Necessary Women: The Untold Story of Parliament's Working Women

Drawing on unique research based on the Parliamentary archives, government records and family history sources, Mari Takayanagi and Liz Hallam Smith show how women touched just about every aspect of the life of Parliament, largely unacknowledged - until now. Along the way, we meet an array of impressive and life-affirming women: from the Rickman sisters eavesdropping on Parliamentary debates from the roof space above the Commons in the 1820s; to Jane, the doyenne of Bellamy's, purveyors of t...