Benjamin & Sarah Lay - Mr. and Mrs. Quaker Comet

In the future, if I am ever asked about "historical figures you'd love to meet," I will most definitely put Benjamin Lay on the list. He has been described as "a troublemaker at every moment of his life." He was one of the earliest Quakers to oppose slavery and did so with a militant zeal that few can emulate. He and his wife, Sarah, both were Quaker ministers with dwarfism. Originally this post was only about Benjamin, as it is very difficult to find information about Sarah, but I did my best to include her here as well. They were a fascinating couple who were key in advancing the cause of abolition in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Portrait of Benjamin, 1750s

 

The Bowes-Lyon and Fane Cousins - Hidden Away

Through most of history being disabled meant that just existing was an accomplishment. Just living your life was the best you could hope for. This is especially true for those who were intellectually disabled. Like today, they were incredibly vulnerable. They usually were institutionalized, sometimes from birth, and shut away from society. The story today is about five cousins who would have been forgotten if not for their royal connections. Even so, most information and photos I could find are about two of them, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, while the other three, Idonea, Rosemary, and Etheldreda Fane, are afterthoughts.

Nerissa and Katherine, undated

Rosa May Billinghurst - The Fighting Suffragette

Last August 18, 2020 marked the 100-year anniversary of women being granted the right to vote in the United States. The United Kingdom had only been a couple years quicker: they granted the right to vote to certain qualified women over the age of thirty in 1918 (this was adjusted to all women over 21, the same as applied to men, ten years later). The mid-19th and early 20th centuries were marked by the suffragettes' activism: thousands protested, lectured, endured imprisonment, and were tortured in order to grant millions of women the right to vote and serve in governmental offices. 

I have always admired these women, of course, since it is because of them that I can make my voice heard. There are the famous American names (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, or Ida B. Wells), but there are hundreds more that are not as well-known. Today we'll learn about an English suffragette who fought for women's rights while also using a modified, self-propelled tricycle or crutches to ambulate.

May at a suffragette demonstration, crutches placed on each side of her tricycle

Prince John - The Lost Prince

 This story came to me through an excellently written historical fiction novel: The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper. My dear grandma (called "Mite") lent it to me. Since I was about in middle school, she and I have exchanged hundreds of books. We have similar reading preferences and we know that, if one of us recommends a book for the other, she is never wrong.

The Royal Nanny tells the story of Charlotte "Lala" Bill, a young nanny who cares for the British royal family beginning in 1897. The children she so loves are the great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria. The youngest, John, is the one who needs her the most. The book is beautiful and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. (For the record, I have never read a Karen Harper novel that I didn't like. She sadly passed away from cancer in April 2020.)

John, 1913