Cherry Potts, Writer

Category: The Historical Birthday-Tea Party

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 2nd February

    I’ve not been able to find anyone with the 2nd of February as their birthday but I have two for tomorrow,  so let’s celebrate Elizabeth Blackwell, 3 February 1821 – 31 May 1910 the first woman to be awarded a degree in medicine in the USA. Blackwell was actually British, born in Bristol; when she…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 1st February

    Here we are at the first day of LGBT history month and I don’t has a lesbian with a birthday to celebrate with you. How Annoying! So here’s another remarkable woman whose date of birth I do not know.  Katherine Chidley, was married in 1616 an last heard of in 1653, but neither her birth…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 31st January

    Lets have a big hand and a whoop or two for Miss Tallulah Bankhead 1903-1968. Tallulah (her real name!) was a good actor who played a lot of bad women and I found this hilarious quote from Carl Elliot I fear Tallulah has suffered from the sometimes swashbuckling, sometimes naughty characters she played on stage…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 30th January

    Today we celebrate Anne Clifford 30 January 1590 – 22 March 1676 I actually have a copy of her diary tucked away somewhere, but I haven’t yet got round to reading it. She had a bit of a tough time, her first husband  Richard Sackville Earl of Dorset forced her to entertain his mistress at…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 29th January

    Today’s birthday belongs to Robin Morgan, who is my first living invitee to the party. I did consider keeping it strictly historical, but she had and has such a big impact it seemed unreasonable to leave her out. Robin is the editor of Sisterhood is Powerful, (1970) one of those books that change the world,…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 28th January

    Here’s a woman not afraid to call a spade a bleeding shovel. Born in 1695, Anne Stainton went to Virginia (famous as a hunting ground for women in search of a husband) with her sister who was married to William Gooch, the colonial governor. She described herself as Two and thirty  years of Age, Ugly…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 26th January

    Today’s birthday belongs to Elizabeth Percy (26 January 1667 – 24 November 1722) the last of Queen Anne’s intimate lady friends. Elizabeth was one of the richest heiresses of her time and as such was the centre of many intrigues. She was married at 12 to Henry Cavendish, widowed at 13 and married again aged…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 25th January

    Well my dears, unless you don’t look at twitter etc at all, I suppose it might have escaped your notice that today’s birthday is celebrated on behalf of the magnificent Virginia Woolf. I hope she needs no introduction? I’ve had her picture on my wall for about thirty years. If you don’t know who she…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 24th January

    Once more, no candidate for the 24th January, so here is Catalina de Erauso 1585 – 1650ish – cross-dresser, soldier, adventurer, aka Antonio de Arauso, Alonzo Dias, the nun lieutenant. A word of warning: Catalina’s ‘memoirs’ weren’t published until the 19th Century. I’ve read two translations of what seem to be the same passage that…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 23rd January

    Yes, I know, it’s a day late. I was singing all right? My and A’s first night at Orpheus & Eurydice, and a fun time we had, threatening the audience as furies. Hissed myself hoarse. Now in bed with a cold, but determined to throw it off by tomorrow lunchtime and the next performance. Anyway,…