Tag Archives: women’s voices

Women’s History Month 2017: Afterthoughts

Posted on 31 March 2017 by

To wrap up this month, this post is just a few notes – half-formed thoughts, not ‘conclusions’ – on some recurring themes that struck me as I was writing and researching posts (and shaped some of my choices as the … Continue reading →

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Women Petitioners: Belinda Sutton, an ex-slave in Massachusetts

Posted on 29 March 2017 by

In February 1783, Belinda Sutton petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a pension from the estate of Isaac Royall Jr, her late master. (In this petition she names herself simply ‘Belinda, an Affrican’, but in later documents she gave the … Continue reading →

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Women Petitioners: London Servants

Posted on 26 March 2017 by

I’m going to round off WHM2017 with a couple of posts indulging my current interests in petitions. Today I have two petitions from the London Lives Petitions Project: both are from working women who petitioned London magistrates for help after … Continue reading →

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The Journey of Sarah Knight (1666-1727)

Posted on 24 March 2017 by

In October 1704, Sarah Knight left her home town of Boston, MA, for a five-month journey on horseback to New York, which she recorded in a travel diary which is memorable for its descriptions of the perils and people she … Continue reading →

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Mary Saxby (1738-1801), an 18th-century vagrant and memoirist

Posted on 21 March 2017 by

Mary Saxby’s Memoirs of a Female Vagrant was published posthumously, with the twin goals of raising some money for impoverished relatives and ‘prompting the active beneficence of the present age, to regard the wandering classes of the poor, with that attention … Continue reading →

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The will of Elen ferch Lewes (d. 1619)

Posted on 18 March 2017 by

Today’s offering, courtesy of the National Library of Wales’s rather amazing Welsh Wills Online project, is the 1619 will of Elen ferch Lewes of Meline, Pembrokeshire. Elen was not very wealthy (the total value of her probate inventory, included with … Continue reading →

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The travails of Lady Ann Fanshawe (1625-1680)

Posted on 15 March 2017 by

Ann Harrison came from a Hertfordshire Royalist family whose lives were turned upside down by the Civil Wars. She married her husband Sir Richard Fanshawe in 1644, and large parts of their married life were spent in travels that she … Continue reading →

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Eleanor Miller (d. 1777?): a poor Scottish migrant in 18th-century London

Posted on 12 March 2017 by

Eleanor Miller, a poor widow living in St Botolph Aldgate, was examined concerning her settlement rights in December 1765 by two Middlesex Justices of the Peace. Her examination is considerably longer than average and recounts an eventful life: from Edinburgh … Continue reading →

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