It's been a perfect summer. Day after day is fine and warm, often hot. I don't ever remember such weather. Perhaps the climate is changing. What a delicious thought!

1/3 Pamela Colman Smith ‘Pixie’ b1878, illustrator, writer & publisher, member of the Golden Dawn whose most famous work is illustrations for the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The deck was created 1909 while she was living at 84 York Mansions, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea.

Olive and Liz Obi were the first to squat 121 Railton Road, Brixton: launching the building’s 26 year radical history wp.me/p74yfw-NX

B1893 Streatham, photographer Yevonde Middleton, once a society beauty herself, revolutionised society portraiture 1930sby use of colour “If we are going to have colour photographs, for heaven’s sake let’s have a riot of colour, none of your wishy-washy hand-tinted effects.” Graphic 26 July 1924

B1893 Streatham, photographer Yevonde Middleton, once a society beauty herself, revolutionised society portraiture 1930sby use of colour “If we are going to have colour photographs, for heaven’s sake let’s have a riot of colour, none of your wishy-washy hand-tinted effects.” Graphic 26 July 1924

1/2 B1887 Margaret Bartels illustrator & suffragist lived at 23 Acacia Grove, Dulwich for c25 yrs with her widowed suffragist mother Marion. Margaret & sister Olive joined WSPU in 1909, the same year she enrolled at Camberwell School of Art, having won two design competitions for 'The Gentlewoman’

Some new stories of fatherless girls for you www.fewforgottenwomen.com/post/7-stori... #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #SocialHistory #WomensHistory

1/2 b1934 Jamaica, self taught artist Pearl Alcock arrived in UK 1950s. She opened a dress shop in Railton Road and, bisexual herself, beneath it she ran a shebeen, becoming the first gay bar in Brixton. Her art gained in reputation and included in a Tate Britain exhibition of ‘Outsider Art’ in 2005

1949 At South London Ladies Football Club, Blackheath

Margaret Lockwood was a huge star in 30s/40s starring in films such as The Lady Vanishes & The Wicked Lady, going on to do TV work in 1960s. Born 1916 Karachi, she moved back to UK 1922 with her family, living in Highland Road, off Gipsy Hill, Norwood for 16 years, attending Sydenham High School

Dr Christine Murrell (1874-1933) grew up Jeffreys Road, Stockwell then Bedford Road, Clapham. Qualified 1899, suffragist & chair of Women’s Emergency Corp WWI. Furthered women’s health matters through education and writing and first woman elected to Council of BMA 1924.

Sarah Mayer, 1st non-Japanese woman awarded black belt in Judo. B1896 48 Albany Mansions, Albert Bridge Rd, Battersea to actor parents, she too went on stage from age of 9. She began judo training in London, travelling to Japan 1934 to study further where she gained black belt 1935

1/2 Founded 1887 the Women’s University Settlement, later Blackfriars Settlement, was based at Nelson Square. University educated women lived & worked there. Helen Gladstone, daughter of Prime Minister, was 1 of10 founders & warden 1901-1910.

Same story for my Gt Gt grandmother, Susan Woollacott Turner. Born 1851 in Mitchum, married to George, a cab driver 1870,widowed 1904 and lived with one or more of her children, but mostly my Gt grandmother, Ada, in various spots in Battersea. What I’d give to speak to her!

Joan Clarke grew up at 193 Rosendale Road, West Dulwich and attended Dulwich High School for Girls. A blue plaque was installed at her childhood home in 2024.

1/2 My G-G-Grandmother Maria Aylmer (nee Raven) b1837. Married pattern maker Robert 1859, they lived in his workshop a few minutes from current site of London Eye, later living in other addresses in Lambeth.

1/3 Bernie Spain was a psychologist & community centred activist. She successfully led the fight against the planned massive redevelopment along the river in the Waterloo area, instead proposing some refurbishment, small scale affordable housing, walkways, shops and gardens.

A Victorian cause celebre, the murder of Charles Bravo 1876 at The Priory, Balham is still a mystery. An inquest into his death by poisoning delved humiliatingly into widow Florence's private life but was never indicted. The case broke her, she died 2 years later of alcoholism

Anne Shelton was born in Camberwell in 1928 and later moved to 142 Court Lane, Dulwich where she lived for 50 years

Eunice Gayson, who appeared as Sylvia Trench in the first two Bond films, was born in Croydon on 17th March 1928. #JamesBond #dates #OTD

1/3 Susanna Meredith b1823 Ireland, moved to London when a widow in her 30s. Had long cared about rehabilitation of female prisoners, visited them in Millbank & Brixton prisons, but realised greater support was needed at time of release.

1/3 Belle Bilton’s life story has it all – scandal, young love, parental opposition, disinheritance – but love finally prevailed. B1866 in Beresford Street, Walworth (now John Ruskin Street), Belle and her sister Flo were a popular music hall act.

So, BlueSky, one of my passions is the study of tea in WW2. I need you to watch this oral history from three ex-tea ladies from the Bermondsey WVS. Because you could guess for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and you would not guess where it is going... #skystorians #history #tea

For Mothers' Day

#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 1942, the current Waterloo Bridge in London partially opens. The construction force included many women, giving it the nickname “the Ladies Bridge”. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #LondonHistory #WorldWar2 🗃️ historicengland.org....#OnThisDay,

#MonumentMonday under a #MarchArch @southwarkcathedral.bsky.social Alderman Richard Humble (d1616) w his two wives, Margaret+Isabel, w daughters. Made by Flemish refugee sculptors living/working on Bankside, in 'Southwark School' style. Humble was once fined for grazing sheep in churchyard....

From 1925 Atalanta Ltd was based at 1-3 Brixton Road, opposite Kennington Park

LB Southwark installed a blue plaque to honour Una Marson at her former home in Brunswick Square, Camberwell in 2009 and a new library in Walworth was named after her in 2024

Dorothy Pilley pioneering mountaineer b1894 Camberwell Grove

6.15 19 March, Brixton Library: Talk by Dr Jane Jordan 'Henry Doulton's Lady Artists' Free but donations welcome. More www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/henry-doul...

BBC News - Sycamore Gap sapling planted as knife crime tribute www.bbc.com/news/article...

The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.

'Launderette, Sydenham' (2019) by Michelle Heron michelleheron.co.uk

November 1955: WPS Ethel Banks from Brixton & WPC Kay Parrott from Croydon awarded the George Medal for courage, the first women police officers with Metropolitan Police awarded the honour. They acted as decoys for an attacker at large in Croydon, both women had been badly injured in the exercise.

1 /3 Philippa Garrett Fawcett b1868 was the only daughter of Millicent and grew up in The Lawn, South #Lambeth Road attending #Clapham High School. She had a great aptitude for mathematics studying it further at Bedford College London & Newnham College Cambridge

1/3 Eliza Phillips b1823 Wandsworth was twice widowed when she moved in 1889 to Morland Road, Croydon where she held animal conservation meetings, in particular to campaign against the use of feathers & plumage in women’s hats which had the effect of decimating bird populations.

Though the family moved to Southampton shortly afterwards, Marjorie Spiller was born in #Streatham in November 1979.

B1873 Victoria Lawrence in Leeds, by 1890s living in Osborne Terrace, Clapham Road (not sure about the lodger). She was extremely famous in UK & US and the song ‘Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow’ written for her.*

1/3 After attending Lambeth School of Art, Hannah Barlow was the first woman employed by Doulton & Co, #Lambeth in 1871 to paint their ceramics. She was joined a few years later by sister Florence - Hannah’s designs featured animals while Florence painted birds and flowers.

Great to see Avril Coleridge-Taylor being recognised here.

1/2 Dr Elizabeth Pace, advocate for women’s health & rights, b1866 Brixton, family later moved to Stockwell Park Road, then to The Chase Clapham. Attended Clapham High School then trained to be a doctor at London School of Medicine for Women.

Lovely video showing Stockwell born Cynthia Erivo visiting her old school La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls School, Clapham Park while the school choir rehearse For Good from Wicked www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_P... born in Woolwich South London @womenofsouthlondon.bsky.social !

OTD 1910 Black Friday when 300 women demonstrating for the right to vote were met with extreme police brutality. Rosa May Billinghurst born and raised in Lewisham, confined to a wheelchair, was one of the women subjected to inhumane treatment by the police. Her first hand account is shown below.

1/2 OTD 1940 Grove Park Hospital was hit by a high explosive bomb and the action of 2 nurses on duty, Aileen Turner and Mary Fleming, saved the lives of many patients. Both were awarded the George Cross. The citation recorded they “climbed through a first floor window …

I loved Silver Moon bookshop, very sad when it closed

1/3 Alice Abadam (1856-1940) suffragist & women’s rights campaigner, spent almost the first 50 years of her life in Carmarthen, where she worked to improve the lives of the poor and women. She moved to Central Hill, Upper Norwood about 1906 when her close friend/fellow Catholic …