New dames for a new year!

Posted by Barbara on January 3, 2023 in Blog, Dame, Education, Environment, Health, Law, Medical, society, women scientists, Women's equality issues | 2 comments

I was idly glancing down the New Year’s Honours List – as you do – and failing to recognise any of the names listed, decided to take a closer look at which women have been elevated to damehood in 2023.

There are only 13, and unsurprisingly they all seem to have extremely laudable and high-profile careers or positions to warrant their inclusion in the list. I was initially particularly impressed by the women who were being honoured for services to disciplines such as medicine, engineering or education.

After all, who could not bow humbly before Professor Lyn Susan Chitty, Professor of Genetics and Fetal Medicine, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust and University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, for services to medicine?  Staying with medicine, we find Professor Robina Shahnaz Shah, Director of Doubleday Centre for Patient Experience, for services to patient care.

Or perhaps Dr Julie Katharine Maxton, Executive Director of The Royal Society, for services to science and to the law?  Then there is Dawn Elizabeth Childs, President of the Women’s Engineering Society, for services to engineering.

Education has generated a fine clutch of dames – I am not sure what the collective noun is for dames – a dazzle perhaps? I like the idea of a dazzle of dames, but we welcome suggestions.  You can choose from Professor Cathryn Elizabeth Nutbrown, Professor of School of Education, University of Sheffield, for services to early childhood education.  Or how about Nicola Whitmont Dandridge, lately Chief Executive Officer, Office for Students, for services to Higher Education? Last but not least we salute Sally Anne Sheila Dicketts, lately Chief Executive Officer, Activate Learning, for services to education.

I was intrigued by the nomination of Professor Heather Jane McGregor, Provost and Vice Principal, Heriot-Watt University Dubai, for services to education, business and to heritage in Scotland. Dubai? I never knew Dubai was in Scotland, or am I missing something here? And isn’t Edinburgh good enough for these guys?

On safer ground I was delighted to learn that the President of the Commonwealth Games England is a woman: Denise Rosemarie Lewis has been made a dame for services to Sport.  And it is also interesting that a Mayor has been honoured: Norma Redfearn, Mayor of North Tyneside Council, for political and public service.

There are two business related appointments, and one really must congratulate these women for busting through the glass ceiling.  Hats off to Anita Margaret Frew, Chair of Rolls-Royce Holdings plc and Chair of Croda International plc, for services to Business and to the Economy.  And I had actually heard of Alison Rose, Chief Executive Officer of NatWest Group, who receives a nomination for services to financial services. You might be forgiven for wondering if financial services required servicing, but this clearly shows how little I understand the subject.

I’ve left what I consider to be the best till last. Take a bow Dame Virginia Anne McKenna, co-founder in 1984 of the Born Free Foundation, for services to wildlife conservation and to wild animal welfare. This remarkable person is now 91, and has been a stage and screen actress, author and activist, as well as a wildlife campaigner. It was playing Joy Adamson in the film of her life Born Free that resulted in Mckenna and her late husband Bill Travers to become active supporters of wildlife conservation.

So now you have them – the new dames on the block. Congratulations ladies!

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