The Bridport Literary Festival 2018

2018 is not only the anniversary of the end of WWI but also the year in which women over 30 got the vote. Many extraordinary female scientists, doctors and engineers tasted independence for the first time. How did this happen?

In an illustrated talk Patricia Fara reveals how suffragettes such as Virginia Woolf’s sister-in-law, Ray Strachey, had already aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress and during the dark days of war they entered the conventionally male domains of medicine and science. Fara tells the stories of women such as mental health pioneer Isabel Emslie, chemist Martha Whiteley and botanist Helen Gwynne Vaughan. Their research into many aspects of science was ground breaking.