In many ways, Diane Abbott is a pioneer. In 1987, she became the UK’s first black woman MP. This alone was a historic achievement and should entitle her to a place in any serious history of British politics. However, this…
Category: Blog and News
News items of interest to WHN Members
Lilian Bader: one of the first Black British women in the Royal Air Force by Lucia Wallbank
In 1990, a group of African and Caribbean ex-service personnel appeared on an episode of the BBC television show ‘Hear-Say’. One woman explained why Britain’s Black citizens chose to take up arms in the Second World War. If Hitler had…
Putting menopause on the map by Caroline Vollans
Menopause, a key aspect of most women’s lives, is no longer off limits. Much is written about it, increasing airtime on radio and TV is allocated to it, websites are dedicated to it, and support groups are burgeoning. As October…
Archival Groundings: The life of Jessica Huntley by Dr Hannah Ishmael
Over the past few months, we have all had to adjust to a life lived online. For those of us who have been using archives for research we have also had to come to terms with exclusively using digitised material…
Dr Erika Edwards, ‘Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, Intimacy, and the Making of Race in Argentina’.
Wednesday October 21 4.00pm (London) Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, Intimacy, and the Making of Race in Argentina This presentation is a gendered analysis of black invisibility in Argentina. It focuses on Black and African descended women who actively…
Medieval Women and Urban Justice: Commerce, Crime and Community in England c.1300-1500 by Dr Teresa Phipps
When Margery Dod brought a plea of trespass to Nottingham’s borough court in April 1324, she listed a string of accusations against many members of the de Spondon family, likely to have been her neighbours, trading contacts, or both. Margery…
Black Women in Wartime Britain 1939-45 by Stephen Bourne
At the height of the London Blitz in 1941, Esther Bruce, who was then a young woman aged 28, became part of my family. Her Guyanese father had just died, so their neighbour, 63-year-old Granny Johnson (my great-grandmother), ‘adopted’ her.…
Black Women in Britain During the Great War By Stephen Bourne
With only a few exceptions, such as the Crimean war ‘doctress’ Mary Seacole, black and dual-heritage women have been ‘written out’ of British history. This is true of the many books published about Britain and the First World War and…
Doing it Ourselves by Rosa Schling
In the late 1970s Jackie Fulton visited social services to ask how she could find childcare for her children so she could go back to work. This was apparently an unusual request. She remembers being met with incredulity and told…