Hardy online talk: ‘The Real Woman Behind Tess of the d’Urbervilles’
Online talk, Thursday 13th October, 7pm.
In 1856, Thomas Hardy witnessed the hanging of Martha Brown, the last woman to be publicly hanged in Dorchester. Martha had been executed for the murder of her husband. The injustice of her sentence would haunt Hardy for the rest of his life.
In this online talk, Gill Donnell MBE will be joined by panellists Professor Angelique Richardson, Lady Edwina Grosvenor and Dr Rose Wallis. They will discuss how the hanging influenced Hardy’s writing, and the other real women who inspired his most famous novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891).
Our Panellists
Gill Donnell MBE
Gill is an experienced leader, motivational speaker and personal development mentor, who has spent much of her working life promoting the role of women in the workplace. Having spent time as a successful female role model in a male-dominated organisation, a police Chief Superintendent, whilst being a single mum of twins, Gill is uniquely placed to understand the challenges faced by women in the workplace.
On retirement from the Police Service, Gill set up her company ‘Successful Women’, which specialised in women’s development through single gender training, business networking and one-to-one coaching. In her Successful Women podcast she interviews women about the secrets of their success.
Lady Edwina Grosvenor
Lady Edwina Grosvenor is a criminologist and prison philanthropist who has dedicated her career to transforming conditions within prisons, drawing on the experience of best and worst models of criminal justice from around the world. This inspired her to be the founding investor and Ambassador of the Clink Restaurant chain, which trains prisoners for work in the catering industry, and to founding and chairing the charity One Small Thing.
She sits on the advisory board to the Centre for Criminology in the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. She became a founding member of the Global Philanthropic Advisory Board in January 2022 and is also Patron of Paladin, which is the country’s only national stalking advocacy service. Edwina is the 2022/23 High Sherriff of Hampshire.
Professor Angelique Richardson
Professor Angelique Richardson works on the history of science and literature at the University of Exeter. She is a member of staff in the department of English and the Centres for the Medical History and Victorian Studies, University of Exeter, a research associate of Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Richardson leads the Hardy’s Correspondents project at Exeter, in collaboration with Dorset Museum and Exeter’s Digitial Humanities Lab. Phase one of the project was launched in Exeter in November 2019.
Dr Rose Wallis
Dr Rose Wallis is an Associate Professor of British Social History and Associate Director of the Regional History Centre, at UWE.
Her research is focused on the dynamic relationship between the law and society. She is Associate Director of the Regional History Centre at UWE and consultant historian for Shire Hall historic courthouse museum.
As a collaborative practitioner, she works with heritage organisations and external partners to engage public audiences with historic research in ways that are meaningful in the present.
