Happy 1st of December. Today, a 🧵 of Scottish women worthy of statues. Statues memorialise in a specific way. They honour achievement. First, Jennie Lee, MP and founder of the Open University. The work she did as Arts Minister was transformative. Also = Mrs Aneurin Bevan. /1 - ThreadSky

sarasheridan.bsky.social • 89 days ago

Happy 1st of December. Today, a 🧵 of Scottish women worthy of statues. Statues memorialise in a specific way. They honour achievement. First, Jennie Lee, MP and founder of the Open University. The work she did as Arts Minister was transformative. Also = Mrs Aneurin Bevan. /1

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sarasheridan.bsky.social•89 days ago

Williamina Fleming, born Dundee 1857 became an astronomer at Harvard Uni where she classified 10,351 stars, & discovered 10 novae, 52 nebulae & 222 variable stars. Hon member of Royal Astronomical Society 1906 (not allowed to be a full member cos she was a woman - St Andrew wd not be proud!) /2

sarasheridan.bsky.social•89 days ago

Writer of over 90 works, Naomi Mitchison visited the US and talked to sharecroppers, went to Russia and write about rape & abortion and Botswana where she became hon grandmother to the Bakgatla tribe. Amazing. Intelligent. Our young women need to know they come from this. /3

sarasheridan.bsky.social•89 days ago

Elsie Inglis founded the Scottish Women's Hospitals in WWI, thus saving thousands of lives. Elsie was a POW at one point, was released & *walked across the Alps to freedom*. Real #survivorseries

sarasheridan.bsky.social•89 days ago

Joanna Baillie - the pre-eminent dramatist of her generation. Baillie donated half of her earnings to charity. She also used her influence to support working class poets & female writers. She inspired Byron and was considered by Harriet Martineau ‘second only to Shakespeare’ /5

sarasheridan.bsky.social•89 days ago

Also defo worth a statue Jane Haining, matron of the Jewish Mission Girls Home in Budapest. In 1939 she returned against advice, saying that if the children needed her in days of sunshine they'd need her in dark times too. She was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 where she died. Wow. /6

sarasheridan.bsky.social•89 days ago

How about, Quaker Eliza Wigham, anti-slavery campaigner & 1 of the 6 key women in the British Transatlantic anti-slavery sisterhood? Campaigned to free indentured workers in the US. Legend. I referenced her in my novel The Secrets of Blythswood Square (99p on #kindledeal today, just saying) /7

andykaitken.bsky.social•88 days ago

A true heroine.

rantinscot.bsky.social•89 days ago

Great thread.

dpp7541.bsky.social•88 days ago

What. A mare Scottish woman came up with the idea of the OU.
Something to put away for future quiz nights.
🇮🇪🇪🇺

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