Great British women

[chirpychirpy]

I can think of many great British men, like Churchill, Brunel, Logie Baird, Charles Darwin, Shakespeare, Faraday, Cliff (!), The Beatles, Lloyd Webber, Richard Branson, etc, but very few great British women except Florence Nightingale, Maggie Thatcher and a few 60s singers. Please can you suggest some great British women.

[paddywak]

Mary Seacole, a nurse in the Crimean war whose work and reputation was equal, and according to some sources better, then Florence Nightingale. A great unsung heroine who was virtually ignored by history until fairly recently mainly due to the fact that she was black

[emmie]

paddywak, good call, fascinating woman, and as you said largely ignored until recent days.

[paddywak]

em, I'd never heard of her until 5 years ago when I decided to do a history A level and ended up doing it with a group of sixth formers at the local school one of the modules was about the role of women in the early part of the 20c. This lead to endless arguments between the sixth formers, 4 girls and 2 boys, about the various ways women had been treated through out history and I must admit I never enjoyed my school time as much as I did those 2 years.

[Mosaic]

Elizabeth Fry - lobbied for humane treatment of female and child prisoners and for prison education.
Miss Beale and Miss Buss for championing the rights of girls to have formal academic school education, and Elizabeth Garret Anderson for pioneering women's right to be awarded degrees.

[EvianBaby]

Em, you've made many good contributions but I'm not sure Duffy should really be in the list.

[emmie]

mosiac, some of those have been covered, but not heard of Miss Beale or Miss Bus, will have to do a bit or searching...

[Mosaic]

Dorothea Beale and Frances Buss, suffragists.

[emmie]

thank you, will have a look

[boxtops]

There's me, and there's ttfn....

[emmie]

evian, perhaps you are right, but let's consider the question, and see the examples they include people like cliff richard, who is a singer of longevity, but i don't like him, so should he be in, some might say yes, some no

[paddywak]

Mary Wollstonecroft, a great campaigner for women's rights arguing basically that the only difference between men and women was that, at the time, women were not in general allowed a decent education and so could not reach their full potential.

[emmie]

and her daughter Mary Shelley, novelist, not least for writing one of the best gothic novels of all time Frankenstein

[paddywak]

I'm off for a couple of beers, but I'll check in later as I've found this a very interesting thread. I'm not sure if she's all ready been mentioned but if she hasn't Amy Johnson deserves to be in any list of Great British women.

[emmie]

paddyw, i did mentioned amy johnson some time back.

[ricky2525]

Queen Elizabeth I and II

[jd_here]

Only one mention for Thatcher and queen mother.......thankfully. Dreadful women!

[emmie]

no they weren't, both contributed to Britain in their own way, the queen mother by being a steadfast wifem consort to a troubled king, who didn't want the job, Mrs T was a great PM, when the country was known as the sick man of europe, she managed what others had not, which was to get the economy back on track, but like so many politicians outstayed her welcome.
Her role, contribution will always be divisive.

[douglas9401]

Well, it's an opinion.

[atalanta]

Actually the first woman entitled to sit in Parliament was probably the Abbess of Barking, in the 10th century or earlier. The great abbesses of the pre-conquest nunneries were called the "Ladies Spiritual" and were expected to sit in Parliament. That was when the parliament of the English was only called by the King to agree taxes for things like wars, but still the Abbesses were "Ladies" ( i.e. aristocracy) where Parliament was concerned, together with the Barons, Bishops and Abbots.

[ttfn]

Hmmmm, depends how one defines 'great'. I assume there is a tacit reference to 'celebrated/famous' in the OP. Rather than concentrate on the comparatively few publicised 'Great' females I would prefer to think of the unsung people who make magnificent efforts every day of their lives. Shall we start with the NHS, for example, or mums working hard 24/7, or women who struggle every day? Male or female I take my hat off to everyone who can survive these days, most of whom make this place a better one for other people.