This short book has its origins in a talk I was asked to give in 2001 to Malvern Museum Association to mark the centenary of the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. Entitled 'Some Victorian Ladies of Malvern', it was largely concerned with the aristocratic ladies of the area, but recognised the importance of those lower in the rigid social scale of those times.

In the last eleven years, having looked intermittently at other women who played a part in Malvern’s history, I was very pleased when Peter Smith, who in 1989 founded the Autumn in Malvern Festival, invited me to give a talk in 2012 on Malvern women of note.

The significance of these women, whose influence often reached places far distant from Malvern, is, however, such that I feel that their contribution should be noted in a form more permanent than an hour’s lecture. If this book brings out of the shadows some remarkable women whose influence has been forgotten it will have done what was needed.