In March, Women’s History Month invites us to rediscover the hidden stories of women in Dorset, from Iron Age matrilineal societies to modern-day leaders. Their legacies shape our world, urging us to lead the change.
Women’s History Month
For much of living memory, women’s lives in England were shaped by laws and customs that rendered them invisible, vulnerable, or unprotected. Until 1982, a woman could be refused service in a pub simply for being female, and violence against women was not formally acknowledged as a violation of human rights until 1993. These facts are not distant history, they sit firmly within the lifetimes of many living today, generating an ingrained sixth sense of danger and risk.
Women’s History Month, observed each March alongside International Women’s Day on 8th March, invites us to pause and reflect on both how far we have come and how much remains unseen. The theme for Women’s History Month 2026 is ‘Leading the Change’. From medieval queens and wartime nurses to land workers, healers, writers, teachers and unnamed labourers, women have always shaped England’s story, though rarely given equal space within it. In Dorset, from windswept cliffs to hidden valleys, the landscape itself bears their imprint, formed not only by nature but by women whose lives, work and quiet resilience have left indelible marks upon the county we know today.
Iron Age
Recent studies by Bournemouth University suggest that women played a vital role in Iron Age society. Analysis of DNA from a selection of burial sites across Dorset indicates a strong female line of descent, supporting the theory that ‘husbands’ may have moved to join their ‘wives’, with land and status passed down through the female line. However, this does not indicate a fully matrilineal society, as men may have also held positions of authority, but it does challenge long-held assumptions about gender roles in prehistoric Britain.
Female Celtic burials of the period often contain artefacts of great value, adding further weight to women’s social standing. Near Portesham, a female skeleton was found alongside jewellery and an elaborately decorated mirror. Despite being a rare example, a second mirror was unearthed near Langton Herring, and a third at Holcombe, outside Lyme Regis, (all on display at the Dorset Museum and Art Gallery).
When the Romans arrived with force, reports sent back to Rome described a ‘feral’ society in which women wielded unusual power. How accurate these accounts were is debatable as it could have been a form of propaganda, reinforcing the idea of Albion (Britannia) as a wild and untamed land in need of conquest. After the Celtic queen, Boudicca, sacked the two cities of Camulodunum (Colchester) and Londinium (London), killing tens of thousands of soldiers, messages sent back to Rome indicated they were more ashamed that it was a woman who had led the attack, rather than the defeat itself.
Saints
In the 6th century, the story of St Juthwara emerges from the fields along the ancient Harrow Way near Halstock. As a young pious girl, she lived under the watchful eye of a hostile stepmother, but was brutally murdered by her stepbrother, Bana, who had been convinced by his mother that Juthwara had behaved ungodly. Legend continues that after her head was severed, a spring burst from the ground and Juthwara’s body rose, gathered her own head, and walked to the nearby church to place it upon the altar. Later remembered as the Quiet Woman, her remains were laid to rest in Sherborne Abbey.
Two centuries later, another young holy woman met a violent end on Dorset’s exposed coastline. St Wite (c.810–831) lived in isolation on the windswept cliffs of Stonebarrow, where she was known to light fires and torches to guide sailors safely past the treacherous rocks below. Her battered body was later discovered on the cliffs beneath her dwelling, believed to have been killed during one of the many Viking raids that occurred along the coast at the time. St Wite’s tomb at Whitchurch Canonicorum became a place of pilgrimage, renowned for its healing powers, as did the well on the cliffs that once supplied her with fresh water. Today, she is honoured as Dorset’s patron saint continuing her legacy as guardian of both land and sea.
Religion and Royalty
Gradually, the power of the Church took hold, and life within it became increasingly tempting to women seeking refuge from the aggression of the old Viking and new Norman invaders. It was seen as a sanctuary, a place of safety and stability at a time when land was displaced and women were often moved through marriage.
Æthelgifu (c.868-c.896), was the third daughter of King Alfred the Great, and the first abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey, a royal nunnery that was one of the most important female monastic houses in Anglo-Saxon England. Appointed while in her teens, she led a community of noble women in prayer, learning and service at a time when Viking raids had devastated many settlements and religious centres. Shaftesbury Abbey, founded by her father in 888, and placed under her care, became a powerful and enduring spiritual presence in Dorset for over six centuries. Æthelgifu’s leadership helped establish the abbey’s independence, wealth and prestige, making it a centre of female authority and devotion in the county and securing Dorset’s place in the wider religious revival of Wessex.
Ela Longespée, Countess of Warwick (d. 9 February 1298), was a wealthy heiress to estates across Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Dorset. In 1198 she married William Longespée, the illegitimate son of King Henry II, and they settled at Canford Manor. Together they laid the foundation stone of Salisbury Cathedral, but shortly afterwards William was poisoned and, ironically, became the first person to be buried within the new cathedral. Ela refused all further advances and later converted Canford Manor into a nunnery.
However, as time would show, the power of these religious buildings was not to last. Dame Elizabeth Zouche (c.1496–1517) was the last Abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey. As the second-largest nunnery in England at the time, she believed it might be spared, offering refuge to displaced nuns within its walls. She fought strongly for its survival but was eventually forced to sign its surrender to King Henry VIII. A fictional representation of her role appears in Victoria Glendinning’s novel ‘The Butcher’s Daughter’.
Yet King Henry VIII only achieved his level of power thanks to his grandmother, and the mother of King Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond (1443–1509). Operating within a political world built for men, she shaped the future using a quieter, more feminine power. Taking full advantage of political upheaval and uncertainty over the legitimacy of the throne, she secured it for her son through strategy, patience, and emotional intelligence rather than force. In 1487, Corfe Castle was gifted to her by Henry VII, a prized inheritance, as it had once belonged to her father, John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, who lies in Wimborne Minster alongside her mother, Margaret Beauchamp.
Witches and War
Across England from the 15th to the 18th century, fear of female power shaped a culture in which women were relentlessly pushed into the shadows, their knowledge and independence recast as danger. By the time King James published ‘Daemonologie’ in 1597, witchcraft panic had become a widespread phenomenon. The typical victim of an English witch trial was a poor, older, outspoken woman who lived on the margins, often accused by neighbours of harming livestock, injuring people, or wielding an unseen force. Rural Dorset, with its isolation, deep-rooted superstition, and ritual labyrinths like the Miz Maze at Leigh (where one of the last witches to be burnt was arrested), Pimperne, and Troy Town, became fertile ground for suspicion. Even protective charms, meant to ward off evil, cure illness, or bring luck, could themselves be twisted into evidence of sorcery. With laws set by the King and local investigations later taken up by Dorset’s own William Barnes, accusations could come from anyone, about anything, and once named, a woman had little hope of escape.
Mary Shepherd of Wareham, accused in 1638 of paralysing her neighbour, vanished into the Assize system with no recorded outcome. Joan Guppy of South Perrott was beaten and torn with brambles in 1605 by villagers convinced she was a witch, but her fate is also unknown. Their stories are fragments of a much larger, largely unrecorded terror: between 500 and 1,000 people were executed for witchcraft in England, around 90% of them women, though the true number is likely to be far higher. For more than three hundred years, this climate of fear stifled women’s independence, punishing those who stood out, spoke up, or simply lived on the edge. Its legacy endured for centuries, shaping attitudes toward women’s knowledge, authority, and individuality, and forcing generations to retreat from the qualities that once defined their strength.
Some women had no choice but to rise above the parapet and fight. During the Civil War of the 17th century, two women, on the opposite sides of Dorset and the battlefield, fought for life, land and legacy. Mary Sydenham (1593-1644) defended Wynford Eagle against the Royalists with fierce determination, only to be murdered on her own doorstep. Meanwhile, Lady Mary Bankes (c1598-1661) defended Corfe Castle against the Parliamentarians with extraordinary resolve. She survived the siege, but the castle was slighted, and, as she departed for Kingston Lacy, legend claims Colonel John Bingham presented her with the keys in tribute to her gallantry.
Science and Smuggling
Elizabeth Jesty (1740–1824) of Yetminster played a crucial role in her husband Benjamin’s pioneering, yet theoretical, work, allowing him to inject their entire family with cowpox to ensure their immunity against smallpox. The experiment worked, but the couple faced ridicule in their village and moved to Worth Matravers. Benjamin alone received recognition for the work, 25 years later. Mary Anning (1799–1847), renowned for her fossil collecting at Lyme Regis, faced similar disregard, her name often omitted from prestigious journals. It was not until the discovery of the pterosaur in 1828 that she received a fraction of the credit she deserved. The Geological Society of London refused her membership, as women were not admitted until 1908, but today her contributions to palaeontology are celebrated, and a statue of Mary and her dog stands near the cliffs of The Spittles.
In the late 18th century, Hannah Sillers (known as Ma to friends, or “The Angel of the Marshes” in legend) inherited The Ship in Distress in Mudeford, near Christchurch, from her husband. Perched on the harbour’s edge, she became deeply involved in smuggling, recruiting locals into her operations, commanding the area, and even controlling access over Christchurch Town Bridge when necessary. At high tide, the channel would fill to the pub’s foundations, creating a sheltered spot to store goods away from rough seas and vigilant customs officers. Hannah’s efforts helped fill Christchurch with unexpected luxuries, though the channel, now known as Mother Siller’s Channel, has long since silted up.
Reality and Repercussion
As real life continued, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) watched closely, absorbing what he saw and reshaping it into the tragic female figures of his novels, such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles (from Marlott/Marnhull) and Bathsheba Everdeen (from Norcombe/Toller Down). Their roles reflect the harsh realities of working, living, and surviving the Dorset landscape, their stories so often ending in loss. One such real-life figure was Martha Brown (1811–1856). As a teenage boy, Hardy witnessed her silhouette hanging outside Dorchester Gaol, an image that stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Martha, aged 45, was the last woman to be publicly hanged in Dorset. Married young, she lost her husband, child, and stepson within a single year. Later, living as a ‘spinster’ at Blackmanston near Kimmeridge, she met her second husband, John Brown. After moving to Birdsmoorgate, the marriage deteriorated and John was unfaithful. In desperation, she struck him with an axe. Only days before her execution did she admit guilt, while also describing a history of abuse, a complexity that Victorian justice neither examined nor forgave.
In 1884, Dorset’s last witch trial occurred, revealing how deeply superstition still lingered in the county. In Sherborne, Sarah Smith’s (1802–1890) neighbour, Tamar Humphries (1830–1910), accused Sarah of ‘bewitching’ her daughter. In retaliation, Tamar stabbed Sarah numerous times with a knitting needle, believing bloodletting would release the curse. Tamar was fined and both women were sent home. A strikingly similar scene appears in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native (1878), written while he was living in nearby Sturminster Newton.
Hardy’s sisters, born in Higher Bockhampton, Mary (1841–1915) and Kate (1856–1940), alongside their brothers Thomas (1840–1928) and Henry (1851–1928), were shaped by the storytelling of their grandmother, Mary, and the fierce determination of their mother, Jemima. By selling honey to fund private tuition, Jemima ensured her daughters received an education that enabled them to step beyond the narrow expectations placed upon rural Victorian women. Mary began teaching at Minterne Magna in 1867, later becoming headmistress at Piddlehinton. In 1875 she was appointed headmistress of the all-girls’ school on Bells Street, Dorchester, a post she held until her retirement in 1897, shaping the education of generations of Dorset girls. Kate also trained as a teacher and, after college in 1879, became schoolmistress at Sandford Orcas before joining Mary in Dorchester in 1882. Both sisters returned to Higher Bockhampton in 1897 to care for their mother until her death in 1904. In 1912 they moved with Henry to Talbothays, near West Stafford. After Mary’s death in 1915, Kate kept detailed diaries that provide a rare insight into her intellectual and social life. Following the deaths of Thomas (1928), Henry (1928) and Thomas’s second wife, Florence Hardy (1937), Kate inherited the Hardy estate. Crucially, she ensured its preservation, bequeathing Max Gate to the National Trust and significant objects to the Dorset Museum.
Just as the century turned, Evelina Haverfield (1867–1920), who lived at West Hall in Folke, and Marsh Court in Caundle Marsh, became one of the most militant figures of the suffrage movement. Arrested repeatedly for assaulting police, she revelled in confrontation. In 1909, during the struggle over the Bill of Rights, she broke into the House of Commons alongside Emmeline Pankhurst, later boasting that she had punched a policeman and only regretted not hitting him harder, promising that next time she would bring a revolver. A founding member of a secretive lesbian suffrage society, Haverfield rejected convention in every form. When war came, her militancy turned outward. She organised women’s war units, travelled across Europe gathering intelligence, delivered humanitarian aid, and worked tirelessly in Serbia, where she is buried. In Dorset, her presence remains in Bishop’s Caundle Church, marked by a tablet commemorating a life lived in defiance, beneath the memorial window she installed for her first husband.
Art and Conservation
By the 20th century, things began to change. Women increasingly rose to the forefront, unashamed of their individuality and strength. Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978), writer and poet, lived in Chaldon Herring and Maiden Newton. Entertaining many with her sharp wit, whimsical prose, and poetry, she lived openly, at a time when her sexuality was expected to be hidden. A statue celebrating her life was recently unveiled in Dorchester. Enid Blyton (1897–1968) also spent significant time in Dorset, particularly on Brownsea Island, in the Purbeck Hills, and at a farm she owned in Stourton Caundle. Her characters were forever roaming the countryside in search of adventure, and it is tempting to imagine her Enchanted Faraway Tree is rooted in one of Dorset’s many ancient woodlands.
The sculptor Elisabeth Frink (1930–1993) not only drew inspiration from the Dorset landscape but gave back to it. With her studio based in Woolland, her powerful bronze figures now stand both in Dorset and beyond; most notably, her statues of the Tolpuddle Martyrs on the streets of Dorchester, anchoring protest, history, and art firmly within the town.
Dorset also shaped the early life of one of the world’s most influential conservationists. Jane Goodall (1934–2025) spent the war years as a child in Bournemouth, away from the bustle of London, developing a deep connection to the natural world and a fascination that would later define her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees. Other, lesser-known figures have also left their environmental mark, from the Angela Hughes Nature Reserve near Child Okeford to the Katharine Walk at Higher Halstock. Meanwhile, PJ Harvey (1969–), who grew up in Corscombe, has woven the Dorset landscape into her lyrics with so much poetic power she has earnt the Mercury Music Prize twice, the only artist to have ever done so.
Legacy
From prehistoric ancestry to modern creativity, women have always shaped Dorset. Some are remembered, many are not, yet each has left an imprint upon the landscape and the lives that followed. Women’s History Month invites us to reflect on how far we have emerged from cultures of fear and restriction, and how fairness is built through understanding difference and learning from the past. From cliffs to woodlands, law courts to art studios, Dorset’s landscape is as much a story of women as it is of the land itself. Their influence continues to shape its culture, heritage, and future; quietly, powerfully, and now in plain sight.