Page 121 - 2018 Powerlist

In the 1800s a number of brave women chose to go to
sea. They were called Female Tars and passed themselves
off as men in order to become sailors. Seaman William
Brown (c.1815) was one such woman who not only
successfully passed herself off as a man for more than
11 years but, according to naval records, performed her
duties ‘highly to the satisfaction of officers’.
Seaman William Brown, Ajamu X 2014, Photograph of Dorothea Smartt as
Seaman William Brown. Reconstruction commissioned by BCA.

Jessica Huntley pictured
standing next to Angela Davis.
Reproduction from BCA
Collection/Courtesy of Neil
Kenlock.

Jessica Huntley (1927-
2013) was a political activist
in Guyana before she came
to England in the 1950s. She
founded Bogle-L’ouverture
Publications with her
husband Eric and their first
publication was Groundings
With My Brothers by Walter
Rodney, later re-naming the
bookshop after him when he
was assassinated. She was a
founding member of the First
International Book Fair of
Radical Black and Third World
Books.

During her short life,
Olive Morris (1952-1979)
was a member of the British
Black Panthers, worked
on campaigns around
policing and housing and Connie Mark (1923-2007)
founded several black joined the British Army in 1943
women’s organisations. Her at the young age of 19, and
We know a lot about Mary Seacole contribution was so great served in Jamaica as part of
(1805-1881) and her remarkable service during that Lambeth Council named the Auxiliary Territorial Service
the Crimean War (1853-56) when she nursed a key building after her and (ATS). On coming to Britain,
wounded British soldiers. What is less known she is featured on the Brixton she became a driving force
is how newspapers hailed her at the time as Pound. within the black community,
the mother of British soldiers, rather than her Olive Morris, reproduction from BCA raising the profile of the
contemporary, Florence Nightingale. Collection/Courtesy of Neil Kenlock. contribution women had
Mary Seacole, reproduction photograph courtesy of Winchester made to the war effort, and
School and The Mary Seacole Trust
becoming Chair of the Friends
of Mary Seacole organisation.
Connie Mark, reproduction from BCA
Collection
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