May 1855. She was the the youngest of six daughters born to John Tracy William French, a Royal Navy Commander, and his wife, Margaret French, née Eccles.
Katherine's siblings included an elder sister, Charlotte, who became Charlotte Despard - 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939 - a suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist and an elder brother John (28 September 1852 - 22 May 1925), who became the 1st Earl of Ypres and, as Field Marshall Sir John French, commanded the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.
Katherine's father died before she was born and when her mother was confined to an asylum in 1867; she was raised by relatives.
On 8th January 1877 Katherine married Colonel George Ernest Harley, CB, of Condover House, Shropshire, an officer in The Buffs. The couple had one son and two daughters. Her husband died on 22nd July 1907.
In 1910 Katherine joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and became the honorary treasurer of the Midland Region. She was made president of the Shropshire branch of the NUWSS in 1913. Katherine was also a member of the Church League for Women's Suffrage. From 18th June to 26th July 1913 she proposed and organised the Great Pilgrimage - a march along six routes to converge on Hyde Park, London, where there was a rally.
During the First World War she helped to found and organise the Women's Emergency Corps - a service organisation founded in 1914 by Evelina Haverfield, Decima Moore, and the Women's Social and Political Union to contribute to the war effort of the United Kingdom during the conflict. The corps was intended to train woman doctors, nurses and motorcycle messengers. Mona Chalmers Watson became its honorary secretary. The Corps later evolved into the Women's Volunteer Reserve.
In late 1915 Katherine transferred to Greece to nurse on the Balkan Front. In June 1916 she established a motorised ambulance unit attached to the Royal Serbian Army in Macedonia that operated near the front line, often at night, despite district orders to the contrary. In December 1916 she left the Scottish Women's Hospitals service to join an independent ambulance unit serving the civilian population of Monastir, Serbia (now in the Republic of North Macedonia).
She rented a house in Monastir after its capture, and it was there, on 7th March 1917, Katherine she was killed by shellfire. She was buried on 10th March in the city of Salonika and her funeral was attended by General Milne — the Commander of the British forces in the Balkans — and George, Crown Prince of Serbia. Katherine was buried in Lembet Road Military Cemetery, Slonika,.Thessaloniki in Greece, Grave Reference: O. 38
Her gravestone (see photograph above) bears the inscription "On your tomb instead of flowers the gratitude of the Serbs shall blossom there".
Katherine is commemorated twice in Condover parish church in Shropshire, UK - on a plaque on an oak screen that was erected in memory of Katherine and her husband, and on the parish's First World War memorial tablet which incorrectly names her "Katherine Ellen Harley". She is also remembered on the parish war memorial in the Trinity Chapel of St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury.
Saturday, 12 December 2015
Mabel Dearmer (1872 - 1915) - British writer, artist and illustrator
Mabel went to Serbia as a nursing orderly during the First World War, when her husband volunteered to serve there as Chaplain to a Red Cross Ambulance Unit. Mabel contracted Typhoid and died of Pneumonia on 11th July 1915, shortly before the death of her younger son, Christopher, from wounds sustained at Gallipoli, where he served with the Royal Naval Air Service. Mabel is buried in Kragujevac Cemetery in Serbia, alongside Dr. Elizabeth Ross and Nurse Lorna Ferriss. Mabel's letters 'Letters from a Field Hospital' were published after her death and are available to read on the Internet - https://archive.org/details/lettersfromfield00dear
I wonder if there will be a stamp issued to commemorate Mabel Dearmer as there has recently been by the Serbians to commemorate some of the other women who went to help Serbia during WW1 - Flora Sandes, who was a soldier with the Serbian Army, Evelina Haverfield, Dr. Elsie Inglis, Dr. Elizabeth Ross, Dr. Katherine McPhail and Dr. Elmslie Hutton.
*http://inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mabel+dearmer
For an in-depth discussion about the life and work of Mabel Dearmer, Dr. Margaret Stetz in America sent me this link to the excellent work of Diana Maltz of Southern Oregon University:
http://www.1890s.ca/HTML.aspx?s=dearmer_bio.html
Sunday, 11 October 2015
"Chronicles of Women of the Great War in their own Words" by Elizabeth Foxwell
American author and editor Elizabeth Foxwell has written a book about the contribution of American women in WW1 because she thinks, and I agree with her, that not nearly enough people know about their exploits.
As Elizabeth points out in a recent interview with American University Radio WAMU 88.5, we hear a great deal about the women who went to nurse, but women played a far greater role in WW1 than has hitherto been recognised. In "Chronicles of Women of the Great War in their own Words", Elizabeth Foxwell tells the stories of many of those women, six of whom are commemorated on the Arlington War Memorial in Washington DC.
Quite rightly, Elizabeth says that many people only think of France and the Western Front when they commemorate the First World War. As you will see from this list of Female Poets country by country, the conflict affected every country of the world and there were more theatres of war than is generally known:
http://www.femalewarpoets.blogspot.co.uk/p/female-poets-of-first-world-war-revised.html
As Elizabeth points out in a recent interview with American University Radio WAMU 88.5, we hear a great deal about the women who went to nurse, but women played a far greater role in WW1 than has hitherto been recognised. In "Chronicles of Women of the Great War in their own Words", Elizabeth Foxwell tells the stories of many of those women, six of whom are commemorated on the Arlington War Memorial in Washington DC.
Quite rightly, Elizabeth says that many people only think of France and the Western Front when they commemorate the First World War. As you will see from this list of Female Poets country by country, the conflict affected every country of the world and there were more theatres of war than is generally known:
http://www.femalewarpoets.blogspot.co.uk/p/female-poets-of-first-world-war-revised.html
Elizabeth will read extracts from her book at One More Page Books store in Arlington on 13th October 2015 at 7 p.m. - 220 N. Westmoreland Street #101, Arlington, VA 22213. For further information about the event e-mail: info@onemorebookpages.com.
You can read about the interview here:
Further information about American women of the era:
https://americanwomeninwwi.wordpress.com
http://www.sewallbelmont.org - museum dedicated to the memory of American suffragettes
I am always on the lookout for more inspirational women, female poets, fascinating facts and forgotten (male) poets of the First World War, so please get in touch if you know of any.
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