Agnes Archer Evans

from the Leicester Lit and Phil Society web page.

This plaque is at 6, St Martins, where Agnes Archer Evans lived for some time after her marriage.

Born in 1851,  Agnes Archer Kilgour became headmistress of the Belmont House School on New Walk in Leicester in 1882. As well as being a founder member of the Women's Suffrage Society, she was active in the School Board and helped establish kindergartens.

She was also involved in the Leicester branch of the National Union of Women Workers, and became president of the Health Society, aiming to reduce infant mortality in the town, by educating mothers. 

She died in 1924.

Thanks to Ned Newitt's The Who's Who of Radical Leicester for the above information.

She was also the first woman president of Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society . She was born in Tasmania, and was the first of thirteen children born to Susan Anne Archer and Dr John Stewart Kilgour, a Scottish physician working on the island.  The family returned to Britain in about 1860.

Agnes married William Evans in 1895.

Fanny Fullagar

Since we were in tourist mode on Wednesday,  I snapped a couple of Leicester's blue plaques and decided to find a out a bit about the people honoured in this way.

This plaque is on the wall of the former Registry Office in Pocklingtons Walk. It celebrates Fanny Fullagar.

For my information I am indebted to this article in the Western Park Gazette online and to a short article in The Who's Who of Radical Leicester compiled by Ned Newitt.

There is a photograph of her in the Western Park Gazette article.

Fanny Fullagar was a doctor's daughter, born in 1847 in Leicester, and she made a huge contribution to  society, in a very Victorian way.  

She campaigned for better training for midwives, and helped create the Bond Street Maternity Hospital.

She stood for election for Poor Law Guardian in the All Saints/Newton Ward in 1889 and was elected every year until 1904, when she lost by one vote. 

She was a member of the local Women's Suffrage Society, a founder member of Leicester NSPCC, and also worked for St John Ambulance and the RSPCA.
She never married though she was reputed to be engaged for seven years.

She died in 1918 - the year when women over 30 got the right to vote in the UK.