The list of brief biographies accessed through this page is not exhaustive. It is also ongoing, with new names being added after being moderated by Professor Judith Rowbotham (UoP). We hope, that from March 2021 on, these new names will substantially reflect suggestions brought to us through this online reaching out to the wider community. We also have names we would have liked to include, but we have not done so, either at the request of the individuals themselves, or because we have not been able to find sufficient material to complete even a brief biography. In this, lockdown has not helped! We hope this present list is viewed as a starting point for the Plymouth community and its contributions to us, and not as a finite list OR end objective. The list needs to be expanded – in terms both of the information about so many of the women we have included and of the names that are absent. We are very conscious of those omissions, especially as we wish better to reflect the diversity of Plymouth Powerful Women.

Nor is this assembly of names intended, in any way, to provide a basis for ‘odious comparisons’ or some form of competitive hierarchy. Some of the biographical summaries are longer, and some shorter. This is not the measure of the importance of the women named. Where we have more information – either from the research conducted by Professor Judith Rowbotham, aided by Professor Kim Stevenson, or from information provided by some of the women or members of their families, the biographies have been able to be longer than others. Length and detail is not a reflection of our estimation of the individual value of these Powerful Women, merely of our inability to generate more information. So any failures are ours, and should not be interpreted as indicating anything but that. The challenge is now passed across to various communities in Plymouth – will you continue the work started here and build this into a bigger community heritage resource which provides a basis for women’s contributions to the life of the city and welfare of Plymothians to be fully integrated alongside that of the men?

Categories

We have organised the names of our featured Plymouth Powerful Women 1919-2019 into a number of categories, which represent the areas of life for which they are – or were – most familiar to their fellow Plymothians. But one category – social activism – undoubtedly unites them all, underlining the extent to which these powerful women were active in many fields. They interacted with, and supported, each other, as part of their involvement with Plymouth and Plymothians, and so, these categories are simply a useful tool and must be taken very loosely.

NB – We have deliberately chosen to exclude from this list the names of senior figures in the institutions actively involved in developing and supporting this project, notably the Hoe Neighbourhood Forum, the University of Plymouth and Bowater Communications. This explains the absence of, for example, the Chair of the Hoe Neighbourhood Forum, of the Chair of Plymouth Women in Business Networking Group and senior University of Plymouth figures from the resource. We do not feel it is appropriate that we, as members of those institutions, make any decisions to add such names – further additions are now up to the input of Plymothians looking at the resource, and either contacting Professor Rowbotham in the legacy period of the project (up to 18 months), or taking it as a starting point to create their own resource list, and adding their own Plymouth Powerful Women names.

Also, as our starting point is 1919, we have not included significant figures such as Dame Agnes Weston, say, or Lydia Sellon, or many of the names from the array of women suffragists and suffragettes. Those found here are those who continued an active and important contribution for at least a few years into the 1920s at least

Acknowledgements:
we are grateful to:
Sarahjane Funnell-Kemp and Elaine Rawlings for information about Laura Ellicot and Laura MClure. 

Jenny Floyd for information about Mabel March, Phyllis Russell and Mabel Ellen March. The photographs of Jenny Floyd are her copyright.

And for their biographical information and, where provided, photographs to which they hold the copyright, we thank:
Sheila Cassidy
Jacky Clift
Jenny Floyd
Wendy Hart
Barbara Jones
Hannah Sloggett
Jackie Young