News items of interest to WHN Members
In 2020 I wrote a piece for the WHN blog about the biography I’m not writing. In ‘Giants and Geniuses’ https://womenshistorynetwork.org/giants-and-geniuses-by-lucienne-boyce/ I explained my decision not to write about someone very famous, or someone who’s described as a ‘giant’ or…
The Women’s History Network is offering one £250 prize for a Masters dissertation on any aspect of women’s or gender history (though substantially focused on women) written during the 2020-2021 academic year. We welcome research on any period and place:…
The Women’s History Network is delighted to announce the appointment of four new Early Career Fellows for the coming academic year. The Fellowships provide scholars with a bursary of £1,500 and are designed to support exciting and innovative research into…
In the summer of 1922, Winifred Coombe Tennant (1874-1956) was selected as a delegate to the Third Assembly of the League of Nations, making her the first woman to ever represent Britain at this international organisation. In this pioneering role,…
Approximately 70,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Britain fleeing Nazi persecution from 1933 until the outbreak of the Second World War. 20,000 of those refugees were women who were allowed entry under domestic permits: there were also an unknown amount who…
Women who produced ‘bastard’ children during the Civil War and Interregnum period were often depicted, within both court and popular literature, as ‘lewd women’ in opposition to patriarchally-defined models of the ‘chaste maid’ or legitimate wife. Yet in certain circumstances,…
Carved onto the gravestone of Baroness Mary Vetsera in Heiligenkreuz, this Bible verse provides a sobering outlook on her short life. In the early hours of the 30th of January 1889, seventeen year old Mary was shot – willingly –…
At the Tokyo Olympic Games 2021, women will compete in all thirty-three available sports. In the British team, women will outnumber their male counterparts for the first time in history. By contrast, at the 1948 Olympics, women were restricted to…
In 1663 Anne Knutsford, licensed midwife and moneylender, was issued with an inhibition by the parish of Nantwich against practicing midwifery for ‘lyeing, sweareing and curseing’ amongst other allegations. As if to confirm the charges, Anne allegedly ‘abused the authority…