Exploring Women's Contributions in London and LSE

In honour of Women’s History Month, we are looking back on the Women of LSE who revolutionised learning and made LSE the place that it is today! Alongside the women of the university, we will be looking at the women of London, who helped reform the city, fight the enemy and took on roles that were foreign to women in the 1900s.

🦸‍♀️ Beatrice Webb 

Many people don't know but the London School of Economics was founded by four people. One of those people was Beatrice Webb, a social reformer and a Fabian Society member. Her contributions even after the inception of a higher education institution did not stop. She produced the Minority Report which outlined the poor laws around education and the high level of unemployment. She also taught Trade Unionism and Free Competition on the Labour Market at the school. 

🦸‍♀️ Noor Inayat Khan 

A name not heard of, Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist, was a force to be reckoned with during the Second World War. Famously addressed as the UK’s first Muslim War Heroine, she led the resistance against the Nazi’s during World War II. She was a children’s author, who turned into a radio operator and then a spy. At the time of execution in the Dachau Concentration Camp, she was only 30 years old. A statue with a blue plaque in her honor was inaugurated in Bloomsbury square and a must visit for everyone. 

🦸‍♀️ Lilian Knowles 

If you are a proud resident of Lilian Knowles House just like me, you would know that Lilian Knowles was a student at the London School of Economics who turned into a Professor of Economic History. Knowles advocated for equal pay and began a long campaign about her own pay and rights with the LSE administration. Her work in academics and fight for equal pay speaks volumes of the woman she was. Her work till today resonates with the LSE community. 

🦸‍♀️ Alice Clark 

Somerset born and LSE student, Alice Clark was a suffragette campaigner. She studied the life of working women in the seventeenth century under Lilian Knowles and served as the Executive Committee of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Society. Coming from a pacifist family, she was an enthusiastic contributor to the cause. Clark is fondly remembered as the one holding the flag at the end of the Suffrage Pilgrimage in Hyde Park which kept the Clark family involved in the cause. 

🦸‍♀️ Hannah Dadds 

The first female tube driver, Hannah Dadds made history by being the first woman to be a part of the London Transport system. She was a part of the District Line and continued with her role for the next 15 years of her life. Dadds was shortly after joined by her sister and together they became the two women who formed the first women's London Underground crew. In honor of her role in transforming the system, there is a plaque at Upton Park Station to applaud her role in London Underground.