Logo
Contact us

Etheldred Browning

Etheldred Browning

1869 - 1946

 

Founder of Women’s Pioneer Housing

 

Etheldred was born Edith Anna Browning on 17th September 1869 in Donnybrook, Dublin, the third of four children. She came from an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family included in Burke’s Irish Peerage. Her father Jeffrey Francis Browning (1832-1889) was a lawyer, who served as Solicitor to the Court of the Irish Land Commission.  Her mother, Julia Mary Smart (1841-1925) was born in London, the eldest daughter of a Professor of Music. In 1886, she enrolled at Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art and began using the name Etheldred.

[Click on the image above to expand it]

In the 1900s, Etheldred became a passionate and active member of the suffrage movement in Dublin. She wrote articles and gave talks on a number of women’s issues, including a presentation at the formal opening of the Library of the Irish Women’s Reform League (a non-militant organisation which was concerned with wider social issues as well as suffrage). A report of a joint meeting of Suffrage Societies in Dublin in November 1913, concentrating on the religious, ethical and moral aspects of the women’s movement, noted:  

Miss Browning disagreed with the suggestion that they were working to relieve the sufferings of the poor, and said that each of them was working selfishly for her own good to bring out the “real woman”, which was the greatest blessing that could be conferred on humanity. 

The following month, she was identified as one of the ‘Ladies Prominently Identified with Suffrage Week in Ireland’, for a feature in the Irish Independent. In articles for the Irish Citizen (the newspaper of the Irish Women’s Franchise League), she wrote passionate rallying cries for women to take their place in all areas of society:

women factory inspectors — women law makers, women police, women on the jury, women lawyers, women everywhere that is the need of our country… rise! You must free all others to be free! (Irish Citizen, August 1913)

During World War One, she carried out research into women’s wages for the Central Committee for the Employment of Women and managed the Dublin Embroidery Industry, as part of Suffrage Emergency Council’s work, along with her friend Florence Lily Carre.

Etheldred Browning (second from left in front row, wearing sash) pictured in Dublin in 1913 during Suffrage Week. Etheldred was active in the Irish Women’s Reform League which concerned itself with wider social as well as suffrage issues. The Irish Independent 13th December 1913 British Newspaper Archive

Sometime after the war, Etheldred moved to London. There, she continued her vocal support for women’s enfranchisement and developed a particular interest in the issue of housing. This seems to have been spurred on by Etheldred’s own situation; her writing on the subject is often personal and emotional, as in ‘Ghosts’, an essay for The Common Cause (a suffrage newspaper) that details her experiences of going to a male-dominated lecture on housing organised by the Town Planning and Garden Cities Association:

Everywhere I looked, I saw women, women – and then they faded out. They were but ghosts, ineffectual, powerless ghosts! …Woman’s place is the home – woman is the housekeeper – woman is responsible for the well-being of the children (all the stock phrases rushed to my mind), and yet here was a meeting called to demand, discuss, and plan the very houses woman was to keep, and yet woman was not present to express her wishes, to be consulted, to give her weight to the resolutions – woman was not even honoured with a seat at the platform! 

Click here to read the article. Ghosts by Etheldred Browning - Common Cause

In another, ‘How Shall She Live’, she describes the difficulty and humiliation suffered by a single working woman looking for accommodation, with a powerful and seemingly personal point of view. Soon, Etheldred’s thoughts turned to practical solutions. In a number of other articles – including ‘A Practical Programme for the Practical Working of a Housing Committee’, ‘State Aided Houses in the Flesh’ and ‘Women and Town Planning’ – she suggested various ways for women’s organisations to become involved in a national housing initiative.

It seems likely that these articles caught the attention of the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association (GCTPA), as she was invited to join their newly established Women’s Section in 1919. She spoke at the GCTPA women’s conference that ran alongside the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition on 7 February 1920. Etheldred’s time with the GCTPA was a great networking opportunity, through which she met many other like-minded women who were interested in the provision and design of housing, with experience in training housing managers.

In 1920, aged 51, Etheldred decided to personally intervene in the shortage of adequate, appropriate housing for women. Drawing on her contacts from the GCTPA as well as friends and collaborators from suffrage circles, she established Women’s Pioneer Housing in October of that year. All of the other founding members agreed that Etheldred’s passion was the driving force behind the organisation’s mission to develop accommodation for independent working women. Within six months, she built Women’s Pioneer Housing from a standing start to being ready to purchase its first house.

[Click on the image above to expand it]

Yet despite Etheldred’s ambition and determination, the early years of the organisation were far from plain sailing. Funding Women’s Pioneer Housing proved to be more difficult than expected, partly because Etheldred had expected to use government funds from Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s post-WWI ‘Homes Fit for Heroes’ scheme but this plan didn’t work out. A full-blown financial crisis ensued in 1921, almost plunging Women’s Pioneer Housing into liquidation. A rescue was made, but Etheldred - who had specified that Women’s Pioneer Housing should be mainly run by women - had to accept that some roles, particularly with regard to raising capital, would have to be carried out by men with suitable experience. Lady Shelley Rolls (a principal investor and later President) wrote in 1937 that Etheldred remained bitterly opposed to the two first male members of the Committee of Management.

[Click on the image above to expand it]

Etheldred remained at the heart of the organisation through most of its first two decades. As the secretary and, for its early years, the sole paid employee, she carried out nearly all the work of the fledgling organisation: she called meetings, wrote the minutes, inspected potential properties and dealt with bankers, surveyors, architects, builders, printers and tenants, both prospective and resident. She had voluntary and ad hoc help from members of the Committee of Management (COM) but her first assistant wasn’t appointed until November 1923.

By 1937, cracks began to appear. Tenants started to complain about Etheldred interfering in their affairs and snooping on them via house caretakers. The COM also noted that she was no longer as energetic as before and were concerned about her ability to take on the management of three new blocks of flats. Having invested so much time and energy into developing Women’s Pioneer Housing, Etheldred didn’t take kindly to the COM’s gentle hints about retirement. Her anger was eventually somewhat abated by the offer of a generous financial settlement, and she agreed to give up her position in October 1938. She stayed on the Committee of Management, but her attendance at meetings grew rarer after the start of World War II. She features as a COM member for the last time in the published Annual Report published in May 1945. 

Testimonial presented to Etheldred Browning on her retirement 1938 WPH archive, London Metropolitan Archives

After her retirement, Etheldred moved to Eton to live with her cousin Dorothy Sowter (who had worked as her assistant at Women’s Pioneer Housing and also been a tenant from 1926 to 1938). Her time there was relatively brief and, by 1942, she was back living at Cheltenham Terrace, while there she had a summons for causing a light after dark and was fined 20 shillings. When the war ended, Etheldred and her niece Ruth moved to Wandsworth to live in with her lifelong friend Florence Lily Carre and Florence’s sister Helen. One year later, Etheldred died in Chelsea on 30th April 1946, aged 77.

[Click on the image above to expand it]

Helen Archdale

Helen Archdale (nee Russel)
1876 - 1949

Founder member of Women’s Pioneer Housing

Helen Archdale 1928 ©National Portrait Gallery (X43211)

Helen Archdale was born into a family of radical, politically active intellectuals. She was the daughter of Alexander Russel, editor of The Scotsman and an active supporter of progressive causes, including women’s rights to education. Her mother, Helen de Lacy Evans, was one of the ‘Edinburgh Seven’ - the first group of women medical students at Edinburgh University; she had answered an advertisement placed in The Scotsman by Sophia Jex-Blake asking for women seeking to study medicine at Edinburgh to join her in a group application. Jex-Blake was an impassioned and forthright feminist with links to housing pioneer Octavia Hill. The Russel household in Edinburgh was a focus for political and intellectual gatherings and this evidently shaped Helen’s life and feminist politics. She would also follow in her mother’s footsteps by becoming one of the first women undergraduates at St. Andrews, where she studied from 1892 to 1894.

After leaving education, Helen entered into marriage with Theodore Montgomery Archdale, a captain with the British Army based in India. The marriage didn’t last and the couple became estranged by the time of Helen’s involvement with the suffrage movement. Helen joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908 and quickly became a close and trusted associate of the Pankhursts. She took several official positions in the WSPU and threw herself into the movement’s militant action. Betty would later recall collecting stones for her mother to use to break Whitehall windows and visiting her mother in Holloway during one of Helen’s two stints in prison.

After working for the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps during World War I, Helen joined the Women’s Department of the Ministry of National Service in 1918. There, she met Lady Margaret Mackworth (later Viscountess Rhondda), another veteran of the militant suffrage movement and the two developed an intense relationship, with Helen assisting in the running of Lady Rhondda’s business affairs after the death of her father. Helen also became closely involved with Time and Tide, a feminist magazine founded by Lady Rhondda in 1920. She became its second editor, when Vera Laughton resigned the role after two months. Shortly after the launch of Time and Tide, the pair embarked on another significant feminist project: with a mix of older suffragettes and younger feminists, such as the writer Winifred Holtby, they set up the Six Points Group in 1921. Through the Six Points Group, Helen, Lady Rhondda and other members planned to lobby for a change in the law in six key areas that affected women’s rights.

Helen’s personal relationship with Lady Rhondda developed alongside their professional activities. In 1923, Lady Rhondda divorced her husband and moved in with Helen and her children, living with them at Stonepitts (after having first rented the large cottage next door) in Seal near Sevenoaks, Kent, and in Lady Rhondda’s Chelsea flat in London. The two fell out in 1926 - but they remained sharing the house until 1931.

Helen was a founding member of Women’s Pioneer Housing and on the Committee of Management (COM) from 1920. She used her organisational experience as Chair from January 1921 onwards. During the financial crisis in spring 1921, she approached Lady Rhondda for a loan, which was not forthcoming. She was particularly active in fundraising and advertising, served on a sub-committee on raising capital in 1925 with Lady Shelley-Rolls, Vernon Ory and Charles Peel, organised fundraising dinners (writing to Mrs Wintringham MP to ask her to speak at a fundraising dinner in 1924 ) and came up with advertising schemes in 1927. She nominated Lady Rhondda as a COM member in 1925, and the two opposed a suggested amalgamation with the United Women’s Housing Association in 1926.

After her break with Lady Rhondda, Helen’s interest in feminist issues took on a more internationalist outlook. She resigned from Women’s Pioneer Housing in October 1931 (although she did write a letter of support to Etheldred during the retirement crisis in 1937) but continued to work as a journalist and on various feminist organisations. She moved to Geneva to lobby delegates of the League of Nations and chaired Equal Rights International until 1934, when she retired and returned to England.

Helen’s passion for women’s rights kept her active even in retirement and she continued to campaign for issues such as the acceptance of women peers in the House of Lords. In 1947, she spent two years with her daughter Betty in Australia, where she was invited to speak on equal rights by organisations including the Australian Institute of International Affairs. However, Helen suffered a heart attack in 1948, and once her health had improved enough, she was forced to return to London. Helen died at 17 Grove Court, St John's Wood, London, on 8th December 1949.

Dorothy Peel

Dorothy Peel OBE
1868 – 1934

Member of the Committee of Management, 1921 - 1928

Dorothy Peel ©Imperial War Museum (WWC D8-5-91)

Dorothy was invited to join the Committee of Management at Women’s Pioneer Housing’s second meeting on 30th September 1920. She was an important figure during the financial crisis of 1921,  holding meetings at her own house, and supporting WPH through its dire financial problems. In an effort to find tenants willing to invest in the first house, she organised two public meetings. Dorothy also chaired the two special meetings of shareholders in May 1921, when Ray Strachey came forward with a solution to save WPH from liquidation.

Dorothy was connected with some of WPH’s investors, and she helped to organise the opening ceremony for 28 Phillimore Gardens with Etheldred and Violet Durand. After 1925, she became much less involved with WPH, but was replaced by her husband Charles, who helped secure its finances. 

Outside of WPH work, Dorothy was a successful writer and businesswoman. She won a writing competition in Woman magazine aged 17, and was encouraged by its editor, the esteemed novelist Arnold Bennett, to begin writing about domestic matters and cookery.

Once Dorothy’s children were all at school in 1913, her career took off. She became editor of the household department of The Queen, a position she held for seventeen years, as well as working for Hearth and Home and The Lady. 

During the First World War she worked as co-director of women’s service for the Ministry of Food during the period of voluntary food rations from March 1917 to March 1918. In 1918, Lord Northcott made her editor of the women's page of the Daily Mail, and The Mail's Food Bureau launched on 4 March 1918, just as rationing became compulsory. She provided her readers with thrifty recipes. In 1919 Dorothy was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her services during the war.

In August 1934, Charles wrote to tell the COM of Dorothy’s death. He resigned and did not attend any more meetings, but wrote after the AGMs in 1937 and 1939 to congratulate the Society on a successful year.  The COM recorded ‘the appreciation of the committee for the fine work done for Women’s Pioneer Housing by Mr and Mrs Peel from the earliest days right up to the present, a period of 12 years’.   

Ray Strachey

Ray Strachey (nee Costello)
1887 - 1940

Author, journalist, suffragist and political campaigner

Ray Strachey at work 1923 ©National Portrait Gallery (AX161150)

Ray’s contribution to Women’s Pioneer Housing was relatively short but invaluable. It’s likely that Etheldred knew Ray from The Common Cause, a suffrage newspaper that Ray edited and Etheldred had written for. Ray first appears in WPH’s records in March 1921 at an open meeting for potential investors. At a special meeting the following month, during the financial crisis, she seconded a motion ‘that WPH goes into liquidation’ but added an offer ‘to ascertain whether it would be possible to raise the necessary money ... and to call this meeting again’ – in other words, Ray offered to help look for funding to avoid WPH collapsing. Ray was a determined character and she succeeded in her mission: in the next meeting, she reported that she had found an investor to take £2500 in loan stock, which Ray Strachey herself would guarantee. Her actions saved WPH from bankruptcy or takeover just seven months after its founding. 

Ray became Chairman in 1921 and she assisted Etheldred in driving the completion, conversion and letting of 67 Holland Park Avenue, its first property. During this time, WPH issued the first share certificates, and formally appointed Miriam Homersham as an accountant. Ray also brought John Rowlatt on board, who was willing to become WPH’s solicitor, using his expertise to regularise WPH’s legal position. On her resignation the following year, WPH was in a strong position to continue with its mission.

As her efforts at WPH proved, Ray was a well-educated, well-connected woman. She graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1908, and took a course in engineering at Oxford in 1910. Despite having a private income Ray was aware she needed to earn her own living. She took up writing and published her first book in 1907, fitting writing and journalism around her suffragist work. On 31st May 1911, Ray married Oliver Strachey, one of the sons of suffragist and author Lady Jane Strachey, brother to historian Lytton Strachey (a member of the Bloomsbury Set and friend of Virginia Woolf). Like the rest of his family, Oliver shared Ray’s views on women’s suffrage and joined the NUWSS himself.

Following her marriage, a brief stay in India and the birth of her first child, Ray returned to suffrage work in 1913.  Ray’s role as Hon Parliamentary Secretary of the NUWSS meant that along with Millicent Fawcett and Ray’s sister-in-law Pippa Strachey she had a major input to the negotiations for the passage of the 1918 suffrage bill, drafting resolutions, lobbying MPs and writing speeches for them to support the bill. 

After the vote was won, Ray spent the 1920s and 1930s campaigning for an extension of women's professional employment and for equal pay. She fought particularly for women's admission to the legal profession and to the civil service. In 1935 she wrote Careers and Openings for Women, a practical handbook and a sociological survey of the female labour market. Ray also carried out pioneering work as became Organising Secretary of the Women's Employment Federation (WEF). Under Ray’s direction, the WEF was regarded as a valuable body, organising speakers, liaising with education and advisers individuals. It gained anonymous recognition in Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas. From 1938 WEF became more and more involved in war work, supplying the government with information on women with specialist experience. 

Ray unsuccessfully stood three times for parliament, but kept up her parliamentary influence as political private secretary to Nancy Astor MP; she was responsible for preparing briefs and writing speeches after Nancy’s election in 1919. After a period concentrating on her writing and family concerns, she returned in 1931 to resume work as Lady Astor’s political private secretary. 

Sadly, Ray’s trailblazing career was cut short in 1940, when she underwent what was thought to be a minor operation for a fibroid tumour; she never recovered and died on 16 July 1940 in the Royal Free Hospital, London.

Miriam Homersham

Miriam Homersham
1892 – 1936
Founder Member, Accountant and Auditor

Miriam was one of Women’s Pioneer Housing’s founding members and she began keeping the books from the first meeting. In 1921 she was officially named Honorary Accountant, with a salary of £20 per annum. Miriam was also the company’s auditor from 1923 to 1931.

Miriam Homersham’s signature in WPH’s archives.

Miriam was a true pioneer and well-respected figure in her profession. She was one of the first qualified female accountants to enter into practice, having previously graduated from Oxford University and worked as a teacher. The Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors changed their rules to allow women to join before the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act passed, which meant Miriam was free to switch careers and train as an accountant. She became a Fellow of the Society in 1925.

In Miriam’s obituary, after her tragic death aged just forty-four, her friend and fellow WPH auditor Ethel Watts notes the enthusiasm with which she helped other women:

Apart from her own example, Miss Homersham’s help to other women in the profession was endless. She was always ready to advise, to suggest possibilities, and to try to find posts…In other ways, Miss Homersham attempted to improve the conditions of women workers, notably by her work in the formation and administration of social centres such as clubs; and she gave her professional services generously to associations and other bodies working for causes in which she was interested, sometimes for very small fees, but more often working as honorary auditor or accountant.

Her firm, Homersham & Co, were also auditors to the Women’s Freedom League, which broke away from the WSPU in protest at the Pankhurst rule. 

Ethel Watts’ obituary of Miriam Homersham originally appeared in Opportunity, the Organ of the National Association of Women Civil Servants and was reprinted in St Hugh’s College, Oxford’s Chronicle (1936-1937).

Lady Eleanor Georgiana Shelley-Rolls

Lady Eleanor Georgiana Shelley-Rolls
1872-1961
Motoring pioneer, flying and engineering enthusiast, and president of Women’s Pioneer Housing 

Lady Shelley-Rolls was a major investor in Women’s Pioneer Housing who first served on the Committee of Management (1923-1930) before becoming President of the organisation in 1931. During her time on the committee she assisted with publicity and helped organise fundraising dinners, a key source of income for Women’s Pioneer Housing - in 1924, one such dinner party raised over £1000 in investments.  

 

Shelley-Rolls was often absent from London – usually moving between her two country residences and yacht – but she regularly chaired Women’s Pioneer Housing’s annual general meetings and played an important role in its organisation. When the Committee of Management were considering asking Etheldred Browning to resign in 1937, they consulted Shelley Rolls as a matter of high priority. Her rather brief note on the subject confirmed their decision and, in it, she pointed out some of the errors in Florence Lily Carre’s defence of Etheldred, such as that the successful results Etheldred claimed to have achieved at Women’s Pioneer Housing were not entirely due to her, and the finance deficiency in her original budgets.  

Letter from Shelley-Rolls to Etheldred Browning, 1925

Born into an aristocratic family in 1872, Shelley-Rolls lived an exhilarating, pioneering life. Her youngest brother was the Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls (1877-1910) a motoring and aviation pioneer who was the first person to fly the Channel non-stop in both directions. In 1904, Charles began a partnership with Henry Royce that would result in the famous British car manufacturing company Rolls-Royce Limited. Unfortunately, Charles’ love of speed and modern technology would end in tragedy: in 1910, he became the first British person to be killed in an aeroplane accident. On 23 April 1898 Eleanor married Sir John Courtown Edward Shelley, 6th Baronet, of Castle Goring, Sussex (1871 – 1951) a great-nephew of the poet Percy Shelley. Following the death of her two remaining brothers in World War One, Eleanor and her husband assumed the surname Shelley-Rolls.  

Throughout her life, Shelley-Rolls demonstrated a keen interest in ballooning, motoring, and aviation. In the early decades of the twentieth century, she was frequently photographed taking trips in hot air balloons and Zeppelins. In 1919, she co-founded the Women's Engineering Society (WES) alongside Rachel Parsons; Lady Katharine Parsons; Janetta Mary Ornsby; Margaret Rowbotham; Margaret, Lady Moir (later a Women’s Pioneer Housing investor) and Laura Annie Willson. She remained on the Women's Engineering Society Advisory Council and was part of the Women's Engineering Society's 1925 Conference of Women. She acted as the Women's Engineering Society's representative on the Electrical Association for Women board and was a member of the Council Industrial Co-partnership, of the Air League and the Executive League of Empire.  Other members of WES included Women’s Pioneer Housing member Ray Strachey. As Vice President of WES in 1919, she wrote an article ‘Random Notes on early motoring’ for their journal The Woman Engineer in 1922 in which she describes driving ‘while up at Cambridge’ based on her brother’s experiences of undertaking what was at the time a marathon drive from Cambridge to Monmouth in one of the earliest cars. In 1920, Shelley Rolls and Katherine Parsons also co-founded the Atlanta Co Ltd factory, with the notable early woman engineer Annette Ashberry as the works manager. Atalanta Co Ltd only employed women and utilised the skills women had acquired during the War. It functioned until 1928.    

After an active and eventful life spent championing aero engineering and women engineers, Shelley-Rolls died on the 15th September 1961.  

Annual art exhibition

We decided to host our Annual Art Exhibition in a different format this year. It was not possible to host a physical event so we used our digital media to showcase the fantastic artworks created by talented artists who live in WPH homes. Artwork submitted used different media and material resulting in themes all striking and showing the array of art in its different forms. Themes include Black Lives Matter, lockdown, dance, culture, everyday life and its details. Come with us and dive into this myriad of colours, information and materials.

Our artists are:

Aramatou Toure

Memory: Crying Dance of River
“This is a project which has been inspired by my observation of the past and the present; what has happened so far inspired by the movement: ‘Black Lives Matter.’ The history of slavery and colonisation entangled both good and bad. Suddenly, people are awake; they are saying things cannot carry on the same way anymore. But the same time history can not be forgotten because the past constantly catches up with the future. Now, the world is trying to amend wrongs of the past. Actions they include the removal of statues of the profiteers of slavery. It is proposed that they be moved to a museum and accompanied by a script that describes their past actions accurately.

Many people in power would like to sweep past wrongdoings under the carpet. When people raise their voices in protest, they shoot and slaughter them like animals. The oppressed never receive justice.

I think 2020 has been a year of revelation trauma and conflict; many of us have been involved with attempting to disentangle our emotional histories.

People are Dance of the River we want to change now, and it must happen now for the present generation and a better future for the next generation.”

Memory Crying Dance of River (Dance of River) By Aramatou Toure

‘Memory: Crying Dance of River’
Material: yarns
Dimensions:130 x 65 cm.

Laura Hardin

“This collection of embroideries were all produced by kits.  Back in the 1980s, I used to do home embroidery parties for a company called Creative Circle, where I would teach guests to do simple embroidery stitches and then hopefully they would buy some of the kits. The photos of the houses represent houses I frequently saw in San Francisco when I lived there. They all represent many hours of keeping busy while enjoying an evening film."

round embroideries
dimensions: 14,8 x 21,0cm

First and third embroideries
dimensions: 14,8 x 21,0cm
Second Embroidery
dimensions: 29,7 x 42,0 cm

Embroidery
dimensions: 29,7 x 42,0 cm

Margaret Whitehead

“I’ve been an amateur artist almost as long as I can remember.  With no art education beyond secondary school, I have continued studies at evening classes, weekend course and art clubs.   One learns from fellow students as well as tutors and makes like-minded friends along the way.  On travels, I take a sketchbook and there have been painting holidays at home and abroad which included memorable experiences in Turkey, Greece and Morocco.  Drawing and painting in acrylics and watercolours are favourites but also experiments with mixed media including collage.  Subject matter includes landscape, still-life and abstraction and design.  Keeping busy is no problem – there’s always something to look at and make art!”

‘Covid 19 – the boardgame!’
material: mixed media
dimensions: 46.5 x 35cm

‘Lockdown’
material: mixed media
dimensions: 20.5 x 20.5cm

 

Mixed tulips’
material: acrylic
dimensions: 46 x 30cm

‘Poppyfield’
material: Acrylic
dimensions: 30 x 26cm

Sara Fiamberti

“I draw through making. Spontaneity and the urgency to create is expressed through my work. These pieces were made in May during the lockdown and created with unfired clay and tin from recycled tealights. Miniatures of possibilities.”

‘Small bowl with teaspoon’
Material: unfired clay
dimensions: 3 cm x 3 cm

‘small bowl and spoon’
Material: tin from recycled tealights
dimensions: 4 cm x  3 cm

‘On the edge’
Material: Unfired clay, tin from recycled tealights
Dimensions: 8cm x 5 cm x 3 cm

Valentina Zhukova

“”Art Within the Stone”
At the moment this style is unique. Along the seaside, I find ordinary stones on which nature creates awe-inspiring paintings and drawings.
Each stone is unique, stone images are as individual as a fingerprint.
I have developed special techniques that allow me to brighten these images and present them to the audience, helping people see these wonders of nature.
In fact what I do is enhancing the art within, the same way a Makeup Artist would to a human.
My works have been presented at exhibitions in both Lithuania and London. At the moment, some of my works are constantly shown at the Alanta Manor Museum (Alanta – Lithuania). Exhibitions are planned at the Raudondvaris manor gallery (Kaunas – Lithuania) and the Republican Museum of Stones (Mosedis – Lithuania).”

‘Angel (Isle of Wight)’ Material: stone Dimensions: 19,4 x 12,5 cm.
‘Rose’ Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 9 x 6 cm, frame size 23 x 20 cm.
‘Angel’ Material: stone Dimensions: 5,5 x 4 cm
‘Dancer ‘ Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 9-6 cm, frame size 23 x 21,5 cm.
‘Terpsichore Muse of dance’ Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 11 x 8 cm, frame size 25 x 21 cm.
‘Fairy of flowers’ Material: stone Dimensions: 11 x 9 cm.
‘Eagle’ Material: stone Dimensions: 16 x 10cm
‘White Dragon’ Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 9 x 9,5 cm, frame size 21,5 x 21,5 cm.
‘Girl’ Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 7,2 x 6 cm, frame size 24 x 24 cm.
‘Masha and Bear’ Material: stone Dimensions: 12,5 x10 cm
'Angel with a candle' Material: Stone Dimensions: stone size 9,5 x 6 cm, frame size 26 x 21 cm.
‘The Flamenco Spirit’ Material: stone Dimensions: 10 x 6,5 cm.
Autumn' Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 5 x 5,3 cm, frame size 22 x 20,5 cm
'Autumn 2' Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 5,5 x 4,5 cm, frame size 22 x 20,5 cm 'Autumn 3' Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 5 x 5 cm, frame size 22 x 20,5 cm
'Autumn 2' Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 5,5 x 4,5 cm, frame size 22 x 20,5 cm 'Autumn 3' Material: stone Dimensions: stone size 5 x 5 cm, frame size 22 x 20,5 cm

Report launch: A Home of Her Own: Housing and Women

Report launch: A Home of Her Own: Housing and Women happened at The Thatcher Room, Portcullis House. It was organised by The Women’s Budget Group and the Women’s Housing Forum. The event was hosted by Helen Hayes MP for Dulwich and West Norwood. Exclusive new data shows the crisis of housing affordability and homelessness for women.

We were delighted to welcome speakers from:

  • The Women’s Budget Group

  • The Women’s Housing Forum

  • Coventry Women’s Aid

Read the full report here 
Read the executive summary here
You can find the slides from the launch event here.

For renters

  • There is no region in England where the average home to rent is affordable for a woman on median earnings.
  • The average home to rent is affordable for men on median earnings in every region except London and the South East.
  • Across England as a whole average rents take 43% of women’s median earnings and 28% of men’s.

When buying a house

  • Women need over 12 times their annual salaries to be able to buy a home in England, while men need just over eight times.
  • The worst regions in housing buying affordability for women (and men) are London and the South East, where women need nearly 18 times and 16 times their annual earnings to afford a house (respectively).
  • The regions with the widest gap in affordability between women and men are the South East and the East. This is where the gender pay gap (as measured by gross annual earnings of full time and part time workers) is the largest.

Mortgage eligibility:

The report also looks at the median earnings by region and how far median earnings for men and women in each region fall short of income required for a mortgage.  Our findings show that:

  • When it comes to buying a house with a typical mortgage, women’s incomes fall over 50% short in most regions, excluding in the North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.
  • Men’s incomes only fall over 50% short in London and the South East.

Social Security and Housing

  • Reforms since 2012 have broken the link between rent and housing benefit levels, with 90% of private renters on housing benefit in 2015 facing shortfalls.
  • Women make up 60% of housing benefit claimants and so are being disproportionately affected by these cuts.
  • Universal credit is also having a negative impact. the five-week wait period on application is leaving many people in rent arrears: tenants on universal credit are six times more likely to fall behind on rent than other benefit claimants.
  • The benefit cap has a detrimental impact on large families’ incomes, and specifically on housing, as housing benefit is the first element to be cup once the threshold is reached.
  • These benefit cuts and changes, accompanied by a severe shortage of social and affordable housing, are leading to increasing numbers of evictions and homelessness.

Women and Homelessness

  • The vast majority of people recorded sleeping rough are men (84%).  However, women rough sleepers face specific challenges and their experience is very often linked to abuse, trauma and violence. They are less likely to access mainstream services and be visible on the streets.
  • The majority of statutory homeless people are women (67%).
  • Single mothers are two-thirds (66%) of all statutory homeless families with children (they are just one quarter of all families with dependent children).

The press release for the report can be found here.