My daughter who will be thirty this year asked me who my three most important women and men were in history? After careful thought I said the following: for women Boadicea, then Queen Elizabeth and finally Emmeline Pankhurst. For men: Shakespeare, Issac Newton and Thomas Paine. I then considered this question and wanted to understand better why I had chosen these particular people in our history?
My first choice of Boadicea - her birth date is not known - appeared a natural choice. This fearsome leader of Englishmen in Roman Britain was not to be 'messed with'. She had considerable influence in her native county of Norfolk. Despite many battles with the Legions of the Roman army, she died it is thought about AD 60 or 61 either by her own had or through illness. She didn't want to be captured. Her iconic warrior chariot with her riding high and mighty is to be seen next to Westminster Bridge by the Palace of Westminster, made by the sculpture Thomas Thornycroft.
Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) was on the throne of England for 44 years, the longest monarch after Victoria and our own Queen Elizabeth. She basically invented Britain as a new 'super power' in the middle of the 16th century. What we are today had its underpinnings established by her and her retinue.
Emmieline Pankhurst (1853-1928). The founder and inspiration behind the Suffragette movement in Britain and instrumental in getting votes for women in the first Representation of the People Act of 1918 which emaciated women. This necessarily had an influence on the government of the day and on all subsequent governments.
Shakespeare (1564-1616) This man needs no introduction or any apology. The greatest inventor and 'wordsmith' of all and any age. Hamlet alone has more new words in it than any play before or since. He manufactured them on an industrial scale.
Issac Newton (1642-1727) The founder on the scientific method and the man who did more than any other to unlock our deeper understanding of the natural world - with all its manifold complexity and harmony.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) This radical political thinker had an impact on his immediate world and on all other radical political revolutionary forces down the ages from the American War of Independence, revolutions in France, Russian, Cuba and many other beside. His book that broke the mound of thinking was the incendiary book of 1790 Rights of Man. All who followed him owe him a debt of honour in the - long march to freedom as Nelson Mandela wisely said in his autobiography.
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