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,…
Category: Blog and News
News items of interest to WHN Members
Female Jewish Refugees and British Welfare from 1939, by Abi Exelby
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…
Wretched Whores or Virtuous Victims: Women, ‘Bastardy’ and Court Records 1630-1660, by Erin Newman
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,…
A mortal […] comes up like a flower and is cut down, by Lucy Coatman
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 –…
Individual competitive sport as a site of women’s emancipation in Britain c.1948-1970 by Sophie Olver
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…
‘Love Thy Neighbour’: Neighbourly conflict in early modern Nantwich, by Sarah Fox
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…
Tattooed Women: a misleading notion of empowerment and agency
It is often claimed that tattooed women are a symbol of modernity, defying the restricting beauty standards of society.[1] Nonetheless, more wide-ranging research reveals that this is a generalised and too simplistic a view of tattooed women. My research on…
When sources hurt: Researching anti-trans ideologies as a trans person, by Rebecca Hickman
My project delves into the political strategies and concepts that have powered the trans rights movement in the United Kingdom over the past half-century, particularly the concept of ‘recognition.’ The aim of my research is to understand what ‘recognition’ has…
Calamity Cora – how one woman’s uncanny ability to predict crop harvests went global. By Elizabeth Bartram
Have you ever considered the role of women in milling? Milling is an integral part of feeding the world, from putting food on the table to influencing global decision-making. It has touched on almost every facet of our lives, feeding,…