English Heritage - Research

Women who made History

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk

Ada Lovelace

(1815 - 1852)

Ada, Countess of Lovelace, was a mathematician and computing pioneer. She has been called the world’s first computer programmer because of her work on the analytical engine developed by Charles Babbage, arguably the inventor of the computer.

Dido Elizabeth Belle

(1761 - 1804)

A mixed-race woman, Dido Belle was raised as part of an aristocratic family in Georgian Britain at the height of the transatlantic slave trade.

Emmeline Pankhurst

(1858 - 1928)

Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel led the militant campaign for women’s right to vote in the early 20th century. During the First World War, they both lived at 50 Clarendon Road in Holland Park, where Emmeline also cared for her adopted ‘war babies’.

Margaret Brotherton

(1320 - 1399)

Margaret Brotherton was a wealthy and influential noblewoman, whose business acumen, as well as a series of untimely deaths, made her one of the richest women in England.

Sister Nivedita

(1867 - 1911)

Sister Nivedita is one of the most influential female figures in Indian history. In addition to campaigning for Indian independence, she worked tirelessly in education reform and joined Swami Vivekananda in promoting the Hindu philosophical movement Vedanta in London. Nivedita is commemorated with a blue plaque at 21A High Street in Wimbledon, where she and Vivekananda stayed with her mother and sister in 1899.