100 Years Of Plymouth Powerful Women Celebrates The Contribution Made By Powerful Women Who, Over The Last 100 Years, Have Promoted, Protected And Empowered Plymouth’s Citizens.
Plymouth women voters demonstrated their power 100 years ago, on 28 November 1919, when Nancy Astor became MP for Plymouth Sutton, with women voters forming the majority of those casting their votes.
This collection of female honouree’s emphasises the importance of the women’s dimension in shaping the modern city, and celebrates the impact and legacy of women whose contribution needs to be rediscovered and placed into context alongside Nancy’s. They include those who worked with Nancy – like Bessie LeCras, Clara Daymond, Louise Simpson and Mary Bayley – plus later figures whose contributions built on the earlier legacy.
Plymouth has a proud unmatched legacy, sending six women MPs to Westminster, a record covering 96 of the last 100 years. Louise Simpson was one of the first 172 UK women appointed as magistrates in 1920; Clara Daymond was the first Plymouth women elected as a town councillor, in October 1919. Mary Bayley was a Councillor, a magistrate and an active supporter of initiatives including lobbying for women police, while Bessie LeCras became Nancy’s Parliamentary agent. But there are other names and we welcome the Plymouth local community to help us recover the record of their contributions over the last century, so we can remember figures like Jacquetta Marshall (the first female Lord Mayor) and later successors Dorothy Waldrond Innes, Eileen Evans, Sylvia Bellamy and Joan Stopporton. We need to know more about magistrates like Frances Wyatt and Mrs James Buller-Kitson.
The list is far from complete and we welcome your input to add to the list – tell us who YOU think should be on it!
Hoe Neighbourhood Forum
The Hoe Neighbourhood Forum together with the University of Plymouth’s Time-Lock, celebrate the contribution made by Plymouth Powerful Women over the last 100 years – women who have worked in different fields and in different ways to support and protect their fellow citizens and promote the City. Our starting point is recognition of the importance of the women’s dimension in shaping the modern city, but equally, recognition that too many of these women have been forgotten.
This community project to celebrates the impact and legacy of women whose contribution needs to be recognised – and to be successful, we are reaching out to Plymothians old and new. Our archive is a non-profit open source record of the lives and work of Plymouth Powerful Women. But – there are others about whom we know far too little.
Help us to find out more – bring us your memories, share stories, and photographs so we can put faces to names! Send them to us
