WOW
Women of Winchester
In the later nineteenth century Winchester was the base for a number of significant women philanthropists and activists. The WOW project seeks to make the stories of these Winchester locals better known. The project begins with a series of articles written collaboratively by Sue and her colleagues Ellie Simpson and Catherine Holloway in the Hampshire Chronicle that focus on-
Laura Ridding - Suffragist and founder of the National Union of Women Workers
Mary Sumner- founder of the Mothers’ Union
Josephine Butler- feminist, campaigner for women’s suffrage and abolition of sex trafficking
Ellen Joyce- organiser of women’s emigration, founder of British Women’s Emigration Association
Charlotte Moberly- academic, first principal of St Hugh’s College Oxford and self-confessed ‘time traveller’
Charlotte Yonge- a novelist, whose many books promoted the church and showed her interest in philanthropy and girls’ education.
The articles coincide with Sue’s Women’s History walks as part of Heritage Open Days Programme
Winchester Women’s History Walk — Winchester Heritage Open Days
Walking Women’s History
Places are a palimpsest a manuscript scrubbed out and rewritten – a particular problem for women who lack visibility in urban landscapes. The impulse to make memories and honour the past is evident in a vibrant culture of women’s history walks that demonstrate an appetite for engagement with place and the links between our stories and the stories of those before us.
The act of walking has associations with endeavour, quest, pilgrimage and reverence .It is an act of involvement both physical and mental – intellectual, emotional and political- actively makes memory and identity.
Walking together is sociable, and engenders communion and community.
Walking is at the right pace for observation looking again at the commonplace or overlooked. Walking is literally grounded and takes account of those on the street and the physical rhythm is conducive to reflection. Walking Women’s History is the result of my personal enjoyment of walking, a long term association with this particular location and the serendipitous catalyst of ‘how about doing a women’s walk leaflet’ back in 2007 for the WHN conference ‘Collecting Women’s Lives’. At the time I had no idea how the women’s history walk would become embedded in my teaching and research.
In my walks I hope to recall women of distinction in Winchester (not all of whom qualify as feminist heroines) and also to mark the lives of those whose voices are even more elusive. There are many more stories to unearth.
