New Mile Cross roads to be named after Norwich women
If you've spotted a whopping great social injustice and you want to get your point across with maximum impact, what do you do?
The women of The Common Lot, Norwich's socialist theatre group (and purveyors of the very fine Boudicca, the Panto) decided that the answer to this question was to sing a song about how few women are commemorated in the names of Norwich's streets (not even the Queen of the Iceni gets a look in) - and then ask the council to do something about it. For the avoidance of doubt, this actually happened in a Norwich city cabinet meeting on 11 December 2024.
It went unreported at the time. Where is the Local Democracy Reporting Service when you need it?
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— cllrjohnmorland.bsky.social (@cllrjohnmorland.bsky.social) December 11, 2024 at 10:09 PM
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"In London 87% of the streets named after people are named after men," Grace Courtney of The Common Lot told the cabinet meeting, asking a public question. "In Mile Cross there are 37 streets named after men and only one after a woman." (Margaret Paston, in case you were wondering.)
"Norwich women have a proud history of making change in our city and beyond. Does cabinet agree that one way to start to redress this imbalance is to name the streets on the proposed new Mile Cross development in celebration of Norwich women?"
And guess what? The leader of the council, Mike Stonard, said: "The short answer is yes."
There was also a longer answer mentioning Elsie Bertram, Elizabeth Fry, Edith Cavell and Patricia Hollis - who have already had Norwich roads named after them - but you get the general gist.
All mouth and no trousers?
And so it has come to pass that the new streets of the Mile Cross extension will, I am reliably told, be named after women. Work on the first batch of about 60 affordable homes should be breaking ground any day now and The Common Lot has been invited to participate in the naming process.
"We're very pleased," said Maggie Wheeler, on behalf of the theatre group.
"When you start looking for women in history you always find them. We did a whole show about this in 2018 called All Mouth and No Trousers and then there was Rosie's Plaques. This project - called Rename the Streets - is of a piece with those," she said.
(It's all very topical. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, recently had a book out on the same theme: that the women are always there in history if you just look a little harder. The book was about female economists and is genuinely surprising. Under-reported often = good story.)
Since the Mile Cross extension has yet to be built, the first two streets at issue will not so much be renamed as named. But it sounds as if this may be just the beginning.
So which Norwich women will they suggest?
I have to admit that the first Norwich high-flyer who sprang to my mind was Saraya Bevis, the wrestler. But I had it gently pointed out to me that in order to qualify you have to be dead, so let's stick a pin in that for a while...
My second thought, since Boudicca and Mabel Clarkson must be a shoo-in, was of my nana, Freda Hartley. She was chair of housing at Norwich city council in the 1960s and/or 70s and family legend has it that she came home for tea one day with the news that they had reached the end of the housing list and everyone who needed a home in Norwich had been allocated one. Crazy days, right? Nana was also a magistrate and wardrobe mistress at the Maddermarket Theatre, skills she put to personal use making beautiful dresses for my sister and I - and preventing us from squabbling by deploying her famous "Paddington" hard stare.
Nana achieved a great deal in the teeth of ferocious social headwinds. But even as a child I was aware that people thought she was "difficult". This made no sense to me on an intuitive level, as she was charming, loving, capable and GOT THINGS DONE. Now I realise that the label said more about the people who used it than it did about nana.
That lesson has been hard won.
- Contact The Common Lot with suggestions for deceased female citizens of Norwich who deserve to have a road named after them on hello@thecommonlot.org
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