Julia Herdman's Blog: Julia Herdman Books, page 15
May 3, 2017
Joshua Reynolds’ Muse Fanny Barton
Frances Barton or Frances “Fanny” Barton was the daughter of a private soldier and started her working life as a flower girl and a street singer. She performed in taverns and resorted to selling herself as many hard up women did in those days before she made it onto the stage. Her first step to […]
May 2, 2017
Giovanna Bassi – Ballet Dancer, Mother and Spy
The Royal Swedish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in Europe. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, King Gustav III founded the ballet in 1773 as a part of his project to bring his kingdom to the fore in European culture. Gustav III wanted to create Swedish ballet dancers and to do this he encouraged […]
May 1, 2017
May Day – It’s not what it used to be!
When I think of May Day I think either of Maypoles, Morris Dancing and the Jack in the Green or the old Soviet military processions in Red Square. The origins of May Day stretch back into the mists of time. In the late Middle Ages people in England started to dance around a Maypole (a […]
April 28, 2017
From Housemaid to Commit Catcher – Caroline Herschel
Caroline Lucretia Herschel was born March 16, 1750 in Hanover, Germany. Her father, Isaac Herschel, was a talented army oboist. At the age of ten, she was struck down with typhus, the effect of this often fatal disease was stunted growth; she never grew taller than four feet three inches; and her eyesight was impaired […]
From Shop Assistant to MP – Margaret Bondfield
When Labour swept into power in 1997, nearly one in four of its new MPs was a woman. And when all 101 of them were photographed with the Prime Minister, they became known as ‘Blair’s Babes.’ As it turned out for many of those women, the most pressing problem was not the chaos at the […]
April 27, 2017
The Woman Who Painted Marie-Antoinette
Between 1780 and 1810, many French women painters reached impressive heights of artistic achievement and professional success. They achieve this despite a cap on the number of women admitted to France’s prestigious Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and restrictions that barred women from the life drawing classes. At the end of the eighteenth […]
April 26, 2017
Headmistress from Grimsby Goes to Parliament
Mrs Margaret Wintringham who became Member for Lincolnshire South in 1921 and became the Liberal Party’s first female MP. She represented her constituency until 1924. Margaret was a teacher and headmistress from Grimsby. Born Margaret Longbottom in 1879 in the West Riding she had a successful career outside politics, becoming a school headmistress and local […]
April 25, 2017
Physicist Dies in Childbirth
Astronomy, mathematics and physics were popular fields of study for many of the brightest 18th century women with access to money and books. Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, was one such woman. She was the daughter of the French court’s chief of protocol and her father rather unusually for the time encouraged her education. By […]
April 24, 2017
Nancy Astor
Nancy Astor entered the House of Commons on 1 December 1919, becoming the first female MP in British history to take a seat in parliament. Born: 19 May 1879 in Danville, Virginia, US Nancy was elected as a Conservative for the Plymouth Sutton constituency after her husband, Waldorf Astor, the former MP, was elevated to the […]
April 22, 2017
The First Women Elected to the UK Parliament
At the end of World War 1 in 1918 some women over the age of 30 got the vote. That year another law was passed, the Qualification of Women Act, which allowed women to stand as candidates and be elected to Parliament. It is a surprising but true fact that the the first woman to […]
