Normal Women, page 85
Wilberforce, William, 306
Wild, Mr Justice, 518
Wilder, Frances, 435–6, 437–8
Wilkinson, Ellen, 478, 479, 480
Wilkinson, Kitty, 331
Wilkinson Stokes, Elizabeth, 246–7
William I, King, 5, 6, 8–9, 10, 14, 22–3; ‘revolt of the earls’ against, 8, 12; ‘Harrying of the North’ by, 12
William II, King, 44–5
William III, King, 219–21, 254
Williams, Arabella (‘Le Petit Matelot’), 383
Williams, Gurney, 441
Willoughby, Katherine, 115, 200–1
Wilson, Mary Elizabeth, 503, 504
Winchelsea, 154
Winchester, 19, 26, 78
Winchester, Bishop of, 41–2
Winchilsea, Anne Finch, Countess of, 257
Winstanley, Gerrard, 200
Winter, Lady Mary, 142
witchcraft: and folklore traditions, 40–1, 83–4, 171–3; and medieval superstition, 40–1, 174; and poverty, 40–1, 83–4, 173–4; women juries and ‘watchers’/’searchers,’ 40, 50, 226; most accusations as against men in 1300s, 41, 83; and ‘Wars of the Roses’ period, 84, 101–2, 106; and James I, 140; in Tudor/Stuart age, 171–9; Malleus Maleficarum (1486), 173–4; witch-hunting craze of 1640s, 173, 176–7, 178–9; interrogations, 176, 177, 178; the Pendle witches, 177–8; Manningtree witches, 178, 179; decline of widescale persecution, 283–4, 358; Mary Bateman (‘the Yorkshire witch’), 358–9; Helen Duncan as the last witch, 502
Witherington, Pearl, 492
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 259, 338–9
Wolstenholme, Elizabeth, 400–1, 402
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), 489, 491, 497, 498, 502
Women’s Auxiliary Service (Burma), 494
Women’s Co-operative Guild, 396–7, 487
Women’s Freedom League, 501
Women’s Guild of Empire, 418
Women’s Halfpenny Bank, 409
Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League, 402
Women’s Protective and Provident League, 409, 410
Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), 489, 490, 490
Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), 402, 403, 406–7, 461–2, 471, 472
Women’s Timber Corps, 494
Women’s Trades Union Council, 413
Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS), 489, 496, 501
Woods, Marianne, 382
Woodville, Elizabeth, 101, 102, 103–4, 105–6, 158
Woolf, Virginia, 420, 427, 561
Woolley, Hannah, 169, 243
Woolwich Arsenal, 470
Worcester, 142
Worcester, Battle of (1651), 146
work: female guild members, 2, 18–19, 20–1, 35; female work gangs, 2, 31, 82, 148; as rent/feudal dues in medieval period, 9–10; casual work, 17, 30, 31, 34, 186; in Norman England, 26–7, 28–36, 37–42; equal pay eras, 30, 69, 71, 82, 163, 186, 310; washing/cleaning/laundry services, 34, 35, 44, 103, 104, 143, 164; women’s opportunities after Black Death, 68–71, 77–9, 82, 83–4; ‘golden age for women’ after Black Death, 82, 186–7; pay gap between men and women, 82, 148, 163, 181, 186–7, 210, 310–13, 323, 417, 484, 571, 573; Statute of Labour (1388), 82; wives working free for husbands, 84, 186, 312, 323–4, 455, 572; gender differences in child-rearing, 127; Tudor labour laws, 147–9; Elizabethan regulations, 148–9, 181; Statute of Artificers (1563), 148; Statute of Artificers (1601), 148; and mechanisation, 159, 210, 212, 233, 312, 315, 321, 348–9, 352–3, 442; invention of ‘women’s work,’ 181–2, 184–7; landlords/JPs impose maximum wage, 210; in post-Restoration century, 221–8; women sextons/gravediggers, 227, 318; exclusion of women, 229–36, 253, 286–7, 313–19, 328, 460, 471–3, 475–6, 555, 571–2; ‘white slavery’ phrase, 309; ‘women’s work’ in nineteenth-century, 314–28; conditions for women and children in 1800s, 316–17, 317, 318, 319, 336–7, 564; women as ‘reserve’ work force, 316; Mayhew’s observations, 317–18, 319–20, 362, 369; class-based judgements on women, 318–19, 427; ‘chivalrous’ campaigns over conditions/dangers, 319; 1851 census, 320, 323–4, 326, 454; elite women during General Strike, 419; marriage bar, 459–60, 474, 478, 484, 495; working women in 1857–1928 period, 461; women’s voluntary work in Great War, 462–4; women in Great War factories, 465–6, 467–70, 566; impact of Great War on women, 471–2; after Second World War, 502, 524–7; Royal Commission on Equal Pay (1946), 523–4; equal pay issue in post-WW2 period, 524, 525; outsourced to developing world, 525–6; unemployment in 1970s/80s, 525–6; Thatcherite privatisations, 526; labour shortages in 1970s, 532 see also business/entrepreneurship; guilds; home working by women; professional classes
Wright, Phoebe, 223–4
Wycliffe, John, 124
Wyndham, Ann, 146
Wynflæd (grandmother of King Edgar), 6
York, 27–8, 35, 77, 121, 154, 194, 228
York, Anne Hyde, first Duchess of, 257
York, Geoffrey, Archbishop of, 45–6
Yorke, Lady Jolyan, 188
Yorkshire Ripper murders, 516–17, 534
Zouche, Elizabeth, Lady, 81
Photo Section
One of the five women pictured in the Bayeux Tapestry. This may be King Harold’s wife, Edith Swan Neck, fleeing with her son Ulf from a house torched by the Norman invaders.
[And Cover] One of the five women pictured in the Bayeux Tapestry, c.1070, Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux (Ancient Art and Architecture/Alamy)
One of the 93 penises; a naked man with an erection is reaching for a naked woman who cowers from him.
[And Cover] One of the 93 penises in the Bayeux Tapestry, c.1070, Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux (Paul Williams/Alamy)
A glorious woman acrobat balancing on sword tips as musicians play. From the Smithfield Decretals, c.1340
[And Cover] Acrobat balancing on sword tips, from the Smithfield Decretals, c.1340 (British Library Board/Bridgeman Images)
This illumination in the Bible moralisée, (c.1220, Paris) illustrates a ‘sin of the mouth’ with two pairs of same-sex lovers kissing. The female couple, on the left side, are assisted by devils.
[And Cover] ‘Sin of the mouth’ illumination in the Bible moralisée, c.1220 (Austrian National Library/Interfoto/Alamy)
‘A garden of pleasure’: an illustration to the poem The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (1200–40) includes two girls kissing, women dancing, debating, and one doing a handstand.
[And Cover] ‘A garden of pleasure’ illustration by unknown artist, Guillaume de Lorris, The Romance of the Rose, Biblioteca universitaria (Public domain)
The mean wages of women in England from 1260 to 1850 shows the equality of pay between men and women until the late 14th century, and then the widening gap as legislation held down women’s wages but male workers improved their pay.
Graph of the mean wages in pence per day of unskilled men and women, based on data from Humphries, Jane, and Weisdorf, Jacob, ‘The Wages of Women in England 1260–1850’, Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 75. Issue 2, June 2015 (Martin Brown)
The lusciously imagined death of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche in 1833, complete with a red-legged executioner with a most suggestive dagger. Jane Grey was very far from a blindfolded victim in virginal white, fumbling for the block. Aged 16, she walked to her scaffold on Tower Green, and told the waiting crowd: ‘Good people, I am come hither to die.’ She read from her prayer book, before asking the executioner to ‘despatch her quickly.’
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, 1833, National Gallery (IanDagnall Computing/Alamy)
The inspiration for the jacket of this book, and for all women trapped in marriage with a dishonest husband! This is William Hogarth’s portrait of Mary Edwards (1705–43), who discovered her husband was stealing her fortune. Divorced, she would have lost her fortune and their son – instead, she denied they had ever been married, declared herself a spinster and her son a bastard, and risked her reputation to be free of him.
[And Cover] Miss Mary Edwards by William Hogarth, 1742, Frick Collection (Fine Art/Getty Images)
Arabella Hunt (1662–1705), a famously beautiful professional singer and musician at the court of Queen Mary, who had her marriage to James Howard dissolved when she discovered he was a woman named Amy Poulter who was already married. Arabella never remarried, and Amy died five weeks after the marriage was ended.
Arabella Hunt Playing a Lute by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1692, Government Art Collection (Government Art Collection)
The Chevalier d’Éon (1728–1810) was raised in France as the male heir to the de Beaumont family. The decorated soldier dressed as a man to serve as a captain of Dragoons, and as a woman named Lia de Beaumont to spy for France on Russia and England. A master fencer, the Chevalier is shown here on the right in a celebrated match against Chevalier de St Georges. This was painted by Alexandre-Auguste Robineau c.1787.
[And Cover] The Fencing-Match between the Chevalier de Saint-George and the Chevalier d’Eon by Alexandre-Auguste Robineau, c.1787/9, Royal Collection (Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2023)
This painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761–1804), daughter of a slave, with her cousin Lady Elizabeth, by David Martin in 1778, is typical of slave portraits. Dido is shown in exotic costume carrying a tray of fruits – plantation produce. She stands behind Elizabeth, who carries a book, and rather awkwardly holds her at arm’s length.
[And Cover] Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Murray by David Martin, 1779, Scone Palace (Art Reserve/Alamy)
This print of Saartjie Baartman (1789–1815), by Louis François Charon, shows shameless exhibition spectators: a young woman trying to peep under the loin cloth, while others – Highlanders in kilts – expose their own legs and buttocks. The enslaved woman looks directly out from the print, as if hoping for release. She died the year that this print was made, aged 26.
Saartjie Baartman or ‘La Belle Hottentote’ by Louis François Charon, 1815 (National Library of France)
Palaeontologist Mary Anning (1799–1847) was known around the world for her Jurassic discoveries in the fossil beds at Lyme Regis. Her findings changed scientific thinking about prehistoric life yet she was not eligible to join the Geological Society of London. In her lifetime, her extraordinary finds were rarely published or credited to her, and she was paid little money for them. This portrait of Mary and her dog Tray, by Benjamin Donne, a neighbour, is a copy of an 1842 painting.
[And Cover] Mary Anning by Benjamin John Merifield Donne, 1850, Sedgwick Museum (Public domain)
This portrait of the Ladies of Llangollen goes some way to repeat the slander against them: that they were an ‘odd’ couple, dressed in masculine clothing and mimicked husband and wife. James Henry Lynch copied Mary Parker’s secret drawing of the faces of these inseparable friends, Eleanor Butler (c.1738–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (c.1755–1831), without permission and added the manly jackets, men’s top hats and their well-known garden scene, and mass-produced the image.
The Rt. Honble. Lady Eleanor Butler & Miss Ponsonby, ‘The Ladies of Llangollen’ by James Henry Lynch, 1880s, Welsh Portrait Collection (Maidun Collection/Alamy)
Augusta Ada King, Countess Lovelace (1815–52), a skilled mathematician, was the daughter of Lord Byron and a friend and colleague of Charles Babbage: ‘the father of computers’. In 1843, she published a translation from Italian of a ‘sketch’ of Babbage’s analytical engine with her own notes. It suggested the ‘engine’ could do more than calculation; she described an operations sequence, the first computer program.
[And Cover] Portrait of Ada, Countess of Lovelace by Alfred Edward Chalon, 1840, Science Museum Group Collection (Public domain)
Fanny Eaton (1835–1924) was the daughter of a slave, born just after the abolition of slavery and brought to England by her mother. Fanny had two children and worked as a domestic servant and as an artist’s model at the Royal Academy of Arts. Simeon Solomon featured Eaton in his painting, The Mother of Moses, and she was a favourite subject for the Pre-Raphaelite artists. This chalk drawing is by Walter Fryer Stocks c.1859.
Mrs Fanny Eaton by Walter Fryer Stocks, 1859, Princeton University Art Museum (Public domain)
Dame Millicent Fawcett (1847–1929) is portrayed in this intimate painting by Ford Madox Brown (c.1872), dedicating her life to her blind, much older husband, Henry Fawcett. She was also a leading light of women’s causes: uniting 17 suffrage societies to found the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, helping found Newnham College Cambridge for women, supporting the abolition of the slave trade and supporting women and children endangered during the Boer War in South Africa. She lived long enough to see all women get the vote.
Henry Fawcett; Dame Millicent Fawcett by Ford Madox Brown, 1872, National Portrait Gallery (National Portrait Gallery, London)
‘Can you cook dinner?’ shouted a heckler. ‘Yes! Can you drive a coach and four?’ replied Constance Markievicz (1868–1927) on her campaign for women’s votes driving her carriage with four matched grey horses. The daughter of an Arctic explorer in an Anglo-Irish family, she fought against the British occupation of Ireland and was sentenced to death, though released in 1917 under a general amnesty. Arrested again the following year for protesting conscription in the First World War, she stood for Sinn Féin and took 66 per cent of the vote from prison, and refused to take her seat – though she was in any case, still imprisoned.
[And Cover] Countess Markievicz photographed by Keogh Brothers Ltd photographers, 1915, National Library of Ireland (Public domain)
Maud Allan (1873–1956), an internationally acclaimed musician, actor and dancer known for her seductive performances, lost one of the most sensational libel trials of the 20th century against a right-wing MP who accused her of being a lesbian and a spy. The judge remarked that the costume Maud wore for her performance, was ‘in fact . . .worse than nothing’.
[And Cover] Maud Allan as Salome in ‘The Vision of Salome’ photographed by Foulsham & Banfield, 1908 (Chronicle/Alamy)
This painting by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale in 1936 shows the indifference of the upper classes of London to the hunger march outside. The hundreds of men, viewed as a mass, are a mild diversion for the modern woman with bobbed hair who holds her string of pearls in one hand and her long cigarette holder in the other. Her partner amuses himself blowing smoke rings and does not even look.
[And Cover] The Arrival of the Jarrow Marchers in London, Viewed from an Interior by Thomas Dugdale, 1936, Museum of the Home (Public domain)
Rotha Lintorn-Orman (1895–1935) formed the British Fascisti, Britain’s first fascist organisation. She came from a military family and, having joined the Boy Scouts, had to be persuaded into the Girl Guide organisation. She served in the First World War in the Women’s Emergency Corps. Her organisation, the British Fascisti, lost members to the British Union of Fascists under Sir Oswald Mosley.
Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman photographed by Bassano Ltd, 22 August 1916, National Portrait Gallery (National Portrait Gallery, London)
4 October 1936: Policemen arresting a demonstrator when local people blocked the march of the British Union of Fascists in Cable Street in London’s East End.
[And Cover] Policemen arresting a demonstrator, unknown photographer, 4 October 1936 (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
The Hackett-Lowther all-female Ambulance Unit, which was established in 1917 by Norah Desmond Hackett and May ‘Toupie’ Lowther. They acquired vehicles and recruited women before departing for the frontline in France. The British army would not use the women’s unit, and instead they joined the French Third Army for nearly three years of wartime service.
The Hackett-Lowther all-female Ambulance Unit by Jacques Ridel, 1918 (ECPAD/Défense)
A member of the Women’s Land Army (1915–18) leads a horse out from the stables during the First World War. This photograph is by Horace Nicholls.
A member of the Women’s Land Army by Horace Nicholls, c.1915–18 (Imperial War Museum)
This 1943 painting by Laura Knight (1877–1970) depicts 21-year-old Ruby Loftus (1921–2004) working at an industrial lathe cutting the screw of a breech-ring for a Bofors anti-aircraft gun. Ruby became an expert in the production of breech-rings in just seven months – something that usually took years. After the war, Ruby and her husband John Green emigrated to Canada and she never worked in a factory or engineering again.
[And Cover] Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring by Laura Knight, 1943, Imperial War Museum (Imperial War Museum)
‘12 yrs in the ministry – but only the DOG gets the COLLAR!’, reads Dr Una Kroll’s sign. The Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) operated from 1979 to 1994 and was the major organisation to campaign for women to become priests in the Church of England.
Dr Una Kroll, unknown photographer, LSE Women’s Library (4/17) (LSE Library)
About the Author
PHILIPPA GREGORY, CBE, is one of the world’s foremost historical novelists. Her books include The Other Boleyn Girl, The White Queen, and most recently Dawnlands. A recognized authority on women’s history, she graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. She is a fellow of the University of Sussex and Cardiff University and an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2020 she was made a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to literature and charity. Philippa is a member of the Society of Authors and in 2016 was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writers’ Association. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and in 2018 was awarded an Honorary Platinum Award by Nielsen for achieving significant lifetime sales across her entire book output.
