Story Category: Legacy

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

The current lock down has dramatically decreased our freedom and confined many of us to home for most of the day. One thing it is currently impossible to do is visit museums, so many are now creating virtual content to keep our visitors engaged with their subject areas.

For a Natural History Museum, such as the Booth, it is an opportunity to encourage us all to observe the natural world in life rather than in death. While a lot of species are difficult to observe without specialist equipment, there are many animals that live right under our noses. Some are so common we simply ignore them, and others are too small to notice without pausing to look.

To encourage you to look at what’s in your garden, in the park (if you’re exercising at an appropriate distance from others), or even the view from the window of your flat, we’ll publish a series of blogs in the Nature at Home category about how you might look at these species in slightly more detail than you may have done when there were more distractions.

Equipment

This first blog discusses the equipment that you might find useful. It ranges from very cheap to more expensive. Some equipment may already be in your home, whereas the more expensive equipment is suitable if you’d like to learn new skills or take your observations to the next level.

For plants and many animals in the garden, especially larger insects and common birds, no equipment is required. However, if you have a pair of binoculars in the back of the cupboard it might be worth digging them out.

As many of the lifeforms and their features will be small, a method of magnification is worthwhile. Many of us have magnifying glasses at home, but if you have a smartphone this can also be a good way to see some of the smaller details. Perfect for sharing your more unusual finds on social media too! Photographs are also the best way to identify many things as it allows you to study the features of the animal or plant.

Identification guides are widely available online (some links at the end) and you may already have printed guides on your bookshelf. If you aren’t able to identify it, there are several useful sites to ask the wider community for help (again some links at the end).

For larger animals, especially birds (or mammals if you’re lucky enough to have them visiting your garden) binoculars are best. If you are keen on photography, a zoom lens will allow you to get good shots. This can be especially useful when the bird is just a bit too far away for you to see details with just the naked eye. If you have a bird feeder or even a flat surface to put out bird seed or nuts, you can focus your camera on that position in readiness for any visitors.

Some of the equipment used to take the photos illustrating the blog are pictured below. If you are keen to capture more images of the creatures in your garden, as practice before you head into the wider countryside after the lockdown ends, the equipment can all be purchased online, from a number of popular retailers.

Whilst it is often nice to just observe the visitors or resident life in your garden or urban environment, sometimes you may wish to record these observations more formally. Notepads are the easiest and most low-tech way to do this, or you can use apps on your phone, such as iNaturalist (which even tries to identify what you’ve seen for you!)

Bird Spotters Notebook

The upcoming blogs will focus on different organisms to discover in your home, garden or park. You may have only glanced at them before, but we’ll be looking closely at the overlooked or unusual animals living there. Magnification can bring a whole new world to your attention too, making tiny creatures much more fascinating.

Equipment reference sheet:

• Photography:

Beginner: smartphone – a clip-on magnifier can help with close-up shots. Or a compact camera if you don’t have a good phone camera.

Intermediate: Olympus Tough camera – This specific point and shoot camera is highly recommended as it has a built-in macro lens for extra close-up capability. It is also waterproof!

DSLR Camera – best for enthusiasts/those looking to move into more serious photography. A 300mm zoom lens is a good (and relatively affordable) lens for getting closer pictures of garden birds.

• Observation:

Your eyes – this is the best way to a start, just paying attention to movement may treat you to behaviour you may not have observed before in common birds.

Binoculars: Cheap ones will do, but if you can afford it, higher quality binoculars will make observation of birds easier and more comfortable.

Magnifiers: A simple magnifying glass will work. Hand lenses can give better magnification but can be tricky to use. You can also get attachments for smartphones which give you the advantage of being able to capture the image.

• Identification and recording:

Notebooks, diaries or observation sheets/books. Alternatively, you can use digital versions such as google docs/notepad etc.

Identification guides. You might already own printed books or sheets. Alternatively, there are good online resources for these too.

Some suggestions are:

Birds: Eco Kids Planet Handy Guide to the UK’s Top 10 Garden Birds and RSPB Identify a Bird

Insects: Wild About Gardens Wild Bee Action Pack

Butterflies and Moths: Cross-Pollination Butterfly and Moth ID Guide

Some other Insects: Cross-Pollination Flies and Other Insects ID Guide

Plants: Trees: Woodlands Guide to British Trees

Wildflowers: Waitrose Garden Spring Flowers / Spring Wild Flower Guide

Fungi: Wild Food UK Mushroom Guide – Eating wild mushrooms are AT YOUR OWN RISK and we would not recommend it! Woodland Trust Types of mushroom in the UK: common identification guide.

Look out for the next post in the Nature at Home series when we’ll look at observing bird and mammal visitors to your garden.

All photos (unless stated) (c) Lee Ismail

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences and Kerrie Curzon, Collections Assistant

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Thanks to all those that came to the February half term creative workshops. We had such a lovely time that I thought I’d share the children’s work.

If you came – see if you can spot your artwork below. If you didn’t – here’s a taste of what happened. Our theme was inspired by the Cultural Icons exhibition.

The children used a wide range of art and craft materials to create their own characters in these popular workshops that were run by Nadya Derungs.

Wooden Spoons transformed (Photo by Alice Gough)

Working together to create designs (Photo by Alice Gough)

A Happy Face! (Photo by Alice Gough)

Two characters that cleverly stand up on their own – are they twins? (Photo by Alice Gough)

Hair and dress colour beautifully coordinated
(Photo by Alice Gough)

At these events we collected children’s views to find out what they have enjoyed and what they would like to do in the future at the museum. Thank you to the fifty-five children (aged 3-12) and their parents – your views will help us plan future events.

Smiley faces everywhere for these events!

Towards the end of half term, local potter Adam Campbell ran a clay mask-making workshop at the museum. Children and their parents had a relaxing morning of creativity – here’s what was made…

Arrrh! – it’s a pirate! (Photo by Louise Dennis)

The artist fashions roses from clay to put on her piece ‘Noahs Ark’
She has made a dove too – can you see it? (Photo by Louise Dennis)

A beautiful cat in clay (Photo by Louise Dennis)

Do you recognise ‘Toothless’ – from the film ‘How to Train your Dragon’? (Photo by Louise Dennis)

Can you see who this Marvel hero is? (Photo by Louise Dennis)

Children’s craft events are held throughout the year and we hope to see you soon for another great day.

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Today we celebrate much loved Henfield resident actress and women’s equality activist, Elizabeth Robins (1862 – 1952).

Elizabeth Robins by W&D Downey, c.1890s

Born far from Sussex, in Kentucky, USA, she was an actress who, after the shock of her husband’s suicide, decided to give England a try.  Arriving in London in 1888, she quickly became a fan of Ibsen and found fame playing Hedda Garbler.  With theatrical friends including George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, Robins went into theatre management with Marion Lea and together they brought plays to the stage which showcased strong female characters and plots that were relevant to contemporary women.  In 1894 she began a long and successful writing career, sometimes under the pseudonym C. E. Raimond.  Her first novel under her own name, ‘Magnetic North’ (1904) was inspired by her own intrepid trip to Alaska to search for her brother who had gone missing.  In 1907 her play ‘Votes for Women’  was the first successful attempt to dramatise the street politics of women’s fight for the vote.  It was so successful it was performed all over the country and led to a flurry of similar pro suffrage plays appearing on stage, introducing the idea of votes for women to people who were not necessarily aware or supportive of the cause.

Becoming more galvanised by the suffrage movement, Robins joined both the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and the Women’s Social and Political Union, although she subsequently broke with the latter when their activities started to become more militant.  Her best tools to rally support were her skills as a writer and public speaker and she never hesitated to speak to meetings up and down the country or write articles and pamphlets. In 1908 she joined the Women Writers Suffrage League and the Actresses’ Franchize League.

Play by Elizabeth Robins

By 1908 she had fallen in love with Sussex and started living in a rambling 15^th century property on the outskirts of Henfield called ‘Backsettown’.  She was to spend over 30 years in Henfield, even, in 1917, becoming a founding member of the village’s Women’s Institute.  Like many feminists she saw the 1911 census as an opportunity to make a point, and spoiled her from, writing ‘the occupier of this house will be ready to give the desired information, the moment the government recognizes women as responsible citizens’ on it.  Around the same time as her move to Henfield Robins was introduced to the young Petworth-born, Octavia Wilberforce.  A young woman from a wealthy background who had alienated her family and become disinherited by breaking off her engagement to an earl’s son to study medicine, Robins took her under her wing and helped to support her studies.  Following the government’s cruel ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ of 1913, which sought to undermine the political impact of hunger-striking suffragettes by releasing them from prison for enough time to recover their health before returning to serve their sentence, Robins and Wilberforce set up Backsettown as a recuperation home.  It’s said today that quite a few Suffragettes found a hiding place there too.  From 1927, the house was to be run, under the helm of Wilberforce, as a convalescent home for professional women.  Today Backsettown is a private house.

The tireless Robins was also to play an important part in the setting up and running of women’s hospitals in nearby Brighton.  Working in particular with Dr Louisa Martindale, Brighton’s first GP and founder of the New Sussex Hospital for Women, Robins played a key role in the management commitees of the hospitals and, using her great writing skills and show business contacts, was an effective fundraiser of both the Lady Chichester Hospital and the New Sussex, allowing them to bring accessible healthcare to all women in the area.

Elizabeth Robins by W&D Downey, c.1890s

Elizabeth Robins was an extraordinarily versatile woman who freely used her talents to help fight for a more equal world for women. Not only in Henfield is she rightly remembered by local people but also in Brighton where the Brighton & Hove Women’s History Group have been fundraising for a blue plaque to be erected in honour of both her and Dr Octavia Wilberforce at 24 Montpelier Crescent, where Dr Wilberforce practised and the two women lived.

Written by social historian Louise Peskett

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Margaret Grace Bondfield, 1873-1953, c. 1917

One of the most recent blue plaques to appear in Brighton & Hove honours Margaret Bondfield, who in 1929 became Britain’s first female cabinet member.  Although her birthplace was in Somerset, it was in Hove where Margaret became politicised and formed the views that would shape her political career.

Bondfield was fourteen when she arrived in Hove to serve an apprenticeship in a Mrs White’s drapers shop in Church Road.  Although she, herself, was relatively well looked after while serving her apprenticeship, she couldn’t help noticing that female apprentices elsewhere endured poor wages, miserable living conditions and no opportunities to change things.  Most ‘shop girls’ at the time worked in the ‘living-in’ system which forced them to live on the shop premises at the beck and call of the owners, with poor food, low wages, no freedom, and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  The teenage Bondfield became friends with Louisa Martindale (mother of Brighton’s first female GP, Dr Louisa Martindale), a woman who believed in equality for women and the relationship helped Bondfield’s sense of injustice at the shop girl’s lot solidify into a strong conviction that things could – and should – change, and a commitment to be part of the process.

Moving to London in 1894 it didn’t take Bondfield long to put her ideas into practice. In a few years, due to her hard work and fearlessness to swim against the tide, she was considered the leading authority on shop workers, the assistant secretary to Shop Assistants Union District Council, investigating pay and conditions and regularly reporting her findings to Parliamentary Committees.  In the early years of the 20th century, she was at the forefront of attempts to improve working women’s lives, co-founding the first trade union for women, advising the Liberal Government on improving maternity benefits, and militating for improvements to child welfare, reduction in infant mortality rates and minimum wage laws. She was also chair of the Adult Suffrage Society, believing that suffrage should be extended to all adults regardless of gender or property. In 1923, the same year she became secretary to the TUC General Council – and on her third attempt – Bondfield was elected Labour MP for Northampton.  Although she lost her seat the following year, she won again for Wallsend and in 1926 served in Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s government.  From 1929 to 1931 she made history when she was made Minister for Labour, Britain’s first Cabinet Minister.

She fell from popularity when, against the backdrop of the Depression, she supported government policy to cut unemployment benefit for some married women.  An unpopular policy with voters, Bondfield lost her seat in 1931. Bondfield remained active in the National Union of General and Municipal Workers until 1938.

Margaret Bondfield achieved an incredible amount during a short period of time, fighting for – and usually gaining – improvements in working conditions, living standards, and overall equality. Any woman today who has ever had a job owes her a debt of gratitude.

The blue plaque in Church Road, Hove, celebrating Margaret Bondfield

The blue plaque for Margaret Bondfield now stands on the premises of the former drapers shop where she worked as an apprentice – today a Nisa convenience store in New Church Road.  It was unveiled by Labour MP for Hove, Peter Kyle who researched Margaret’s life in Hove, and campaigned for the plaque alongside the Brighton Women’s History Group and the Commemorative Plaque Panel.  He was accompanied at the plaque unveiling by Rachel Reeves MP who included Margaret in her book The Women of Westminster.

Written by social historian Louise Peskett.

The Rt. Hon. Nicola Sturgeon MSP from the series 100 First Women Portaits by Anita Corbin

Women are still breaking new ground in the political arena today. The current exhibition, 100 First Women Portraits, by Anita Corbin, features Rt. Hon. Nicola Sturgeon MSP, who was the first woman to be First Minister for Scotland. She has held that role since 2014. She was also the first female leader of the Scottish National Party.

It also features Rt Hon.the Baroness Helene Hayman GBE PC who changed history when she became the first elected Lord Speaker in the House of Lords in 2006. She had previously been the youngest member of the House of Commons and the first woman to bring her new baby into Parliament when refused maternity leave.

The Rt. Hon. the Baroness Helene Hayman from the series 100 First Women Portaits by Anita Corbin

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Mary Hare

Mary Hare was a trailblazer in many different ways. Not only was she one of Britain’s first ‘police women’, she was also a pioneering teacher of deaf children, and a passionate suffragette determined to change women’s lives for the better.

When the Brighton Gazette quoted Mary Hare announcing that the Suffragettes were poised to ‘rouse Brighton’ at a meeting in 1908, it must have sent a chill through many of their readers’ veins. Although an early member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), she had joined the breakaway group of women disenchanted with the Pankhurst leadership, the Women’s Freedom League in 1907 and become secretary. Speeches and quotations from meetings she chaired regularly making the newspapers of the day.

It wasn’t only in women’s suffrage that Mary Hare was determined to break new ground.  Arriving in Hove from London in 1895 at the age of 29 and settling in St Michael’s Place, Hare was also a pioneering teacher of deaf children, and had already run a small school for deaf and dumb children from her mother’s house in London.  At the time, many children born with hearing or speech impediments would be considered mentally disabled and ruled out of the chance of an education, frequently ending up in the local asylum.  Teaching ‘oralism’ – lip reading, mimicking lip movements and speech, Mary Hare found that deaf and dumb children were as apt as any other to learning, and worked towards stopping their exclusion from education and society in general.

In Brighton and Hove Mary Hare became a pivotal figure in societies which promoted women’s equality.  President of Brighton Women’s Co-operative Guild, in the 1911 census, she became notorious for being one of the women who spoiled her form by scribbling ‘women do not count therefore we will not be counted’ on it. In early 1915, with the war a few months in, Mary Hare decided that Brighton needed an all-female police force to support the work of the men.  Very much without the blessing of the local constabulary, she set up a group of women to do just this, the Women Police Volunteers.   In April 1915, the wonderfully named Chief Constable Gentle of the Brighton Police informed the Brighton and Hove and South Sussex Graphic that he ‘disapproves entirely’ of Hare’s efforts to police the town.   There was already a body of women set up to do this, he explained to the Graphic, the officially sanctioned ‘Women Police Patrols’, a group of ‘ladies of position in the town’ and they were quite happily operating within the guidelines set down for them by the male police.  Understandably the local press were in a froth of excitement with the prospect of not one but two groups of Brighton’s young ladies dabbling with law enforcement and many newspapers had fun explaining the duties and conflict between the official body and Mary Hare’s rogue force.

Mary Hare and her team of police volunteers on front page of the Brighton and Hove and South Sussex Graphic, , 3 April 1915

The duties of the official Women Police Patrols, according to the article in The Graphic, was solely ‘to give proper advice to young girls in the town, and to establish clubs if possible, for their social benefit.’  People would not have had to read too far between the lines to know that this was a ploy to combat the phenomenon of ‘khaki fever’, the name given to the result, many feared, of the mixture of unattached women, soldiers in khaki uniforms and the heady atmosphere of war.   The Women Police Patrols, organised by the National Union of Women Workers, would help keep at bay this potential cocktail of depravity and loose morals, with the ‘clubs’ they meant to set up giving girls with time on their hands opportunities to enjoy activities of a more wholesome nature than hanging around the streets waiting to be seduced by a handsome soldier.  While agreeing that the women and children of the town were vulnerable at this time in history, Mary Hare had more far-reaching plans for her Women Police Volunteers.  They would help people in general, she explained to The Graphic, and ‘bring about general improvements.’  Although they didn’t have official certificates, a room in the Town Hall and perhaps weren’t even ‘ladies of position’ in the town like the official Women Police Patrols, Mary Hare’s Police Volunteers were organised to a military degree.  They all followed training in drill, signalling, first aid, self-defence, procedure and rules of evidence in police courts.  They spent their time supporting women and children, whether witnesses or prisoners in the intimidating environs of police courts, and patrolling lonely areas.

Rather than merely wearing a genteel armband like the Women Police Patrol, Mary Hare’s force wore a full-on uniform, not dissimilar to the male police, of dark blue suit and bowler hat. Mary Hare herself was described by an amused local as looking ‘particularly smart in her uniform and bowler hat’.  The authorities persisted in failing to be charmed, however, and despite Chief Constable Gentle’s orders to cease, the Women Police Volunteers continued.  ‘We are out to do good work in Brighton, and we have had unsolicited testimonials to the effect that we have done good,’ Mary Hare reasoned simply.

Mary Hare went on to live in Goldsmith Road and then San Remo on Hove’s seafront.  In 1916, at the same time as running her Women Police Volunteers, she founded the Dene Hollow Oral School for the Deaf in Burgess Hill.  Following Mary Hare’s death in 1945, the school renamed itself in her honour and in 1949 moved to Newbury, Berkshire. The Mary Hare School in Newbury, Berkshire is now the largest school for the deaf in the UK. It teaches children from Year 1 to 13 and continues to fulfil Mary Hare’s vision for auditory/oral education.  In her will Mary Hare wrote ‘my efforts on behalf of the Deaf have been my greatest joy in life.’

Written by social historian, Louise Peskett. Part of our 100 Pioneering Women of Sussex blog series.

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Odaline de la Martinez in front of her photo from 100 First Women Portraits by Anita Corbin

It’s a special combination when a pioneering woman in her own right does a talk about another trailblazing woman. Yesterday’s Bitesize talk at Brighton Museum saw Shoreham-by-Sea based Odaline de la Martinez, the first woman to conduct a BBC Prom, explore the life and music of composer and Suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth.

Odaline (b.1949) is part of the current exhibition, 100 First Women Portraits, by photographer Anita Corbin. Composer, conductor and a graduate in maths and music, Odaline was the first woman, in 1984, to conduct a Prom in 89 seasons of the BBC Promenade Concerts, since it’s inception in 1895. This world famous music festival is now watched and listened to by an estimated 15 million viewers in the UK. She has since appeared at the Proms regularly and did a special performance in 1994 of Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera, The Wreckers.

Odaline is Cuban-American. She studied at Tulane University, New Orleans and the Royal Academy of Music where she studied composition and piano. In 1976 she founded the Ensemble Lontano. Since then Odaline has received numerous awards, including 2015 Winner Opera America Award for Female Composers, the Villa-Lobos medal given by the Brazilian government in recognition promoting and conducting his music. In April 2015 Martinez received an award from Opera America, toward the production of a video based on her second opera Imoinda. In September 2016 Odaline received a Women Make Music grant from the PRS for Music Foundation toward the writing of her opera Plantation.

She has also dedicated much of her career to enabling other artists to gain opportunities. In 1992 she founded the record label, Lorelt, which concentrates on music neglected by many recording companies, contemporary composers, women composers and those from Latin America.

In 2006 together with Lontano she founded the London Festival of American Music to bring a broader spectrum of the best American and US-based contemporary composers to UK audiences. This festival is now celebrated biennially. Several major works have received their UK premieres there, including works by John Harbison, Marjorie Merryman, Daniel Asia, Peter Child, Chen Yi and Roberto Sierra.

Odaline is also trustee of The Mornington Trust, who has been responsible for community and educational work in Waltham Forest and other London boroughs since 2000.

Dame Ethel Smyth in 1922

Odaline says that one of the highlights of her career so far was conducting Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera, The Wreckers. She describes Dame Ethel as one of the most significant composers of the 20th Century. She composed a series of operas and from 1911 to 1913 was closely involved with the Suffragette movement. One of her compositions, The March of Women was adopted as the anthem to the Women’s Social and Political Union. In 1922 she was appointed D.B.E for Services to Music and in 1926 became the first female recipient of an honorary doctorate in Music from Oxford University.

Anita Corbin took Odaline’s portrait photograph in St Andrew’s Church, Hove in 2014. It is the only portrait that shows movement, with Odaline moving her arms as if conducting. It’s a vivacious and lively photograph which perfectly captures Odaline’s passion and love for music and sharing it with others.

Odaline de la Martinez and photographer Anita Corbin at the 100 First Women Portraits exhibition at Brighton Museum

From the series 100 First Women Portraits by Anita Corbin

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The Tawny Owl Strix aluco is the focus for the Booth Museum this month.

UK conservation status: Amber 

Tawny owls are woodland birds, their feather patterns offer good camouflage during the day when they roost in trees. You may catch a glimpse of them if they are mobbed and disturbed by small birds that feel threatened by the roosting owl. 

Their short wings allow tawny owls to manoeuvre while hunting in woodlands. They have a varied diet of mice, voles, lizards, bats, worms and slugs!

The tawny owl is absent from the island of Ireland and other islands around the British coasts, as they do not like flying over water.

Kerrie Curzon, Collections Assistant and Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences

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Catherine Cookson, courtesy Steve Peaks

Dame Catherine Cookson, DBE (1906 – 1998), the most popular and widely read British novelist of the twentieth century, had a life story good enough for the most outlandish of plots.  

Born the illegitimate daughter of an alcoholic barmaid in the most poverty stricken part of the North East of England, leaving school to work in domestic service and then as a laundry-hand in a workhouse, by 1990 Dame Catherine had managed to become one of Britain’s richest women and the country’s best loved author of over 100 works of fiction.  

​Born in East Jarrow, Dame Catherine is usually claimed as a North Easterner.  However she lived in Hastings for over 40 years and this is where she started her writing career, as a member of Hastings Writing Group.  

​After leaving school at thirteen and working as a maid, a cushion maker and a laundry sorter in a workhouse, Dame Catherine came first to Essex then, in 1929 to Hastings where she’d been offered a relatively well paid job managing the laundry in the Hastings workhouse.  Determined to improve her lot she saved hard and bought a house which she later opened as a lodging house.  In 1940 she married one of her lodgers, Tom Cookson, an Oxford graduate and Maths teacher at Hastings Grammar School.  It was only after sadly losing four babies die to a rare blood disorder and struggling to overcome depression that she joined the town’s writing group in the hope that putting pen to paper would be therapeutic.  

As a child Dame Catherine had been an avid reader and had even written a short story aged eleven, even though the local newspaper had declined to publish it.  Her first novel to be published, written with the writing group’s support was  ‘Kate Hannigan’ (1950).  Its tale of a working class girl’s struggles as she becomes pregnant with a rich man’s baby enjoyed modest success.  

It wasn’t until 1967, however, with ‘Katie Mulholland’ that Dame Catherine’s career took off.  Quickly pigeon-holed as a commercial writer of historical romances for women, Dame Catherine was rarely given serious approbation by critics but this didn’t hinder her growing faithful readership all over the world who were drawn to her strong women characters, born in deprived circumstances beset with obstacles to overcome.  Often based in the past with a romantic framework, Dame Catherine’s novels explored themes such as unemployment, poverty, and class tensions.  They were set amongst shipyards, mines, farms and in the rolling industrial and rural landscapes of the North East.  The characters, particularly the women, were unpretentious and had struggles on their hands that readers could relate to.  

Dame Catherine’s research was meticulous and she once even went down a coal mine so she could emphasize with a character who had to do the same.  It was a winning formula, and Dame Catherine’s success marched on unstoppably with a series of children’s books and magazine serials often written under the pseudonyms, Catherine Marchant and Kate McMullen.  

​Sadly Dame Catherine’s private life was often beset with poor health.  In 1976 – the same year that she was awarded an OBE – she and her husband moved to the North East, settling first in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and later to Langley, a small village in Northumberland.  A generous woman who was always aware of her poor start in life she used her considerable wealth to help others, donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to various charities, particularly those involved with medical research.  She died just a few days before her 92nd birthday, having made a great contribution to literature and giving countless hours of reading enjoyment to her fans across the world.  

​Dame Catherine’s legacy continues to inspire.  Between 1984 and 2000 she was the most borrowed author from British libraries.  Many of her works have been adapted to films, stage musicals and TV dramas.   Her foundation, the Catherine Cookson Trust continues to make donations to worthy causes in the UK, particularly those offering services to young people and cultural ventures.

​Last year, in a fitting commemoration, the annual Hastings Literary Festival announced an annual Catherine Cookson lecture to celebrate the voices of working class women writers.

World Book Day is celebrated every year on 5 March and is a celebration of books, authors, illustrators and most importantly, reading. It is marked in over 100 countries around the world and is on a mission to give every child and young person a book of their own.

​written by social historian, Louise Peskett 

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Martha Gunn,Brighton bather. Oil painting, British School, c1790

Visitors to Brighton Museum often find themselves stopping by the stairs in front of a portrait of an intriguing woman who looks as if she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.  Wearing a grey dress, a red bonnet and clutching a scrunched up cloth in her right hand, it looks as if she can’t wait for the painter to hurry and finish his portrait as she has work to do. This is Martha Gunn (1726-1815), one of the most famous women in Brighton’s history, and, arguably, one of the cleverest.  

Although born of a poor fishing family with no chance of an education, Martha had great entrepreneurial spirit and vigour.  When the sea-bathing craze hit the town in the middle of the eighteenth century, she set herself up as a ladies’ bathing attendant or ‘dipper’ and proceeded to help set the lacklustre poor fishing village of Brighthelmstone into a new, brilliant chapter.  

Martha Gunn’s gravestone with the inscription ‘Peculiarly distinguished as a bather in this town nearly 70 years’

According to Martha’s tombstone, set on appropriately high land just outside the historic St Nicholas Church, Martha was ‘particularly distinguished as a bather’.  In the museum portrait she looks perfectly capable of immersing women into the sea water as the bathing cure demanded, but Martha didn’t earn the nickname ‘Queen of the Dippers’ for nothing.  She had a plethora of other skills – a scientific knowledge of the sea and the weather, for example, and an ability to interpret Brighton beach’s temperamental waves that would ensure her clients were safe and didn’t slip, lose their balance, or worse.  She would have needed great sensitivity – good ‘customer service skills’ as we’d call it today – to make her client’s trust and like her.  That’s without the almost superhuman reserves of stamina needed to spend hours per day – her gravestone has her career lasting ‘nearly 70years’ –  in all weathers in the sea.  Local legend has eighteenth century ladies repeatedly demanding to be bathed by Martha, even queuing at her door to secure her services, so we know she was appreciated.

Mermaids at Brighton

 With her profits, Martha was able to buy a house for her family in Little East Street, together with a number of bathing machines which she ran as a business, creating employment for other locals.  Martha was so successful, her reputation went far and wide, attracting people to the town just to see her, making her a celebrity in today’s sense of the word.  A satirical print of 1796 ‘French Invasion or Brighton in a Bustle’ from a drawing by John Colley Nixon gives us a hint at the esteem in which Martha was held. It shows a group of unfortunate French soldiers attempting to invade England by Brighton beach and being robustly defeated by a gang of rowdy locals, Martha at the head, cheerfully waving one of the soldiers above her head with one hand while stepping on a second one.  

​Much more than a ‘bathing woman’, Martha played a pivotal role in Brighton’s transformation and road to becoming a successful city.  With her reputation as a great dipper, she helped to establish the small village of Brighthelmstone as a must-see place to visit by the first Georgian visitors who started to flock to the town, among them, George, Prince of Wales, the future Regent and King George IV.  Not only this, as a poor woman who ended up running a business, buying property and ended up in a picture, at least, staving off a French invasion, she’s truly a woman we should be proud of.

Martha Gunn

 Written by social historian Louise Peskett. Part of Brighton Museum’s 100 Pioneering Women of Sussex blog series, published to celebrate the current exhibition 100 First Women Portraits by Anita Corbin, on until 7 June. 

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Millie and Christine McKoy, undated, Charles Eisenmann, New York [Public domain]

Guest blogger Amy Zamarripa Solis continues the series of 100 Pioneering Women of Sussex with the little known story of African-American twins Millie and Christine McCoy, who spent time as performers in Brighton in the 1870s.

It was only by a stroke of luck that I recently learned about conjoined African-American twins, Millie and Christine McCoy, thanks to a local researcher. The McCoy twins experienced an extraordinary life, one of many tragedies but also a few remarkable highlights including performing at Brighton’s Royal Pavilion and the Aquarium and meeting Queen Victoria.

Millie and Christine (the “Carolina Twins”) were born on a farm in Columbus County, North Carolina on 11 July 1851 to Jacob and Monemia McKoy, who were slaves. The twins were conjoined at the lower spine and stood at an approximately 90-degree angle to each other.

At 10 months old, they were sold into the entertainment business, by blacksmith Jabez McKay who owned their parents. Through a convoluted series of business deals and cons, the twins were bartered and exhibited at various fairs and freak shows around America and Canada before ending up in Britain.

In 1857, Millie and Christine were rescued by an American businessman backer who held their ownership through a promissory note. He traveled to Britain along with their mother, Monemia, to collect them. After that, Smith and his wife provided the twins with an education and taught them to speak five languages, dance, play music, and sing.

Millie and Christine McKoy,1867, Collection of Robert E. Green, John H. Fitzgibbon, St. Louis

Millie and Christine enjoyed a successful career as “The Two-Headed Nightingale”, performing song and dance around the world. The twins’ motto was ‘As God decreed, we agreed.’ They were celebrities  and even appeared with the Barnum Circus. To overcome their mobility issues, which caused them to fall over, they developed a sideways walk that turned into a crowd-pleasing dance style. They were able to master keyboard duets with one soprano and one alto voice and learned to harmonize. 

Local researcher Alf Le Flohic writes, ‘They visited Brighton a number of times in 1870s, both on holiday and working. They had amazing singing voices and were known as the Two-Headed Nightingale. I have found local newspaper articles that show them appearing at a number of local venues including the Royal Pavilion (with the Brother Magri, musical Italian dwarves) and at the Aquarium where people were roller skating. They even appeared at the Aquarium on roller skates themselves on one occasion. They met Queen Victoria on three occasions. She wrote about them in her journal and even gave them jewellery. Millie-Christine were also photographed by the Brighton-based French photographer Louis Bertin on one of their visits.’

On 1 January 1863, Millie and Christine were freed as slaves when the Emancipation Proclamation was passed.

In their 30s, the twins moved back to the farm where they were born, which their father had bought and left for them.

On 8 October 1912, Millie and Christine died at age 61 of tuberculosis. Christine died 12 hours after her sister. They were buried in unmarked graves but in 1969 they were moved to a cemetery in Whiteville.

Several books were written about the twins’ experience. Biography History and Medical Description of the Two-Headed Girl (1869) was sold during their public appearances. Millie-Christine: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (2000) was part memoir and sourced material.  

Written by Amy Zamarripa Solis, author, artist and producer.