Electrical engineer and suffragist. Born Phoebe Sarah Marks in Portsmouth. Aged 16 began teaching in London. Studied maths at Girton College Cambridge. Married William Ayrton in 1885. Elected a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1899 and was the only woman member until 1958 (shame on them). In 1902 she was proposed for the Royal Society but this was blocked because a married woman had no standing in law and so was ineligible. Not surprisingly Hertha supported the militant suffragists and marched in all the suffrage protests, in academic gown, which, of course, she was not entitled to wear. Mrs Pankhurst and other hunger strikers were nursed in her home and Hertha declared herself "proud" when her daughter Barbara was imprisoned. Barbara went on to become an MP and to produce Michael Ayrton, the artist. Hertha died in Sussex.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Hertha Ayrton
Commemorated ati
Hertha Ayrton
Hertha Ayrton, 1854 - 1923, physicist, lived here, 1903 - 1923. English Herit...
Other Subjects
Frances Power Cobbe
Irish social reformer and suffragist. Writer, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist and leading women's suffrage campaigner. She founded a number of animal advocacy groups, including the Nati...
Teresa Billington-Greig
School teacher and one of the first paid members of the Women's Social and Political Union. She left the WSPU - as she considered the leadership too autocratic, and helped create the Women's Freed...
OutRage!
From the picture source website: "OutRage! is the world's longest surviving queer rights direct action group. Our witty, imaginative, daring, and irreverent style of non-violent civil disobedience...
Matchgirls' strike
A strike of the women and teenage girls working at the Bryant and May Factory. Annie Besant had published an article about the poor working conditions at the factory, 'White Slavery in London'. Thi...
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett
Intellectual, political leader, activist and writer. Born Suffolk and brought up at Snape where her family owned the maltings. Pioneer of the women's suffrage movement but she advocated a non-viole...
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St Mary's trompe l'oeil - Hamilton
W2, St Mary's Square, Blossom Lower School
Emma lived in Greville's house on Paddington Green and it was here she met her future husband, Hamilton.
Clara Butt
NW3, Harley Road, 7
Butt lived here with her husband, the singer Robert Rumford, and their children.
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