#BehindEveryGreatCity

It's great to see so many nominations, thanks everyone for sharing. We received this one via our feedback form:

"Amparo Rendon. To help integrate many Latinos into the community in the past 30 years. Volunteering thousands of hours to amazing community projects. One of her most outstanding contributions has been her skills and qualities to empower and enable thousands of vulnerable people mainly in South London areas. Always with a non-judgmental and caring approach, she will support and go the extra miles needed. She has opened and supported many community projects. She managed to interlink many different ethnic groups and community projects, by getting them to work and participate together. Including local gangs and victims. 

Currently she runs a Women's Recreational Football group, that has over 200 members, all from all different walks of life. The diversity is amazing. When the women play; there is no gender, race, colour, language, age, barrier, or discrimination. Just women learning to integrate as one and taking part in a game, that empowers them and reminds them of what London is about.

Her outstanding contribution and work in the community over the years has made an immense change and it needs to be recognized.
I know that I can personally say like many hundreds of people, I am where I am because of her."

Talk London

We received a couple more nominations through the feedback form, thanks for sharing everyone!

"Mrs Sally Brooks. The respect and high regard of a community of young men who need a lot of guidance and encouragement to make good life choices. Coming into a school that the local community has poor expectations of and helping the boys achieved to their potential and beyond with her positivity everyday, with each member of the community student, family, staff or outside people.

Teresa Pearce MP. Teresa helped when the council kept asking for more and more paper documents, which i didn't have, and wouldn't pay housing benefit so my little girl and i were not made homeless. And there are numerous other actions she has continued quietly to take, even talking about dog poo in Parliament."

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A couple more from the feedback form, thanks for submitting!

Barbara Matthews. Born and bred in South London and has worked all her life in London. Having been a London Borough of Havering Independent Councillor for 32 years. She has helped thousands of residents, even when suffering from Cancer, having to work full time and bringing up a family. She was the leader of the opposition for 8 years but allowed a younger colleague to takeover. She served on most committees and was on outside bodies such as the Havering Arts Council and was a trustee on the then Cleanaway charity. She supports the local charities Add+up, First Step and HAD. She was made a Freeman of the borough in 2008 as a result of her work for Havering. She was Deputy Mayor 2014/5, selected by the Conservative Mayor because of her amazing personality and her work for the less fortunate. Barbara stood down as a local councillor in May 2018 at the age of 76. She is however; still fully involved in local matters through the Non party political Hornchurch Residents Association. Membership is over 8,500 homes with over 22,000 individuals, which also supports 8 HRA councillors. She has no idea of just how much people appreciate her and her actions.

Janet Susan Cooper. The largest one name study in the world listed on www.greathead.org
Her work has uncovered some of the greatest pioneers and engineers of the same bloodline who built London and saved millions of lives. Because of her work it has been possible to solve some great mysteries and hidden histories of London's underground and the foundation of the RNLI lifeboat story. Her achievement has been recognised globally by genealogical societies as authoritative and accurate.

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And another one, thanks for sharing!

"Hilda Hewlett was an early aviator and aviation entrepreneur. She was the first British woman to earn a pilot's licence in 1911. She founded and ran two related businesses: the first flying school in the United Kingdom in Brooklands and a successful aircraft manufacturing business which produced more than 800 aeroplanes and employed up to 700 people. The Hewlett and Blondea Omnia Works was based in Vardens Road from 1912-14 when they expanded and moved to Luton. Tom Sopwith was one of their first trainees and she taught her son Francis to fly and he was a captain in the RAF in WW2.

She was a vicars daughter of St Peter's Vauxhall, trained as sn artist specialising in metalwork, woodwork and sewing which was to come in handy for aircraft making. She also did a year's nurse trying in Germay. She married Maurice Hewlett, a solicitor, who became a romantic history novelist. Hilda got interested in cycling, then cars and car racing before the flying bug took hold. She and her husband drifted apart and separated.

After the war they sold the business. Hilda emigrated to New Zealand joining her daughter and got interested in fishing."

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We received the nomination below via our feedback form, thanks!

"Jeanie Nassau Senior 1828-1877 was the first woman civil servant when she produced a report on young women from workhouses. She as born Jeanie Hughes and was sister of Tom Hughes MP for Lambeth and author of Tom Brown's Schooldays. She married John Znassau Senior when she was 18 and grieving the death of her brother Walter. John was the son of William Nassau Senior a government economist and architect of he Poor Law legislation and the work houses. Jeanie was a beautiful singer, received further training funded by her father in law with whom they lived as her husband was a workshy trained barrister. She tested the accoustics of the Albert Hall. She knew many political and artistic people, was painted by George Watts and Millais, the model for Dorothea in Middlemarch by her friend George Eliot's and friend of Octavia Hill social housing pioneer. It was through her that James Stansfield, Local Government Board, asked her to write a report on what happened to young women in the workhouses and afterwards thus making her the first woman in Whitehall. She lived at Elm House Lavender Hill on the site of Battersea Town Hall. She died aged 48."

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Another one from our feedback form, thanks for sharing and please keep the nominations coming!

"Eileen Wade took part in the very first programme of Any Old Irons project in 2015 with the West Ham United Foundation. The project aims to fight loneliness and isolation for over 65's by helping increase people's wellbeing through friendship. Three years ago Eileen was living with overpowering anxiety and depression after separating from her husband. She virtually became a recluse and would spend most days at home alone. She chatted to us recently about the important role Any Old Irons it played in her recovery and why it has inspired her to become a volunteer: Any Old Irons has been massive for me – it has really brought me out of myself and that's why I became an Any Old Irons volunteer. I want everyone else to be able to get out and have bit of a life and enjoy themselves too. I've also got involved in befriending work with lonely older people through Friends of the Elderly – I wanted to give something back as a volunteer as I know what it is like to go all day without speaking to someone. We would love for Eileen's hard work and contribution as a volunteer to be rewarded."

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We've received some more nominations, the ones below came in via the feedback form. Thanks for sharing!

Caroline Pidgeon. She has been speaking truth to power for many years now, holding successive mayors to account on transport, policing and the environment. And she had the brilliant idea of the one-hour bus ticket, which has now finally become a reality.

Professor Jan Welch and Dr Bernadette Butler. Professor Welch founded the Havens Sexual Assault Referral Centre in March 2000 at King's College Hospital. As London's first SARC, the Havens have helped countless survivors of sexual assault by offering them medical care, forensic examinations, counselling and aftercare, in a kind, professional and confidential environment. The Havens now have specialist centres in Paddington and Whitechapel as well. Dr Butler has worked at the Haven since day one, initially as a day time doctor then as Lead Doctor training aspiring Sexual Offences Examiners and GPs wishing to take up this very specialised part of medicine. She retired 3 years ago but has returned as Clinical Educational & Training Lead and still acts as a Senior Doctor, providing 24/7 support and advice across all three sites. Both Professor Welch and Dr Butler are Founder Members of The Faculty of Forensic Medicine. Professor Welch provides leadership as Director at the South Thames Foundation School for undergraduate and post graduate doctors. These two amazing women have trained in excess of 80 doctors, crisis workers, and forensic nurse examiners. They have influenced the development of SARCs nationally. They have been an inspiration to so many people and are part of what makes London great.

Talk London

We've received some more nominations via our feedback form, thanks for sharing everyone!

"Maragret Clap. She ran one of London's first LGBT safe spaces at a time when it ran in direct contravention to social norms and the law. In doing so she risked her liberty and reputation which were sensationally taken from her and ruined in the courts. This resulted in her being pillioried, fined and imprisoned for two years. In addition to this she purgied herself by providing false testimony to get a man acquitted of sodomdy charges. It would be deeply unfair to consider that she was not aware of the consequence of her actions and as such 'Mother Clap' is truely deserving of being remembered for her sense of fairness and bravery in the face of established norms. It is also widely accepted that her 'molly house' was not run as a brothel for profit but as a haven of pleasure for a much malign section of society.

Anna Freud set up the Hampstead War Nursery which provided foster care for over 80 children of single-parent families. With Anna as director from 1952 until her death, the nurseries developed into the Hampstead Child Therapy Training Course and Clinic. The clinic, now called the Anna Freud Centre, offered psychoanalysis for disturbed children and established the world's first full-time training course in child psychotherapy in 1947.

Margaret Thatcher. Transformed the U.K into the economic powerhouse that is today.

Rosalind Franklin. Working at kings college London, she did x-ray crystallography of DNA, helping to solve it's structure.

Marie Stopes. A revolution in attitudes to women's sexuality and control over reproduction."

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Below are some more nominations, reveived via our feedback form. Thanks very much!

Margaret Thatcher. Transformation of the economy from over-regulated, over-taxed union-dominated sclerosis to a modern, productive and successful market economy.Thandie Newton. A respectable actress who is a board member of the One Billion Rising Campaign. She is a true activist who has contributed to Eve Ensler's work and uses her fame to reach out more people about the serious matter of violence towards women.

Simona Florio. Because she achieved the creation of an innovative and hugely successful club in Stockwell, South London for those living with dementia and their carers. She is a powerhouse and inspiration to all!

Dany Cotton. As London Fire Commissioner, Dany has provided evidence that women can achieve high-ranking roles within a traditionally male environment. This makes her a great role model for girls making their career choices.

Amelia Edwards was an English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist, born in London in 1831. However, it was her bequest that left us with some fantastic treasures. The Petrie Museum is a university museum. It was set up as a teaching resource for the Department of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London (UCL). Both the department and the museum were created in 1892 through the bequest of the writer Amelia Edwards (1831-1892). Amelia Edwards donated her collection of several hundred Egyptian antiquities, many of historical importance.

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