A number of years ago, the missionary Catherine Rew did an oral history with her daughter Kathryn Rew Van’t-Wout. This is part two of the transcript. Part one is here. See here for a biography of Catherine. I have added…
Category: Biography
Elizabeth Heyrick (1869-1831)
Elizabeth Heyrick (1769-1831), social reformer and abolitionist, is little known today. She receives only the briefest mention in Charlotte Sussman’s Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender, and British Slavery, 1713-1833, Stanford University Press, 2000. She was hardly mentioned in the media…
Catherine Rew’s Oral History, part 1.
A number of years ago, the missionary Catherine Rew did an oral history with her daughter Kathryn Rew Van’t-Wout. This is part one of the transcript. See here for a biography of Catherine. I have added explanatory information in square…
Catherine Jane Rew (1926-2009)
Catherine Rew, nee McFadyen, was a missionary in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa for over fifty years. She was born into a lower-middle class family in Renfrew, near Glasgow. Her father was the station…
Uncovering the Life and Archive of Dame Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury, Quaker Philanthropist (1858-1951)
Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury is typically identified as the wife of Quaker chocolate manufacturer George Cadbury (1839-1922), described by the News Review in 1948 as ‘the Queen-Mother of British Chocolate’. However, beyond her popular identification with British confectionary, Taylor Cadbury deserves…
Dervorgilla of Galloway (abt 1214- abt 1288)
Dervorgilla of Galloway was a thirteenth century noblewoman of a prestigious lineage. Her Scottish relatives were major landowners in the South of Scotland. Her mother was the daughter of Matilda and David, Prince of Scotland; she was niece to Robert…
Married Women’s Property and Divorce in the 19th Century
In 1882, after a series of earlier reforms, the Married Women’s Property Act passed for England, Wales and Ireland, while Scotland had a less extensive Act in 1880 and another in 1881. The Act restored to married women the right…
Bastille Day
The French are celebrating the fall of the Bastille today: a symbol of oppression smashed by the force of the people. It might be worth remembering on this day a few examples of women’s strength exerted in good causes. On 14…
Independence Day
The Americans are celebrating their independence from Britain today. Congratulations and good luck to them. But what about celebrating a couple of other, smaller victories from this date? On 4 July 1784 Hester Thrale composed a letter of measured, dignified…