1.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
2.
Rosalind Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn
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Lady Rosalind Cecilia Caroline Hamilton, DBE was a British aristocrat and the Duchess of Abercorn by marriage. She was a great-grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales and she was born on 26 February 1869 to Charles George Bingham, 4th Earl of Lucan and Lady Cecilia Catherine Gordon-Lennox. She married, James Hamilton, Marquess of Hamilton, eldest son of James Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Abercorn, on 1 November 1894 at St. Pauls Church and they had five children, Lady Mary Cecilia Rhodesia Hamilton, who married twice, firstly in 1917 Capt/Maj. Robert Orlando Rudolph Kenyon-Slaney, with whom she divorced in 1930, with her first husband she had two sons and a daughter, and with her second husband one son. Lady Cynthia Elinor Beatrix Hamilton, who married in 1919 to Albert Edward John Spencer and they had a son and two daughters. By their son they became grandparents of Diana, Princess of Wales, Lady Katherine Hamilton, who married in 1930 Lt-Col. Sir Reginald Henry Seymour, a descendant of the 1st Marquess of Hertford and she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on 3 May 1923. Rosalind, Duchess of Abercorn was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1936 and she was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by Queens University, Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, in 1944. She died in 1958, aged 88, the Honourable Rosalind Cecilia Caroline Bingham Lady Rosalind Cecilia Caroline Bingham Marchioness of Hamilton Her Grace The Duchess of Abercorn Her Grace The Dowager Duchess of Abercorn
3.
Emma Albani
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Dame Emma Albani, DBE was a leading opera soprano of the 19th century and early 20th century, and the first Canadian singer to become an international star. Her repertoire focused on the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and she performed across Europe and North America. Albani was born Marie-Louise-Emma-Cécile Lajeunesse in Chambly, Quebec, to the professional musician Joseph Lajeunesse and his wife, Mélina Mignault. Her date of birth is given as 1 November 1847, but other authors have placed her birth in 1848 or 1850. She began her studies with her mother, and at age five her father took over her musical lessons. Her father was a proficient musician who was skilled with the violin, harp, piano and he kept her on a strong practice regimen, with as much as four hours a day of lessons on the harp and piano. The family moved to Plattsburgh, New York, in 1852, in 1856 after the death of her mother, she continued her education in a Montreal convent-school, run by the Dames du Sacré-Coeur where her father had obtained the position of Music Master. This afforded her an education than she might otherwise receive. On 24 August 1860 she and Adelina Patti were soloists in the premiere of Charles Wugk Sabatiers Cantata in Montreal which was performed in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales. However, she was unable to finance a musical education in Quebec, where singing and acting were considered unsavoury careers for a woman. There she became a singer, an organist and teacher of singing. In 1868, she travelled to Paris, where she studied with Gilbert Duprez at the Conservatoire de Paris and she spent six months in Paris, training with Duprez. She then travelled to Italy, where she studied Italian opera singing with Francesco Lamperti, under the guidance of her elocution instructor, Signor Delorenzi, she changed her name to the simpler Emma Albani, which sounded more European. She made her debut at Messina using the surname Albani and her funds began to run low, and although her training was not yet complete she began to look for work to help support her schooling. She found a position in Messina, and her debut was on 30 March 1870, in Messina. Her debut performance was well received. They had painted it red, and the little bird rose. She returned to Milan after her contract in Messina had expired, additional work offers began to pour in
4.
Louisa Aldrich-Blake
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Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake, DBE was one of the first British women to enter the world of medicine. Born in Chingford, Essex, the daughter of a rector and she graduated from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women in 1893. She went on to take the University of Londons higher degrees in Medicine and Surgery, throughout her career, Aldrich-Blake was associated with the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, becoming senior surgeon in 1910. At the Royal Free Hospital, she was the first woman to hold the post of surgical registrar and she was the first to perform operations for cancers of the cervix and rectum. Aldrich-Blake was devoted to training students of the Royal Free Hospitals School of Medicine for Women and she became Dean of the School in 1914. In the 1925 New Years Honours List, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake died on 28 December 1925 from undisclosed causes. The Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake Collection is located in the Royal Free Hospitals Archives Centre, a statue of her is in Tavistock Square, London. Genesis Womens History archive index entry for Royal Free Hospital Collection, wellcome Library holdings of archive material. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Index
5.
Julie Andrews
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Dame Julia Elizabeth Julie Andrews, DBE is an English actress, singer, author, theatre director and dancer. Andrews, an actress and singer, appeared on the West End in 1948. She rose to prominence starring in Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady, playing Eliza Doolittle, in 1957, Andrews starred in the premiere of Rodgers and Hammersteins written-for-television musical Cinderella, a live network broadcast seen by over 100 million viewers. Andrews made her film debut in Mary Poppins, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role. She starred in The Sound of Music, playing Maria, between 1964 and 1986, she starred in The Americanization of Emily, Hawaii, Torn Curtain, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star. The Tamarind Seed,10, Victor/Victoria, Thats Life. in 2000, Andrews was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts. In 2002, she was ranked #59 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, in 2003, she revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of The Boy Friend. From 2001 to 2004, Andrews starred in The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries 2, from 2004 to 2010, she lent her voice to the Shrek animated films, and Despicable Me. She is an author of books and has published her autobiography, Home. Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on 1 October 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and her mother, Barbara Ward Wells was born in Chertsey and married Edward Charles Ted Wells, a teacher of metalwork and woodwork in 1932. However, Andrews was conceived as a result of an affair her mother had with a family friend. Andrews discovered her true parentage from her mother in 1950, although it was not publicly disclosed until her 2008 autobiography, with the outbreak of World War II, Barbara and Ted Wells went their separate ways and were soon divorced. Ted Wells assisted with evacuating children to Surrey during the Blitz, Andrews lived briefly with Ted Wells and her brother John in Surrey. In 1940, Ted Wells sent young Julia to live with her mother and stepfather, who, the Andrews family was very poor and we lived in a bad slum area of London, Andrews recalled, adding, That was a very black period in my life. According to Andrews, her stepfather was violent and an alcoholic, Ted Andrews twice, while drunk, tried to get into bed with his stepdaughter, resulting in Andrews fitting a lock on her door. The Andrews family took up residence at the Old Meuse, in West Grove, Hersham and she had an enormous influence on me, Andrews said of Stiles-Allen, adding, She was my third mother – Ive got more mothers and fathers than anyone in the world. In her memoir Julie Andrews – My Star Pupil, Stiles-Allen records, The range, accuracy and she had possessed the rare gift of absolute pitch. According to Andrews, Madame was sure that I could do Mozart and Rossini, of her own voice, she says I had a very pure, white, thin voice, a four-octave range – dogs would come for miles around
6.
Joyce Anelay, Baroness Anelay of St Johns
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Joyce Anne Anelay, Baroness Anelay of St Johns DBE PC FRSA is a British Conservative Party politician, currently serving as Minister of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office since August 2014. Lady Anelay was Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords from 12 May 2010 until 6 August 2014, born in Hackney on 17 July 1947, daughter of Stanley Clarke, she was christened Joyce Anne and was educated locally at Enfield County School. She went up to Bristol University, graduating with the degree of BA and after studies at Brunel. Following university, Anelay worked as a school teacher from 1969 to 1974. She later became an adviser with the Citizens Advice Bureau, served as a Justice of the Peace for Surrey. Prior to her elevation to the peerage, Anelay held a number of posts in the Conservative Party organisation. She was created a Life Peer as Baroness Anelay of St Johns, between May 1997 and June 2002, Baroness Anelay served in various Conservative front bench posts, including Opposition Whip and Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport. She was a Shadow Home Office Minister from June 2002 to July 2007, in 2009, Lady Anelay was sworn of the Privy Council. After the General Election, on 12 May 2010, Lady Anelay was appointed Government Chief Whip in the Lords and Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms. On 6 August 2014, the day after Baroness Warsis resignation, Lady Anelay was appointed in Warsis place as Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Anelay did not on take on Lady Warsis Faith and Communities brief, which reverted to Eric Pickles
7.
Peggy Ashcroft
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Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, DBE, commonly known as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than sixty years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an age to become an actress. She was working in theatres even before graduating from drama school. Ashcroft maintained her leading place in British theatre for the fifty years. Well regarded in Shakespeare, Ashcroft was also known for her commitment to modern drama, appearing in plays by Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Ashcroft was born in Croydon, Surrey, the child and only daughter of William Worsley Ashcroft, a land agent. The biographer Michael Billington writes that Violetta Ashcroft was of Danish and German-Jewish descent, Ashcrofts father was killed on active service in the First World War. Ashcroft was determined, however, and at the age of sixteen, she enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama, run by Elsie Fogerty, from whom her mother had taken lessons some years before. The schools emphasis was on the voice and elegant diction, which did not appeal to Ashcroft or to her fellow pupil Laurence Olivier and she learned more from reading My Life in Art by Constantin Stanislavski, the influential director of the Moscow Art Theatre. She graduated from the Central School in 1927 with London Universitys Diploma in Dramatic Art, never much drawn to the West End or stardom, she learned her craft with mostly small companies in fringe theatres. Her first notable West End role was Naemi in Jew Süss in 1929, in the same year she married Rupert Hart-Davis, then an aspiring actor, later a well-known publisher. He later described the marriage as a sad failure, we were too young to know what we wanted. After much agony we parted and were duly divorced, nowadays Peggy and I lunch together perhaps once or twice a year in a Soho restaurant and have a lovely nostalgic-romantic talk of shared memories of long ago. She is a person and the best actress living. In 1930 Ashcroft was cast as Desdemona in a production of Othello at the Savoy Theatre, the production was not well received, but Ashcrofts notices were excellent. During the run she had an affair with Robeson, which. Priestley, put an end to her first marriage, Hart-Davis was granted a divorce in 1933, on the grounds of Ashcrofts adultery with the director Theodore Komisarjevsky. Among those impressed by Ashcrofts performance as Desdemona was John Gielgud and he recalled, When Peggy came on in the Senate scene it was as if all the lights in the theatre had suddenly gone up
8.
Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl
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Katharine Marjory Ramsay was born in Edinburgh on 6 November 1874, the daughter of Sir James Henry Ramsay, 10th Baronet. She was educated at Wimbledon High School and the Royal College of Music, during her school years she was known as Kitty Ramsay. On 20 July 1899, she married John Stewart-Murray, Marquess of Tullibardine, moreover, Baxter claims her victory in 1923 was not seen as a forgone conclusion. Prior to 1918, Atholl had been opposed to womens suffrage and she resigned the Conservative Whip first in 1935 over the India Bill and the national-socialist tendency of the governments domestic policy. Resuming the Whip, she resigned it again in 1937 over the Anglo-Italian Agreement, finally she resigned her parliamentary seat in 1938 in opposition to Neville Chamberlains policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler. To permit her resignation, she took Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds on 28 November 1938 and she stood unsuccessfully in the subsequent by-election as an Independent candidate. She argued that she actively opposed totalitarian regimes and practices, in 1931, she published The Conscription of a People - a protest against the abuse of rights in the Soviet Union. In 1936, she was involved in a battle in the pages of various newspapers with Lady Houston after the latter had become notorious for her outspoken support of Benito Mussolini. Stewart-Murray had taken issue with Houston calling in the pages of the Saturday Review on the king to become British dictator in imitation of the European fascist regimes. Her book Searchlight on Spain resulted from the involvement, and her support for the Republican side in the led to her being nicknamed by some the Red Duchess. However, Cowling cites her as saying that she supported the Republican government because a government which used Moors could not be a national government and her opposition to the British policy of non-intervention in Spain epitomised her attitudes and actions. She campaigned against the Soviet control of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary as the chairman of the League for European Freedom in Britain from 1945, in 1958, she published a biography of her life with her husband entitled Working Partnership. She was also a vice-president of the Girls Public Day School Trust from 1924-1960 and she was also a keen composer, setting music to accompany the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. She was closely involved in her husbands regiment The Scottish Horse, as Dowager Duchess of Atholl she took over the appointment of Honorary Colonel of The Regiment of Scottish Horse from 1942, until she relinquished it in 1952. Her Grace, Katharine, Duchess of Atholl, died in Edinburgh, aged 85, British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections – correspondence and papers relating to Indian self-government, 1928-1935. Ref, MSS Eur 903 National Library of Scotland, Manuscripts Collections, correspondence and papers regarding the Scottish National War Memorial, 1919–1958, Ref, kings College London Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Institute of Education Archives, Girls Day School Trust collection Katherine,403, ISBN 0-521-20582-4 Stobaugh, Beverly Parkers, Women and Parliament, 1918-1970, Hicksville, NY, Exposition Press, c 1978. Exposition Press, ISBN 0-682-49056-3 Hetherington, Shelia, Katharine Atholl 1874-1960, Aberdeen University Press Knox, William, Chapter 8, Katherine, Duchess of Atholl, The Red Duchess
9.
Mary Bailey (aviator)
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Dame Mary Bailey, Lady Bailey, DBE, née Westenra, was a British aviator. In January 1930 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the daughter of aristocratic parents, Lady Mary Bailey spent most of her childhood in Ireland where she was home schooled until she ran away in 1906. Adventurous from an age, she apparently bought a motorbike in her youth and was gaining a reputation for speeding in car by 1914. During the first world war, Mary volunteered as a mechanic and served in Britain and France. She was awarded a licence in early 1927 and quickly started a sporting career. She became the first woman to fly across the Irish Sea, on 5 July 1927 she set a worlds height record of 17,283 ft in a light aircraft category, flying DH.60 Cirrus II Moth. The return journey involved flying across the Congo, then along the edge of the Sahara and up the west coast of Africa, then across Spain. It was the longest solo flight and longest flight accomplished by a woman that far, in 1927 and 1928 she twice won the Harmon Trophy as the worlds outstanding aviatrix. She also participated in two F. A, in 1931, she became a member of a group of female pioneers for science, the members of which shared her adventurous and determined spirit. She gained the rank of Section Officer in the service of the Womens Auxiliary Air Force and she was very likely the first woman to accomplish this during her work in February 1931 on Kharga Oasis project in Egypt. These photographs accomplished what would have far longer to do on foot. In addition, there also revealed future excavation sites, indeed, Lady Mary Baileys valuable contribution to the Kharga Oasis expedition was both innovative and impressive
10.
Beryl Bainbridge
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Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996 and she was described in 2007 as a national treasure. In 2008, The Times named Bainbridge on their list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945, Beryl Bainbridge was born in Liverpool, Lancashire and brought up in nearby Formby. Her parents were Richard Bainbridge and Winifred Baines, although she gave her date of birth in Whos Who and elsewhere as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947 and she enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary. She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the Northern Childrens Hour radio show, alongside Billie Whitelaw, Bainbridge was expelled from Merchant Taylors Girls School because she was caught with a dirty rhyme, written by someone else, in her gymslip pocket. She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School, Tring, Hertfordshire, the summer she left school, she fell in love with a former German POW who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for the German man to return to Britain so that they could be married, but permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953. In the following year, Beryl married artist Austin Davies, the two divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge a single mother of two children. She later had a child by Alan Sharp, the actress Rudi Davies. In 1958, she attempted suicide by putting her head in a gas oven, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, and she appeared in one 1961 episode of the soap opera Coronation Street playing an anti-nuclear protester. To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood and her first novel, Harriet Said. was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters repulsive almost beyond belief. It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel and her second and third novels were published and were received well by critics although they failed to earn much money. Seven more novels were written and published during the 1970s, of which the fifth, in the late 1970s, she wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The resulting film, starring Sam Waterston, was released in 1980, from 1980 onwards, eight more novels appeared. The 1989 novel, An Awfully Big Adventure, was adapted into a film in 1995, starring Alan Rickman, in the 1990s, Bainbridge turned to historical fiction. These novels continued to be popular with critics, but this time, were commercially successful
11.
Vera Baird
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Dame Vera Baird DBE QC is the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, a British Labour Party activist, barrister, author and lecturer. She currently sits as a Member of the Trustees of Respect, is the only honorary member of the Durham Miners Association. She was the Member of Parliament for Redcar from 2001 to 2010, was a UK Government Minister from 2006 to 2010, Baird became the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria in November 2012, and was re-elected with an increased majority in May 2016. Baird was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to women and her paternal grandfather was a Welsh miner and her maternal grandparents were cotton mill workers. She went to Yew Tree County Primary School and the local authority-run Chadderton Grammar School for Girls and was then at Newcastle Polytechnic where she studied Law, whilst there she founded and edited a Student Newspaper, Polygon and a year later was elected Vice President of the Polytechnic Union. In 1983 she gained a BA in Literature and Modern History at the Open University, in 1983 she became a legal associate of the Royal Town Planning Institute. She completed the first year of an MA in modern history at London Guildhall University from 1999 before transferring to University of Teesside on being selected for Redcar and she is currently studying for an MPhil at the University of Teesside. She was the part-time Parish Council clerk of Shadforth parish council in County Durham in the late 1970s when she lived in the County Durham village of Ludworth, Baird joined the Labour Party in 1971 and later joined the TGWU, now UNITE. She is now also a member of UNISON and of the GMB Trade Unions, at the conclusion of the campaign her barrister fees were, at her instruction, donated by BAND to the Druridge Bay Campaign. She represented a dismissed mother-to-be in a pregnancy discrimination case in the House of Lords. In the late 80s she represented a mother who was alleged to have killed her 3 sons and she represented local objectors in compulsory purchase and planning inquiries. On Saturdays during the strike Baird was regularly seen outside a supermarket in Jesmond with a wheelbarrow collecting food for miners families and she met Anthony Gifford, 6th Baron Gifford while working on the Battle of Orgreave trial where her forensic questioning of the police proved crucial to the outcome. The Battle of Orgreave trial concerned allegations of riot and violent disorder against 95 miners,15 of whom were in the first trial which was abandoned by the prosecution after 16 weeks. She joined Gifford’s chambers before moving to the Chambers of Michael Mansfield QC in 1988 alongside Patrick Roche and she also prosecuted in environmental cases for Greenpeace. In many of these cases she acted as a Leading Junior and she also represented Emma Humphreys on appeal, a disadvantaged young woman, who had been convicted of murdering her violent pimp when she was 17 years old. Baird acted for many other abused women following the Humphreys cases, other high-profile cases Baird has been involved in include representing murderer Jane Andrews in an appeal. She defended prisoners accused of rioting at Risley Remand Centre and then at Strangeways Prison and she took silk in 2000,25 years after becoming a barrister, and has said that the Queens Counsel system was in need of reform to make it more transparent. Immediately following her promotion to QC, she applied to become the Labour candidate for the Redcar constituency, at the 1983 general election, Baird contested the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, finishing in third place behind the victor Alan Beith
12.
Janet Baker
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Dame Janet Abbott Baker CH DBE FRSA is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer. She was particularly associated with baroque and early Italian opera. As a concert performer, Dame Janet was noted for her interpretations of the music of Gustav Mahler, david Gutman, writing in Gramophone, described her performance of Mahlers Kindertotenlieder as intimate, almost self-communing. Janet Abbott Baker was born in Hatfield, South Yorkshire, where her father was an engineer as well as a chorister, members of her family worked at Bentley Pit, in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. She attended York College for Girls and then Wintringham Girls Grammar School in Grimsby, in her early years Baker worked in a bank, transferring to London in 1953 where she trained with Meriel St Clair and Helene Isepp, whose son Martin became her regular accompanist. Knocked down by a bus in 1956, she suffered concussion and that same year, she came second in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition at the Wigmore Hall, winning national attention. In 1956, she made her debut with Oxford Universitys Opera Club as Miss Róza in Smetanas The Secret. That year, she made her debut at Glyndebourne. With the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh, Baker sang Purcells Dido and Aeneas in 1962, Polly, at Glyndebourne she appeared again as Dido and as Diana/Jupiter in Francesco Cavallis La Calisto, and Penelope in Monteverdis Il ritorno dUlisse in Patria. The latter was considered her role, she sang it in many productions. During this same period she made a strong impact on audiences in the concert hall. She performed in 1971 for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston and she has also been highly praised for her insightful performances of Brahmss Alto Rhapsody, Wagners Wesendonck Lieder as well as solo songs from the French, German and English repertoire. Dame Janet Bakers final operatic appearance was as Orfeo in Glucks Orfeo ed Euridice, on 17 July 1982 and she continued to perform lieder recitals for another seven years, retiring for good in 1989. She published a memoir, Full Circle, in 1982, in 1991, Baker was elected Chancellor of the University of York. She held the position until 2004, when she was succeeded by Greg Dyke, an enthusiastic Patron of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, she gave an address at the closing ceremony of the 2009 event. Janet Baker was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970 and she was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1993. In 1968, she was initiated as an Honorary Member of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity by the Alpha Omicron Chapter at Occidental College, California and she received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize of Denmark in 1979. She is the recipient of both Honorary Membership and the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society and this is the highest honour the Company can bestow on a fellow musician
13.
Joan Bakewell
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Joan Dawson Bakewell, Baroness Bakewell, DBE is an English journalist, television presenter and Labour Party Peer. Baroness Bakewell is President of Birkbeck, University of London, Bakewell was born Joan Dawson Rowlands on 16 April 1933 in Heaton Moor, Stockport, Cheshire, England, and moved to Hazel Grove before she was three. The Rowlands family stemmed from the mining villages of the Ystwyth valley. Her great-grandfather moved to Salford, where he was a preacher in the Church Army, on the maternal side, the family were coopers, and settled in the Gorton district of Manchester. She was educated at Stockport High School for Girls, a school in local authority control. She won a scholarship and attended the University of Cambridge, where she studied Economics, from 1962 to 1969, she had an affair with Harold Pinter while she was married to Michael Bakewell. Joan Bakewell first became known as one of the presenters of an early BBC Two programme. Frank Muir dubbed her the thinking mans crumpet during this period, in 1968 she took the role of narrator of the BBC TV production of Cold Comfort Farm, a three-part serial, and played a TV interviewer in the cult swinging 60s film The Touchables. Bakewell co-presented Reports Action, a Sunday teatime programme which encouraged the public to donate their services to various good causes, for Granada Television during 1976–78. Subsequently, she returned to the BBC, and co-presented a short-lived late night television arts programme, briefly worked on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme, and was Newsnights arts correspondent. Later, Bakewell came to the fore as the presenter of the documentary and discussion series Heart of the Matter. In 2001 Bakewell wrote and presented a series for the BBC called Taboo. The programme dealt frankly with sex and nudity and in some cases pushed the boundaries of what is permissible on mainstream television, Bakewell used frank language and four-letter words to describe pornography and sex toys. She watched a couple having sex while they were making a pornographic film, Taboo was broadcast between 9. 50pm and 10. 30pm on BBC2. Taboo was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the National Viewers and Listeners Association, after its first publication in 1976, Denis Lemon, the editor of Gay News, was given a nine-month suspended jail sentence and was told he had come close to serving it. On 26 May 2008 Bakewell introduced an evening on BBC Parliament called Permissive Night. The programme examined the liberalising legislation passed by Parliament in the late 1960s, Permissive Night concluded with a special one-off edition of Late Night Line-Up which discussed the themes raised in the programmes over the course of the evening. In 2009 she won Journalist of the Year at the annual Stonewall Awards, bakewells autobiography, The Centre of the Bed, was published in 2004
14.
Kate Barker
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Dame Katharine Mary Barker DBE FAcSS, generally known as Kate Barker, is a British economist. She is principally noted for her roles at the Bank of England and for advising the British government on issues such as housing. She received a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Hildas College, Oxford, in 1979 and she was a Research Officer at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and was then the Chief European Economist at the Ford Motor Company in Brentwood. From 1994-2001 she was Chief Economic Adviser at the Confederation of British Industry and she was also a member of the HM Treasurys Panel of Independent Economic Advisers 1996-97, and a non-executive Director of the Yorkshire Building Society. Barker was appointed as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England with effect from 1 June 2001. The MPC is responsible for setting interest rates to meet the Governments inflation target and she is the first external MPC member to have been appointed for three terms, the latest of which ended on 31 May 2010. She was not eligible for a fourth term, Barker was appointed by the Government in April 2003 to conduct an independent Review of UK Housing Supply, leading to a final report in March 2004. The Government’s full response to this review was published in December 2005, in October 2005 she was appointed a Board Member of the Housing Corporation, and from 2008 to 2011 of one of its successor bodies, the Homes and Communities Agency. In December 2005, she was asked to conduct an independent Review of Land Use Planning, from 2010 to May 2015 she was Chair of the Northern Ireland Economic Advisory Group. She was appointed as one of two members of the UK governments Office for Budget Responsibility in June 2011. She is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and her book, Housing, Wheres the Plan was published in September 2014 by London Publishing Partnership, in their Perspectives series. In 2014 she chaired a Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care in England for the Kings Fund and she led a quality review of the National Accounts for the Office for National Statistics during 2014. Barker is a member of the board of the Centre for Economic Policy at the London School of Economics. She became Chair of the board for the Centre for Business Research at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. She is a visiting fellow in the Department of Land Economy at Cambridge. She was also a Governor at Anglia Ruskin University from 2000–10, and Chair of Governors 2007-2010, in October 2011 and she was Chair of the Society of Business Economists from 2013 to 2016. In March 2014 she was appointed a member of the Fiscal Policy Panel of the States of Jersey and she is a trustee of the Essex Community Foundation. She is a director on the boards of Taylor Wimpey
15.
Lilian Barker
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Born in Islington, Barker was educated at the local elementary school system and graduated from Whitelands College. As a schoolteacher specializing with delinquent and other troubled children, Barker was appointed principal of the London County Councils Womens Institute correctional facility in 1913. Following the war, Barker joined the Ministry of Labours training department and, under her administration, Barker made sweeping reforms under a model humane reformatory focusing on education, guidance and rehabilitation. Barker was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1944 for her services in connection with the welfare of women, ISBN 1-85743-228-2 Phillips, Charles and Alan Axelrod. Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists, An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, ISBN 0-8160-3016-2 Biography of Dame Lilian Barker, DBE, andrejkoymasky. com, accessed 24 June 2014
16.
Henrietta Barnett
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Dame Henrietta Octavia Weston Barnett, DBE was a notable English social reformer, educationist, and author. She and her husband, Samuel Augustus Barnett, founded the first University Settlement at Toynbee Hall in 1884 and they also worked to establish the model Hampstead Garden Suburb in the early 20th century. Born in Clapham, London, Henrietta Octavia Weston Rowland lost her mother at an early age, at age 16, Henrietta was sent to a boarding school in Devon run by the Haddon sisters, who, influenced by James Hinton, were committed to social altruism. When her father died in 1869, Henrietta moved with two sisters to Bayswater, where she met and helped social activist and housing reformer Octavia Hill. Hill introduced Henrietta to the writings of John Ruskin, as well as influential people similarly interested in improving the condition of Londons poor. Through Hill, Henrietta met Canon Samuel Barnett, then the curate of St Marys, the newlyweds soon moved to the impoverished Whitechapel parish of St Judes, intent on improving social conditions. Henrietta continued her parish visiting activities, with a focus on women and children, in 1875, Henrietta became a woman guardian for the parish, and the following year was named a school manager for the Poor Law district schools in Forest Gate. The Barnetts experiment in sending slum children for country holidays grew into the Childrens Fresh Air Mission, established in 1877, Henrietta Barnett promoted Homes for Workhouse Girls starting in 1880, and founded the London Pupil Teachers Association in 1891. She also served as vice-president of the National Association for the Welfare of the Feeble-Minded, in 1897 annual loan exhibitions of fine art began at the nearby Whitechapel Gallery through the Barnetts efforts. In 1903 Richard Tawney began working with them, the Childrens Country Holiday Fund, william Beveridge and Clement Attlee also worked with the Barnetts as they started their own careers. A visit to Toynbee Hall inspired Jane Addams to found Hull House in Chicago, in 1889 the activist couple acquired a weekend home at Spaniards End in the Hampstead area of north-west London. The Barnetts became inspired by Ebenezer Howard and the housing development movement. In 1904, they established trusts which bought 243 acres of land along the newly opened Northern line extension to Golders Green, in 1909, an adult education institute opened in the middle of the new Hampstead Garden Suburb, with cultural programmes and discussion groups. Soon a school for girls was established and named the Henrietta Barnett School, the Barnetts never had children of their own. They adopted Dorothy Woods, and Henrietta also served as guardian for her brain-damaged elder sister. After Samuel died in 1913, Henrietta founded Barnett House at Oxford in his memory and she helped it become the universitys centre for social work and social policy education. Barnett wrote several books, alone and with her husband and their Christian Socialist beliefs are set out in Practicable Socialism and Toward Social Reform. Her early books concerned domestic issues, The Making of the Home, How to Mind the Baby, with Kathleen Mallam, Henrietta Barnett also edited a collection of essays entitled Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children
17.
Shirley Bassey
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In January 1959, Bassey became the first Welsh person to gain a No.1 single. In 2000, Bassey was made a Dame for services to the performing arts, in 1977 she received the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in the previous 25 years. Bassey has been called one of the most popular vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century. Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and youngest child of Henry Bassey and Eliza Jane Start and she grew up in the adjacent community of Splott. At the time, Tiger Bay was one of the largest ports in the world and was very multi-ethnic and her father was Nigerian, and her mother was English, from Teesside. Two of her mothers four children from previous relationships lived in the Bassey household, Eliza and Henrys second child died in infancy, so Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother. Teachers and students alike at Moorland Road School noticed Basseys strong voice, even in the school choir the teacher kept telling me to back off till I was singing in the corridor. A classmate recalled her singing the refrain Cant help lovin that man of mine from Show Boat with such feeling that she made their teacher uncomfortable. After leaving Splott Secondary Modern School at age 14, Bassey found employment at a factory while singing in public houses and clubs in the evenings and on weekends. In 1953, Bassey signed her first professional contract, to sing in the variety show Memories of Jolson. She next took up an engagement in Hot from Harlem. Pregnant at 16 with her first child and unwilling to reveal the name of the childs father, in 1955, Bassey toured various theatres until she was noticed by the impresario Jack Hylton. He invited her to feature in Al Reads Such Is Life at the Adelphi Theatre in Londons West End, during the shows run, Philips record producer Johnny Franz spotted her on television, was impressed, and offered her a recording deal. Bassey recorded her first single, Burn My Candle, released in February 1956, owing to the suggestive lyrics, the BBC banned it, but it sold well enough nonetheless, backed with her powerful rendition of Stormy Weather. More singles followed, and in February 1957, Bassey had her first hit with The Banana Boat Song and she then made her American stage début in Las Vegas at El Rancho Vegas. In mid-1958, she recorded two singles that would become classics in the Bassey catalogue. As I Love You was released as the B-side of another ballad, Hands Across the Sea, it did not sell well at first, but after an appearance at the London Palladium sales began to pick up. In January 1959, As I Love You reached No.1 and stayed there for four weeks, it was the first No.1 single by a Welsh artist
18.
Doris Beale
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Dame Doris Winifred Beale, DBE, RRC & Bar was an English nurse, and Matron-in-Chief of Queen Alexandras Royal Naval Nursing Service for three years during the Second World War. In the Kings birthday honours list 1944 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and she was born in Forest Hill, London to George Beale and his wife, Annie Maria Beale. After two years training, she joined QARNNS in 1917. She served at Royal Naval Hospitals in Plymouth and Portsmouth, before spending three years at the Royal Naval Hospital Gibraltar, during this time she was admitted as a member of the College of Nursing, becoming a registered nurse in 1923. She then had two spells nursing at RNH Chatham, either side of two years at RNH Bighi in Malta, between December 1930 and August 1933 she was in charge of the Cadet Sick Quarters at Dartmouth, before becoming Superintending Sister at RNH Chatham. On 24 February 1937 she was presented with the Associate Royal Red Cross at Buckingham Palace. The following month she was promoted to the position of Matron at RNH Haslar, Portsmouth, and a year later she moved to RNH Stonehouse, Plymouth, in July 1941 she was again promoted, to Matron-in-chief of QARNNS. On 23 September 1941 she was upgraded to the Royal Red Cross, in 1943 she became an Officer of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, before receiving a Bar to her RRC in January the following year. She was made a Dame on 8 June 1944, and then retired, after retirement she became Deputy Matron-in-Chief of the Joint War Organisation of the Red Cross and St. John. She received her British Red Cross Society Distinguished War Service Certificate from HM The Queen in 1946, in 1951, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal and Certificate by the International Red Cross Committee, presented to her by HRH The Duke of Gloucester. In 1969 she became a Vice-President of the Hostel for Disabled Women Workers and she was then made the first President of the QARNNS Association in 1970. Between October and November 1949, she travelled to the BRCS Commission, Jordan, during this time, she also visited Israel, Syria and the Lebanon. After the visit, she produced a report for the BRCS, giving her findings and outlining her recommendations for future action
19.
Mary Beard (classicist)
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Winifred Mary Beard, OBE, FSA, FBA is an English scholar and classicist. She is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College and she is the Classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, where she also writes a regular blog, A Dons Life. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as Britains best-known classicist, Mary Beard was born, an only child, on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Her mother, Joyce Emily Beard, was a headmistress and an enthusiastic reader and her father, Roy Whitbread Beard, worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. She recalled him as a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, Beard was educated at Shrewsbury High School, a private school for girls. During the summer she would join archaeological excavations, though the motivation was, in part, at eighteen she sat the then-compulsory entrance exam and interview for Cambridge University, to win a place at Newnham College. She had considered Kings, but rejected it when she learned the college did not offer scholarships to women and she also developed feminist views that remained hugely important in her later life, although she later described modern orthodox feminism as partly cant. Beard graduated with a BA, which was, in due course and she remained at Cambridge for her 1982 Ph. D. thesis entitled, The state religion in the late Roman Republic, a study based on the works of Cicero. From 1979 to 1983, Beard lectured in Classics at Kings College London and she returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a Fellow of Newnham College and the only woman lecturer in the Classics faculty. Rome in the Late Republic, which she co-wrote with Cambridge historian Michael Crawford, was published the same year, Beard became Classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement in 1992. In 1994 she made an television appearance on an Open Media discussion for the BBC, Weird Thoughts, alongside Jenny Randles and James Randi. Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Beard was one of several authors invited to contribute articles on the topic to the London Review of Books. She opined that people, once the shock had faded, thought the United States had it coming. In 2004, Beard became Professor of Classics at Cambridge and she was elected Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she delivered a series of lectures on Roman Laughter. Beard is a contributor to the BBC Radio 4 series, A Point of View, delivering essays on a broad range of topics including Miss World. Beard received considerable online abuse after she appeared on BBCs Question Time from Lincolnshire in January 2013, Beard quoted abusive comments that she had received on her blog as a result, and reasserted her right to express unpopular opinions and to present herself in public in an authentic way. On 4 August 2013, she received a threat on Twitter. Beard said she did not think she was in physical danger, in April 2013, she was named as Royal Academy of Arts professor of ancient literature
