FAN Trustee Lynette Willoughby recently spoke at the unveiling of a plaque at the birthplace of Laura Annie Willson in Halifax. Willson was a remarkable and innovative woman. Born in 1877, as a young woman she was a trade unionist and a suffragette and was imprisoned several times. Later, with her husband she ran an engineering company which employed many women during the First World War.
After the war, she resisted government orders to sack women employees, and helped found the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), later becoming president. Lynette, who became a president of WES many decades later, spoke about this aspect of Willson’s life. Willson also built a number of housing estates for working-class people. She put a lot of thought into the design of these houses, incorporating design elements to make women’s domestic lives easier. She also promoted the use of electricity in the home and was a founder member of the Electrical Association for Women.
