Women MPs in Brum

It occurred to me it might be interesting to look at which women have represented the people of Birmingham in Parliament.  Edith Wills was the first woman MP in the city serving from 5 July 1945.  It had always seemed to me that we had been well represented with a high proportion of our MPs being women.  It seems not.  Whilst that may have been true for a while, it seems they all served at the same time.  Only 10 women have been an MP in Birmingham.  Here they are:

Name	Election date	Party	Constituency	From	to	Years
Edith Wills	5 Jul 1945	Labour	Duddeston	1945	1950	5
Dame Edith Pitt DBE	2 Jul 1953	Conservative	Edgbaston	1953	1966	13
Dame Jill Knight, DBE	31 Mar 1966	Conservative	Edgbaston	1966	1997	31
Mrs Doris Fisher	18 Jun 1970	Labour	Ladywood	1970	1974	4
Miss Sheila Wright	3 May 1979	Labour	Handsworth	1979	1983	4
Rt Hon Clare Short	9 Jun 1983	Labour (’06 – Ind Lab)	Ladywood	1983	2010	27
Dr Lynne Jones	9 Apr 1992	Labour	Selly Oak	1992	2010	18
Rt Hon Baroness Estelle Morris	9 Apr 1992	Labour	Yardley	1992	2005	13
Ms Gisela Stewart	1 May 1997	Labour	Edgbaston	1997	date	14+
Shabana Mahmood	6 May 2010	Labour	Ladywood	2010	date	1+

Since 1945 there have been just two years when Brum had no women MPs (1951-52). For  1 (election) year, there were 5 women MPs and for the rest of 1992 to 2005 we had 4 women in office at a time. They were Jill, then Gisela alongside Clare, Estelle and Lynne.

The longest serving female MP in the city is Joan Christabel Knight, Baroness Knight of Collingtree, DBE (31 years) closely followed by Rt Hon Clare Short – 27 years.  Edgbaston has been served by women MPs continuously since 1953 – I wonder how many other constituencies in the land can claim the same. As of January 2012 there are two women serving.

A few held higher office:

• Clare Short wasSecretary of State for International Development in the Blair’s government from 3 May 1997 until her resignation from that post on 12 May 2003.
• Estelle Morris served as Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 2001. She was the first (former) comprehensive school teacher to have the position.
• Pitt had been Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Pensions from 1955 to 1959, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health from 1959 to 1962.
• Gisela Stewart was a junior health minister until 2001.

• Jill Knight, along with David Wilshire, was responsible for introducing the Section 28 amendment to the Local Government Act 1988, which barred local authorities from “promoting”homosexuality. She was also an opponent of abortion, and supported successive attempts to reduce the time-period when the operation could be legally performed.

More information about all these MPs (and the male ones too…) can be found at  http://www.theyworkforyou.com/.  All the dates information for this post came from here

New Year’s Honours 2012

So New Year’s Eve arrives and so too the usual honours.  Overall 43% this year have gone to women according to Direct Gov.  S0 what of the Brimmin?  Well a Dame, a CBE, OBE and 2 MBEs compared with 5 MBEs last year.  An OBE also went to a male teacher at Swanshurst School. Frankly anyone who can spend all their working days in a school of nearly 2,000 teenage girls and still deliver inspiration and education deserves a medal, so an honorary mention to him.

Meanwhile, 5 women working with, for and about people and communities; this is becoming a theme of the brimmin awardees:

Dame Julie Moore

Chief Executive, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. For services to Healthcare.

Professor Karin BARBER CBE PHd FBA

Professor of African Cultural Anthropology, University of Birmingham. For services to African Studies.

Mrs June Guiness OBE

Head of Policy, Forensic Science Regulation Unit, Home Office

Ms Jane Hopkins MBE

Founder, MumsClub. For services to Entrepreneurship

Mrs Antonina Robinson MBE

Executive Officer, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions

Congratulations to you all, be proud and continue to inspire.

If I’ve missed any please let me know.  The full list is here.

PS – I’ve altered this on 5 January.  I read Karin’s award wrongly: she’s a commander not officer.  Unfortunately I also misread  Jane and Antonina, they are both members not officers.  Jeez, I really do struggle with the pdf released by the government – its not easy to use.  My apologies for the mistakes, I hope it didn’t cause any problems or embarrassment.

Support for another Birmingham Women’s festival

I had a visitor to the brimmin site referred from another yesterday. Not unusual, but exciting. The site is seeking to encourage brummie women to pull together a Women’s festival in March to coincide with International Women’s Day. Fitting as it’s 25 years since my good friend Emma co-ordinated the first.

I’ll keep my eye on it. Meanwhile, anyone with the time and energy, pop over there and get involved.

In case you can’t find the link to the Birmingham Women’s Festival hidden in this post, it’s here: http://womensfestival2012.wordpress.com/ 

2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours

So it’s the Queen’s Birthday.  Sitting here watching the Trooping of the Colour, gives me time to search for all the women from Birmingham on her honours list.

From what I have gleaned there are eight this year, which is quite a few.  Let’s take a look:

Rosie AULD CBE

For services to Healthcare.

Her Honour Frances Margaret KIRKHAM CBE

For services to the Legal Profession and to the Administration of Justice.

Kasmin COONEY OBE

For services to Training and to Exports.

Beverly LINDSAY OBE

For services to Business and to the community in Birmingham.

Fiona Margaret ADAMS  MBE

For services to the community in Moseley, Birmingham

Joy DOAL MBE

For services to Vulnerable Women in Birmingham

Susan VINCENT MBE

For services to Local Government

Gillian WEARING OBE

For services to Art.

I’m quite sure there are more women on the list who could claim a Birmingham link.  The Birmingham Post details all of the West Midlands honours.  Some names are ringing bells and others almost certainly live there.  Please add a comment if I’ve missed anyone.

Dilys Halford

The Birmingham Mail writer, Brian Halford, has put together a blog which follows the Warwickshire County Cricket Club 100 years ago, in the 1911 season, when they won the championship for the first time.  Hat-tip to Steve Nicholls for tweeting about it).  A fascinating read, if you are interested in cricket, or history or both.  Today’s introduces us to Algernon J Halford’s wife.  It’s a lovely piece, in which he discovers (through reading the local paper) that his wife is a suffragette.  I am quite sure his response is a true reflection of husbands’ attitudes of the time.  I fully recommend you read it.

If only she were real, she’d be right there under D on the brimmin list!

Bertha Ryland – 1882 ~ alive 1963

There is a lot of recorded information online about the high profile women of the Suffragette Movement in the UK and Birmingham.

Bertha was clearly one of the more active campaigners based in Birmingham. She had been involved in window smashing campaigns in London prior to her best known act, when on 8 June 1914 she was arrested for attacking a painting in Birmingham Art Gallery. The painting in question was Master Thornhill by George Romney a fashionable portrait painter of the 19th century.

“…I attack this work of art deliberately as a protest against the government’s criminal injustice in denying women the vote, and also against the government’s injustice in imprisoning, forcibly feeding, and drugging suffragist militants…”

Bertha Ryland, quoted in Elizabeth Crawford, ‘From Frederick Street to Winson Green.’

That reference document above is a fantastic narrative ‘Votes for Women: Tracing the Struggle in Birmingham’. I found it on the magnificent Connecting Histories Website, which was a 3 year project by academics and archivists to record local history stories. Well worth a rummage.

In 1907 a hyperlocal (sic) publication called Edbastonia ran an advert. Bertha Ryland served as Honorary Treasurer of the WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union), which placed this advertisement for funds and office space when it was getting started in Birmingham. Edbastonia was established in 1881, determinedly non-political, it rarely commented on women, save to recognise some good charity work. Women like Bertha were high profile residents of Edgbaston and the editors could not help but start reporting their stories.

I like that this advert gives us various home addresses. Bertha lived at 19 Hermitage Road, Edgbaston, the hyperlink takes you to the Google Map with a wonderful street view of the house. I wonder if the current owners have any idea!

View Larger Map

Information about our brimmin comes from the strangest of places. Here is an article from an ancestry website. Walter Ryland on the hunt for ancestors tells of a medal for valour featured on Antiques Roadshow in 2000. It transpires it was awarded to Bertha on her release from a stint in prison, after she was paraded triumphantly through the streets. The medal was given by the WSPU – one can only assume the advert had the desired effect. I wonder what recognition she was given in response to her more direct action in 1914?

A brimmin tour

1. Alice Beale > Founded: Birmingham Settlement, Units 4-7 Alma House, Newtown Shopping Centre, B19 2AB
2. Alison Nicholas > Base: The Alison Nicholas Golf Academy, Queslett Park, Booths Lane, Great Barr, B42 2RG
3. Bertha Ryland >Lived: 19 Hermitage Rd, Edgbaston B15 3UP
4. Betty Jackson > Studied: Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (aka B’ham City University), Corporation Street, B4 7DX
5. Elnora Ferguson > Donated: The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TS
6. Cat Deeley > First school: Grove Vale Primary School, Monksfield Avenue,B43 6AL
7. Constance Naden > Born: 15 Francis Road, Edgbaston, B16 8JE Buried: Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley, B18 6
8. Ellen Pinsent, Edwina Currie, Edith WIllis, Marjorie Brown > Worked:Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham B3 3
9. Louisa Ryland > Donated: Cannon Hill Park, Russell Road, Moseley, B12 9QH (blue plaque on lodge house)
10. Dorothy WIlson, Cath O’Flynn and others: worked at > mac, Cannon Hill Park, B12 9QH
11. Jane Bunford> lived near/plaque: Bartley Green Library, Adams Hill, B32 3QG

New Year’s Honours 2011

It’s time for the annual trawl through the pdf which is the New Year’s Honours List.  It really is quite an inaccessible document – a 98 page pdf without an index or contents page, I guess it’s nice to work from an original source for a change.  Anyway, the format of the announcement is pretty irrelevant.  The point here is that these announcements offer a moment in time for us to reflect more formally on the contributions made by our people.

So what of the Women in Brum this year?  On the face of it (I have been known to miss some brummies) only 8 awards attribtued to the people of Birmingham, of which 5 went to women.

Again, I am proud to say I count one as a personal friend.  Congratulations to Dorothy Wilson.  The work on the mac refurbishment has been a very long endurance test for Dorothy and her numerous colleagues over a large number of years.  When I was General Manager at mac in the late 1990s it was already a huge part of Dorothy’s work.  These impressive and major projects really do take time to prepare and plan.  It is a real pleasure to see Dorothy recognised not only for that fantastic project, but her significant contributions to the arts over a number of years.

Miss Norma BLAINE MBE

For services to Athletics

Mrs Jill EDGINGTON MBE

Leader, International Wives’ Group. For voluntary service to International Students.

Mrs Lesley Meriel FRANKLIN MBE

Leader, Stonehouse Gang Youth Group. For services to Young People in Weoley Castle, Birmingham.

Mrs Jeanette HART MBE

For services to the community in North Birmingham.

Ms Dorothy WILSON MBE

Artistic Director and Chief Executive, Midlands Arts Centre. For services to the Arts.

So there they are, a fine array of generous people who make commitments to others way beyond the call of duty.  At least a couple with no presence on the internet (prior to these awards and this article):  a cautionary reminder to those of us who struggle to get by without wifi – there really is plenty to be done without the internet!

Here is the full list I explored to find these people…

So finally, thank you to all of you for your contributons to our community and congratulations on your award.

Alice Beale 1845~1940

Alice Beale is perhaps best known as the first President of the Birmingham Settlement from 1899 to 1924, a charity ‘originally providing support to women and families in the seriously deprived area of St Mary’s, now known as Newtown‘.

She had associations with the Birmingham Women’s Hospital for 63 years and proposed the introduction of women Health Visitors.

I’m struggling to find out much more about Alice, though the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery do have a beautiful brooch/necklace she owned whilst Lady Mayoress.  I have also gleaned from the National Archives website,  that her husband, Charles Beale was Lord Mayor on four occasions, including three successive terms from 1897~1900.  In addition to his political career, he was in legal practice with their two sons.  No mention of any daughters – which of course doesn’t mean there weren’t any!

How different would life have been for the women of Birmingham without these kind of women.  And I wonder, if they had been alive today, in a society more equal for women, what they could have achieved.

Others enthuse about philanthropists

I was delighted a wee while back to find this great piece about Birmingham’s women philanthropists on the Birmingham Disability Resource Centre’s website. I’m not sure when it was written, but the author was clearly on the same page as me in terms of seeking to recognise and champion the role of women in Birmingham.  They were clearly also drawn to the Philanthropists over the years.  Well worth a read.