MP visits the University of Winchester’s “Women of Winchester” Exhibition

Event Management students from the University of Winchester(@_UoW) attracted a VIP visitor when they hosted their first public event.

Winchester’s MP Steve Brine popped in to see the pop-up exhibition celebrating the lives of six remarkable ‘Women of Winchester’ to mark International Women’s Day.

Mr Brine visited each of the six stands, set up in the in the foyer of the University’s West Down Centre, and chatted with the students about the project.

Afterwards, he said:

“A delight to mark International Women’s Day by dropping into University of Winchester to meet Events Management students.

“They were presenting the famous ‘Women of Winchester’, who were key historical figures that lived locally and that have made important contributions to local and national history.”

Students in the first year ‘Introduction to Event Operations’ module researched the lives and achievements of the six women whose impact can still be felt in today’s society.

They were:

• Laura Ridding: daughter of the first Earl of Selborne and wife of George Ridding, the headmaster of Winchester College, who founded the National Union of Women Workers
• Josephine Butler: feminist, campaigner for women’s suffrage and abolition of child prostitution
• Ellen Joyce: organiser of women’s emigration, founder of British Women’s Emigration Association
• Charlotte Moberley: academic, first principal of St Hugh’s College Oxford and self-confessed ‘time traveller’
• Charlotte Yonge: a novelist, whose many books promoted the church and showed her interests in philanthropy and women’s education
• Mary Sumner: a rector’s wife from Alresford, who founded the Mothers Union

Marie Haverley, Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Event Management, said:

“I am very proud of our students and the positive comments made by attendees.”