This is a list of some of the illustrated lectures I can deliver to your group. For prices and availability please contact me at historywomenbrighton@outlook.com

Women Warriors – Women have only been allowed to join the army for one hundred years and, just two years ago, were given the right for the first time to play a combative role in the Armed Forces on an even footing with men.  However, like Brighton’s Phoebe Hessel, this didn’t stop a trickle of women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries joining up anyway – disguised as men.  This talk looks at the fascinating stories behind the women who managed to pull off a military career disguised as men.  Who were they?  Why did they do it?  What adventures did they have?  What happened when they were found out?

Amazing Women of Brighton and Hove  – Doctors, policewomen, entrepreneurs, sportswomen, this talk looks at some of the fantastic women who’ve made waves around Brighton and Hove.  Just like my walks, but sitting down! 

Entertaining Women – Music-hall legends, early comediennes, divas of early film, drag artists, iconic soap actresses, pioneering managers, all-female jazz bands, and the woman who gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll… For over a hundred years, Brighton and Hove has been home (or has links to) some of the foremost female entertainers in the country, many appearing in some of the city’s best loved venues, such as the Dome. This illustrated talk looks at a selection of household names and some of the lesser known women who have kept us at the edge of our seats – or settees – shouting for more.  (Below: Laura Bayley, Victorian Burlesque performer at Brighton Aquarium and early star of silent film)

The Pioneering Women Doctors of Brighton and Hove – Women have only been allowed to practise medicine in Britain since 1876. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brighton and Hove became a centre for some of Britain’s earliest and most pioneering female doctors, who helped to found and run local women’s hospitals such as the landmark Lewes Road Dispensary for Women and Children and the New Sussex Hospital for Women on Windlesham Road. This illustrated talk explores the fascinating stories of some of our first women doctors, the ideas they had, the hospitals they ran, their patients, and the struggles they faced to prove that a woman’s place could be in the operating theatre or consulting room.  Below, Dr Helen Boyle who founded a hospital to treat the early symptoms of mental collapse in women near Brighton’s Lewes Rd.

Behind Every Great Man – Some Incredible Regency Women – this talk looks at some early 19 century women who broke boundaries and achieved remarkable things such as Jane Austen, Elizabeth Fry, and Mary Shelley, as well as some less well-known women, such as provocative courtesan Harriette Wilson

The Wonderful World of the Regency Dandy – What were the must-have clothing items and attitudes of the fashionable Regency man-about-town in the early nineteenth century. From (Regency) men behaving badly to the birth of the English gentleman

Brighton Hospitals During the First World War – From 1914 – 1920 Brighton’s Royal Pavilion Estate became a military hospital, first, for wounded Indian soldiers, then later for British soldiers who had lost limbs. How was this symbol of pleasure and excess transformed into a modern hospital, how did it operate, what was treatment and life like for patients and staff, and what did the soldiers think of their surroundings and Brighton?