Women from Hackney’s History
Our guide Sue Doe has contributed substantially to a new book called Women from Hackney’s History to be published on 8 March 2021, International Women’s Day. Sue, with co-contributor Lucy Madison, will be giving a free talk online via YouTube on 25 March at 7.00 pm about a few of the women featured in the book. You can register for the talk here. And once walks on the streets are allowed Sue will be starting a series of walks in the Borough about women profiled in the book. You can register provisional interest in the walks by emailing Sue at sue.doe@hotmail.co.uk.
The Hackney Society and the Friends of Hackney Archives are publishing the book, which was written and designed by Hackney women, on 8th March 2021 to celebrate International Women’s Day. It features over one hundred individual women who were born, lived, worked or died in Hackney. Some are well known. Others decidedly less so. But they all deserve recognition. Their stories cover five centuries and show us how times have changed for women and for Hackney. Click here or on the image opposite for a video clip giving a wonderful glimpse of what to expect from the book.
If you wish, you can pre-order the book via the Hackney Society Website or certain bookstores.
Sue, who was herself born and bred in Hackney, has developed her walks to cover different areas of the Borough. They will include women who are new discoveries, those that didn’t quite make the criteria and those we simply don’t know enough about.
Provisional details of the walks are listed below. Further details will be advertised once it is clearer when walks on the street can restart. Meanwhile, if you would like to register interest in any of the walks please contact Sue direct at sue.doe@hotmail.co.uk and she will let you know as soon as dates and times are scheduled. All walks will begin and end at a station. There may be some overlap between walks, but this will be minimal.
Hackney Central route one: Start at London Fields Overground and finish at Hackney Central Overground. Includes - strike leader; explorer; artist; Indian nanny; nuns; campaigner; Mary Queen of Scots’ mother-in-law.
Hackney Central route two: Start and finish at Hackney Central Overground. Includes – the ‘mother of feminism’; blackmailer; shopkeeper; slave owner; teachers; mathematician; the Winter queen; aeronaut.
Clapton: Start at Clapton Overground and finish at Hackney Central Overground. Includes – suffragettes; musician; prodigy; doctor; murderer; writer; actress; Tudor and Stuart nobility and royalty.
Dalston: Start and finish at Dalston Junction Overground. Includes – a murderer; club owner; cinema owner; musician; the Queen of the music hall; pacifist; agony aunt; squatters; anti-fascist fighters.
Hoxton: Start at Haggerston Overground and finish at Hoxton Overground. Includes – actress; film director; writer; the woman who escaped the Krays; politicians; campaigning journalist.
Shoreditch: Start at Moorgate Underground and finish at Old Street Underground. Includes – shoplifter; furniture designers; entrepreneurs; brothel madam; engineer; nuns.
Stoke Newington: Start and finish at Stoke Newington Overground. Includes – writers; schoolmistresses; actresses; politicians; suffragettes; menagerie owner.
