Birmingham’s women achievers & trailblazers

March is International Women’s History Month and I’m stepping into the stories of sportswomen, campaigners, pioneers, engineers, artists, educationalists and medics who have helped make Birmingham the ‘Great Working City.’

Asha Devi, is a Structural Engineer who studied Civil Engineering at the University of Birmingham. In the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks on September 11, 2001, Asha was among a select team of structural engineers who volunteered for the grueling search and rescue operations. As one of the few women on-site, she deployed her expertise to stabilise the ruins and ensure the safety of recovery teams – work that earned her a Certificate of Thanks from the Mayor of New York City.

Today, as a leader at the global consultancy Arup, Asha’s influence is etched into the skylines of the world. From the iconic HSBC Tower in Canary Wharf to the transformation of Birmingham’s Brindley Place, her career stands as a testament to her own philosophy: ‘It does not matter if you are male or female, or where you come from – if you can engage with people, they want to work with you.’

Brindley Place, Birmingham. Copyright: Roberta Davis

Bertha Ryland was a prominent suffragette and together with her mother, Alice, she was active in the Birmingham Women’s Suffragette Society. Dissatisfied with the slow pace of change, they both joined the more radical Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) in 1907. Bertha became a key figure in the Midlands campaign for the votes for women. In 1912 she was sentenced to 6 months in Winson Green Prison for her part in window smashing campaigns in London. Here she went on hunger strike and was subjected to brutal practice of force-feeding for which she was later awarded the WSPU’s Hunger Strike Medal.

Her most famous act of protest occurred at lunch time on 9 June 1914. A wealthy and respectable woman, and a member of the ‘Edgbaston elite’, she didn’t arouse suspicion when she entered the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) and slashed George Romney’s painting, Master Thornhill three times with a meat cleaver that she had concealed under her coat, causing £50 worth of damage and leading the BMAG to be closed for six weeks. This led to her re-arrest and another hunger strike in Winson Green.

It’s not known why she chose that particular painting, however, we do know her motives; she carried in her coat pocket, a note which was found after her arrest.
“I attack this work of art as a protest against the Government’s criminal justice in denying women the vote and also against the Government’s brutal injustice in imprisoning, forcibly feeding and drugging suffragist militants…”

Bertha Ryland Blue Plaque, Round Room, BMAG. Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0

Dame Elizabeth Cadbury Born into a London Quaker family in 1858, Dame Elizabeth Cadbury was never content with the performative ‘slumming’ common among the Victorian elite. While others viewed social work as a fleeting fashion, Elizabeth sought systemic and lasting change.

Following her marriage to George Cadbury in 1888, she found a partner who shared her radical social conscience. Together, they turned the leafy suburb of Bournville into a blueprint for a better world. Long before the state provided a safety net, Elizabeth was instrumental in establishing healthcare, pensions, and adult education for factory workers. She was a fierce champion for women, ensuring their health and education were never sidelined. Today, the Bournville Village Trust stands as the world’s first ‘Garden City’ project – a living legacy to her belief that: ‘Most good done in the world is by individual effort.’

The Rest House, Bournville Green. Built by funds raised by the Cadbury workers and donated to George & Elizabeth Cadbury on the occasion of their 25th Wedding Anniversary. Copyright: Roberta Davis

Dr Hilda Nora Lloyd was one of the first women to study medicine at the University of Birmingham. She revolutionised the care of women giving birth enabling home deliveries to be carried out safely by setting up teams of mobile midwives, known as ‘flying squads’, who went out to the poorest districts of Birmingham, equipped with portable gas and air machines, surgical tools, blood supplies, and even biscuits to keep them going on long shifts!

She possessed skill, speed and energy as a surgeon and later became the first female professor at the University of Birmingham and also the first woman to be elected as President of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG)  in 1949. She is described by the current President of the RCOG as  ‘a woman ahead of her time. The ‘Flying Squads’ she established provided emergency care to mothers and babies who might otherwise have died; she also encouraged women to enter the specialism and radically at the time, return to work after having children.”

Aston Webb building (Great Hall) University of Birmingham. Copyright: Roberta Davis

Jessie Eden was a formidable force behind Birmingham’s labour movement. In the 1920s, as the fastest worker at the Lucas car component factory, Jessie made a chilling discovery: a supervisor was secretly timing her to set impossible production targets for her female colleagues. Appalled by such tactics – which included timing bathroom breaks to dock pay – Jessie took a stand.

She didn’t just walk out; she led. In 1931, she rallied 10,000 women for a week-long strike at Lucas, forever changing the landscape of women’s labour rights. Her fire never dimmed; nearly forty years later in 1969, she was still marching through the streets of Birmingham, this time leading protests against the Vietnam War. While actress Charlie Murphy brought a fictionalised version of this trade union leader to life in Peaky Blinders, the real Jessie Eden was even more radical, famously challenging the industrial status quo of the ‘Great Working City’.

Lisa Clayton (later Dowager Viscountess Cobham of Hagley Hall) was the first British woman to sail single-handed, non-stop around the world. At 32 years of age Lisa, inspired by family and friends and another woman mariner, Naomi James.

Lisa left Britain in September 1994 on board the Spirit of Birmingham, which she bought as a rusty shell with financial sponsorship from the University of Birmingham. Her boat capsized seven times, at one point knocking her unconscious. She didn’t give up and came home to a hero’s welcome with a world record after 285 days at sea. “My boat was called the ‘Spirit of Birmingham’ because the people there believed in me”.

Malala Yousafzai is known all over the world as the 15 year old girl who was nearly killed after being shot on 9 October 2012 by a gunman affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who stormed her school bus in Pakistan. Fighting for her life she was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham where doctors specialise in treating people injured in conflict zones.

Malala was targeted because she campaigned from the age of 11 years for the right to an education. She recovered and made her home in Birmingham, studying at Edgbaston High School for Girls, & gaining a place at Oxford University in 2017 to study Philosophy, Politics & Economics.

Birmingham’s new Public Library, Centenary Square. Copyright: Roberta Davis

Her charity, ‘Malala Fund’ was set up when she was 16 years of age and has supported girls’ education initiatives around the world. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, aged just 17 years of age. “Sometimes people… ask me why should girls go to school, why is it important for me…. The more important question is why shouldn’t they, why shouldn’t they have this right to go to school”.  Quote Copyright: The Nobel Foundation 2014.

Malala opened Birmingham’s new Library on 3 September 2013 with the powerful speech, reinforcing the role of libraries as centres of learning culture and community. She placed a copy of Paulo Coelho’s, ‘The Alchemist’ on the shelves marking the official opening of the largest public library in Europe. ‘One book, one pen, one child, one teacher can change the world … a City without a library is like a graveyard.” Quote Copyright: The Nobel Foundation 2014.

Bibliography

L. Palfreyman. 2018 Once upon a time in Birmingham. Women who dared to Dream. Birmingham City Council & The Emma Press Ltd.

 

About the author 

Roberta Davis is a qualified Heart of England Blue Badge Tourist Guide and Manager of Beorma Tours. She provides professional and peerless panoramic and walking Tours of the culturally-rich Heart of England region from the canals, and industrial and the arts heritage of Birmingham, to the ‘black & white’ villages of Herefordshire. She also offers tours of the medieval colleges of Oxford, across Worcestershire, Regency tours in Cheltenham, tours of the delightful villages of the Cotswolds and stunning medieval Tewkesbury. Specialist and themed tours are also available such as Literature & Art, Music, Industry, Museums and Galleries. You can book a tour with Roberta here