By Emmeline Saunders

Copyright mirror

Women are largely absent from English history lessons , according to a new report by the charity End Sexism in Schools. A Freedom of Information request found that 59% of history lessons at Key Stage 3 – which covers the first three years of secondary education – did not mention women at all. Queens such as Anne Boleyn and suffragettes like Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison were among the handful of women mentioned by name. Victims, like those murdered by Jack the Ripper , rather than heroes, like the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, were also more likely to be included. Here, we have asked a selection of Mirror columnists and politicians to tell us which women they feel would merit a mention in a modern day history lesson… Sonia Kumar, Labour MP for Dudley, nominates Sophia Duleep Singh As a proud Sikh and Member of Parliament for Dudley, I am honoured to reflect on the extraordinary legacy of Sophia Duleep Singh – a woman who deserves far greater recognition in our shared history. Born the daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh and goddaughter of Queen Victoria, Sophia could have chosen a life of privilege. Instead, she stood at the very front of the fight for women’s suffrage in Britain. On ‘ Black Friday ‘ in 1910, she marched with hundreds of women to demand the right to vote, facing violence, arrest, and intimidation. Yet, she never gave up. From refusing to pay taxes to selling suffragette newspapers outside Hampton Court Palace, Sophia used her voice and her position to demand equality. For the British Sikh community, her story is especially powerful. She bridged two worlds – rooted in her Indian heritage yet fighting for justice on British soil. Her courage and determination remind us that the struggle for fairness and equality is universal.nToday, Sophia Duleep Singh’s legacy shines as a beacon of resilience, pride, and inspiration for us all. Mirror columnist Darren Lewis nominates Lilian Bader The obvious, dare I say lazy, option would be to go for some of the icons whose legendary status is well documented. Like civil rights activist Rosa Parks, whose bus boycott defied Jim Crow’s segregation laws. Or Marie Van Brittan Brown, an American nurse who invented the audio-visual home security system in 1966. But I’m going for Lilian Bader, one of the very first black women to join the British Army. Born in 1918 in Liverpool, she went from being a canteen assistant at a Yorkshire army base, to becoming a Corporal. In all, three generations of her family served in the armed forces .” Historian Katie Kennedy (@TheHistoryGossip) nominates Grace Darling She was a lighthouse keeper’s daughter from the North East who, in 1838, rowed into a storm to save shipwreck survivors. Twenty-two years old, Grace was out there doing Baywatch before Baywatch was even a thing. The Victorians went mental for her. They wrote her poems, put her face on bars of chocolate and Queen Victoria even presented her with gifts. She hated the attention and wanted to be left alone in her lighthouse. Instead, she got shoved into the spotlight, caught TB and died young. To me, she matters because she wasn’t posh, she wasn’t powerful, and she wasn’t well-connected, she was just a working-class lass who did something genuinely brave. Women taught about in history are either queens, suffragettes, or victims of murder documentaries. Grace was none of that. She was remarkably unremarkable. Mirror columnist Kevin Maguire nominates Constance Markievicz Irish revolutionary socialist Constance Markievicz deserves to be remembered and celebrated as the first woman MP elected in 1918 to the UK Parliament. Too often, that accolade is wrongly awarded to Conservative Nancy Astor, who didn’t succeed in Plymouth until 1919, though the Nazi sympathiser was the first female to take her seat. Brave Markievicz, sentenced to death after the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin but spared the firing squad as a woman, never actually sat in the House of Commons . She was a Sinn Fein abstentionist and, anyway, the British authorities had in Holloway Prison an unbreakable mould-smasher that establishment history would prefer us to forget. Pride of Britain winner and community activist Tskenya-Sarah Frazer puts forward Mary Seacole The person I believe children should learn about as part of the British history curriculum is Mary Seacole. In a time when cultural tensions dominate headlines, teaching children about Seacole shows how compassion and courage can cut through division and bring people closer together. Born in Jamaica, Seacole faced rejection from official channels because of her race and gender. Instead of giving up, she carved out her own path during the Crimean War, establishing the ‘British Hotel,’ where she cared for sick and wounded soldiers of all ethnicities and religions. Soldiers and Seacole didn’t see divisions, they saw each other’s humanity, and she was remembered as “Mother Seacole”, a woman who treated them with dignity when it mattered most. For today’s children, Seacole proves that kindness and resilience can unite, even in the darkest of times. Paul Routledge, Mirror commentator and writer, nominates Ellen Wilkinson Fiery Ellen Wilkinson should be taught about as the first woman Labour Education Minister in Atttlee’s post-war government. Dubbed “Red Ellen” by the press, she was a suffragette and leader of the iconic 1936 Jarrow March against unemployment. And so much more. She wrote the best political whodunit, The Division Bell Mystery, founded the left-wing magazine Tribune, introduced free school milk for children and raised the leaving age from 14 to 15. Born in 1903, the daughter of a Conservative-voting Methodist cotton worker in Manchester , she became a union organiser, a teacher, a city councillor and MP first for Middlesbrough and then Jarrow, until her death in 1947. Ellen never married, but her private life was almost as colourful as the bright, fashionable clothes she wore – notably an association with deputy premier Herbert Morrison. A portrait of her pioneering forebear hangs in the No 11 office of Chancellor Rachel Reeves . Caroline Lucas, writer, campaigner and former leader of the Green Party nominates Rachel Carson Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American marine biologist, writer and conservationist, who is credited with sparking the modern environment movement. Her book Silent Spring is one of the most influential books ever written on the environment and ecology, inspiring people to take action across the world . Published in 1962, it became an instant bestseller and profoundly altered our perception of environmental concerns. Through her focus on the devastating impacts of industrial pesticides on the natural world, Carson irrevocably changed our understanding of the crucial bond between people and planet, and remains an inspiration for the Green movement to this day. Jessica Boulton, Mirror columnist, nominates Hedy Lamarr My suggestion doesn’t warrant a mention in a textbook, or even a chapter. She deserves a whole tome of her own. Because no woman personifies both the pros and cons of being a female in the 20th century quite like the enigma Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000). When the cameras were rolling, she was the glamorous Tinseltown star, shining on screen beside Clarke Gable and Spencer Tracy. And when directors yelled cut, she was the daddy’s girl from Vienna, sketching inventions – for everything from a traffic light and a water carbonation tablet to a…missile detection system. She volunteered her invention to the Allies. But the powers-that-be valued her eyelashes above her IQ – and shunted her off to sell war bonds with the rest of the women. There was justice, of sorts, in the end. Hedy’s device would later become the basis for another little invention – WiFi. I’ve run out of space – but thanks to Hedy, you can Google the rest. Historian Tessa Dunlop nominates Queen Marie Born an English Princess in Eastwell, Kent, Marie was Queen Victoria’s most attractive, intelligent granddaughter. However, her Russian mother was adamant that her daughter would not marry Britain’s future George V. Instead, she was bundled off to Romania, aged 17, where she married Crown Prince Ferdinand. Decades later, that Queen Marie burst onto the international scene: partly thanks to her extraordinary diplomacy, Romania allied with Britain in World War I and fought the Germans. Dressed head-to-toe in nurses’ whites, when Romania was invaded, their iconic ‘soldier Queen’ refused to capitulate, insisting “have I not English blood in my veins?” She was hailed the most ‘vivid and unforgettable’ personality of the conflict by the New York Times and was definitely the most photographed, stealing the headlines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 where she dressed down American President Woodrow Wilson. Operating in a man’s world, Marie understood the shortcomings of her sex, and frequently lamented: “How I wish I were a king.” *Marie’s paintings are currently being shown at the Artist Queen exhibition at Garrison Chapel, Chelsea.