Who are Norfolk’s most inspirational women? Have your say

EDP Sunday Feature .. Anna Sewell.Copy: Rachel BanhamDate: 05/03/2004Picture: Suplied

The Norfolk Women in History Timeline is a project designed to encourage people to find out more about some of the well-known and not-so-well-known women who have links to the county.

PeopleAntionette Hannent.Antoinette Carrara, she was known as Black Anna the singing landlady at the Jolly Butcher's on Ber Street, Norwich. In 1935, Jack and Anna Hannant took over, and she went on to be mine host for more than 40 years . She sang the Ber Street Blues to a packed pub when the Americans arrived during the Second World War and during the 1950s and 60s. (she died in 1976). Today the public house is closed, it is now (2004) Norfolk and Norwich Families' House, but the yard has survived. The Jolly Butcher's also known as the Three Butchers at one time, opened as a Bullard pub in 1806.Dated November 1967Photograph C9196Diary negative number M6533-39

Featuring the biographies of women spanning almost 2,000 years of Norfolk history, the project has been developed by the Norfolk Record Office, Norfolk County Council's Library and Information Service and Norfolk Museum Service.

And the project wants your help to identify the women who have played a role in the history of Norfolk and deserve their place in the online hall of fame.

Norfolk women have made remarkable contributions to both the county and the country, from the first woman to write a book in English to the author of the first autobiography in English, a pioneering campaigner for penal reform to England's first female mayoress and a fundraiser for what was only the second children's hospital in the country to a woman who fought homophobia before the law was on her side.

Every woman recorded by researchers for the project left her mark on Norfolk in some manner, be it for her warring spirit, her meticulous diary keeping, her wrongful execution for witchcraft, her long-serving duty as a midwife or her contribution to the arts.

There are campaigners, visionaries, artists, poets, feminists, performers, politicians, pacifists, activists, jazz singers, diarists, cooks, war heroines, songwriters and a joint majority shareholder at a Premier League football club (no prizes for guessing the name of this formidable female).

While some names on the list will be instantly recognisable, others mark the impact that women with less widespread acclaim have made on the county.

There's Phoebe Crew, born in 1740, who – by the time of her death in 1840 – had brought into the world 9,730 children during 40 years of midwifery and Sarah Dexter, who died in 1755 leaving a generous bequest to the poor of King's Lynn.

Margery Kempe from King's Lynn was a visionary and author of the earliest surviving autobiography in English while Amelia Opie promoted a refuge for reformed prostitutes in the mid 1800s.

Sarah Anna Glover invented a way to learn how to sing which is still used across the world and the harmonicon, an instrument designed to help her teach her Sol-fa system, Anna Gurney became the first female member of the British Archaeological Society in 1845 and took a great interest in the emancipation of slaves and in the education and welfare of poor children.

Some women on the list lived extraordinary lives but have never before been listed among the great and good, such as Jenny Lind, Elizabeth Fry and Anna Sewell.

Benanna Summers, who was born in 1825 and died in 1884, is mentioned for her dogged determination to raise her young family and manage her farm single-handedly – she went on to become a grocer and a laundress.

Frances 'Fanny' Bridgman was a blacksmith's daughter who married in 1854 and had nine children.

When Fanny's husband Daniel went bankrupt in 1865 and she later received an inheritance in 1881, she sued her solicitor after discovering he had kept back £2,000 of her windfall to pay some of her husband's debts.

At a time when married women had only recently begun to obtain rights to property and money through the various Married Women's Property Acts of the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, a farmer's wife from Norfolk was standing up for her rights in a London courtroom.

Then there are the stories of Ethel Colman, England's first female mayoress, Kitty Higdon who ran the infamous Burston Strike School and Hilda Ziglomala who worked with disabled servicemen.

Other stories are less groundbreaking but no less fascinating: Sarah Rudling was married, but in the Wymondham Baptism Record for her daughter Mary, the records state she was co-habiting with another man: a very unconventional set-up for the era.

There are biographies for butterfly-collector Margaret Fountaine (1862-1940), Suffragette and hunger striker Violet Aitken (1886-1987), jazz singer, landlady and gay rights supporter Antoniette Hannent – or Black Anna – (1905-1976) and D-Day telephone exchange manager Ena Howes, who was born in 1919.

Then there are honorary mentions for women who weren't born or raised in the county, but whose time in Norfolk helped to shape their lives: Marietta Pallis, an ecologist, painter and author, Virginia Woolf, whose time in the county inspired her short story The Journal of Miss Joan Martyn and Agatha Christie, who spent her summer holidays in North Walsham.

Barry Stone, cabinet member for cultural services at Norfolk County Council, said: 'It's wonderful to gather so many inspirational women together in one place – we often tend to neglect inspirational people in favour of pop stars or celebrities but they play a vital role in communities and directly inspire people, particularly young people.

'The project is part of a rolling programme of education we provide and it's a great platform for women whose names we perhaps haven't heard before or for women who played a role in the history of Norfolk but whose stories have never been told.

'It would be fantastic if people would come forward and nominate other inspirational women from Norfolk's history and we could find more unsung heroines and stories that haven't been told before.

'We're hoping to find lots more exciting women who have contributed to Norfolk life and to celebrate what they've done for our county.'

stacia.briggs@archant.co.uk

To find out more about the Norfolk Women in History Timeline, visit the website at www.norfolkwomeninhistory.com

To make a suggestion for someone you think should be included on the timeline, email norfrec'Norfolk.gov.uk or call 01603 222599.

You can also get in touch with suggestions via the Norfolk Record Office Twitter account (@NorfolkRO) or on the record office Facebook page, www.facebook.com/norfolkrecordoffice