Cherry Potts, Writer

Category: history

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 13th

    Today we raise a glass to Janet Flanner, March 13 1892 – November 7 1978. Janet was a journalist, writing for the New Yorker, and as a war correspondent. She lived in Greenwich Village and there met and fell in love with Solita Solano (Sarah Wilkinson). Janet and Solita featured as Nip and Tuck, a pair…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 12th

    If not a fellow traveller,  today’s birthday belongs to someone who was definitely and definitively a traveller . Hester Stanhope 12 March 1776 – 23 June 1839. Hester was delightfully eccentric. She moved from being hostess for her uncle, Prime Minister William Pitt the younger, via a dramatic shipwreck at Rhodes, to become an archaeologist,…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 11th

    No particular birthday today, so going back to that 8th March that was choc-a-bloc, lets share cake with Una Troubridge 8 March 1887 – 24 September 1963. At the tender age of ten Una lost her heart to a splendaciously ample and properly upholstered principal boy… whose sex was never for a moment ambiguous ……

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 10th

    We’re going back to one of our birthday girls for the 8th March today: Louisa M Hubbard 8 March 1836 – 5 November 1906. Louisa was a tireless and practical woman who put her back into creating opportunities for women. She did not do so for political reasons, and made a lot of effort not to…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 9th

    Raise your glasses, it’s the birthday of Vita Sackville-West 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962 writer, gardener and serial womaniser. Vita’s relationship with Violet Keppel (later Trefusis) is detailed in Portrait of A Marriage, by her son Nigel Nicholson. They met at school and at one point eloped to France. In her autobiography Violet…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 8th

    International Women’s Day, and I have three birthday girls to choose from. So I’m going with the oldest, and we can catch up with the others later. Anne Bonny, 8 March 1702 – 22 April 1782 born in Ireland, emigrated to America at a young age, where her father did very well for himself. Anne…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 7th

    Today’s birthday girl is Lorena Hickok March 7, 1893 – May 1, 1968 known as ‘Hick’. Hick was a journalist, working in the 1920s on the Minneapolis Tribune when she met and lived with fellow reporter Ella Morse for six years. The combination of Hick’s diabetes and Ella’s elopement with an ex-boyfriend lead to Hick’s…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 5th

    Today’s celebrations are in honour of Dr Louise Pearce, 5th March 1885– 9th August 1959. Louise was an American research scientist who found a cure for sleeping sickness, doing tests on her own in the field in Zaire (Belgian Congo at the time) during a major outbreak in 1920, for which she was awarded medals…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 4th

    An actual Birthday! Hurrah, quick, light the candles before I find it’s a mistake. Emma Cons 4 March 1838 – 24 July 1912 Feminist, educator and stage entrepreneur, Emma ran what is now the Old Vic, in London. At the time it was a coffeehouse-come-music-hall, and she put on operas and Shakespeare. She was an…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 3rd

    Edith Lees Ellis, 1861-1916 socialist, feminist and writer, was the wife of Havelock Ellis, the sexologist. Her birthday is not recorded anywhere I can find it, so today is a random and arbitrary attribution. Edith was a member of the Fabian society and wrote regularly for The Freewoman. Havelock  characterised her relationships with women as…