Marian Farquharson

In 1885, Marian Farquharson was elected as the first female fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society—but as a woman she was still prohibited from actually attending any meetings or voting on society matters.

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Amy Ashwood Garvey

Jamaican activist, co-founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was the most influential anti-colonial organisation in Jamaica for decades. Co-founder of the international Negro World newspaper, and one of the first directors of UNIA’s shipping line, the Black Star Line.

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Christiane Desroches Noblecourt

Egyptologist who spearheaded an international campaign to save 22 Nubian monuments in Egypt and Sudan, which would have been submerged by the lake created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

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Emilie Kempin-Spyri

Emilie Kempin-Spyri became Switzerland’s first female law school graduate in 1887, but women were not allowed to practise law at the time because they lacked full citizenship.

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