Lucy Jones may well be the best British painter who you’ve never heard of. There is no doubt about her disability, because she was born with cerebral palsy. But she has no intention of identifying as a disabled artist. She is a simply an artist, and a very, very good one at that. I hadn’t… Read More from Lucy Jones
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Leslie Banks
To begin with, you want to be a parson, and after a good education at Glenalmond College and Keble College Oxford, you seem to be right on track. But then, a change of plan: after a while in an office job in shipping, the stage beckons, following some good experiences in amateur theatricals. All’s goes… Read More from Leslie Banks
Ivor Gurney
Only the wanderer Knows England’s graces, Or can anew see clear Familiar faces. And who loves joy as he That dwells in shadows? Do not forget me quite, O Severn meadows. Ivor Bertie Gurney was born in Gloucester on 28 August 1890: his father was a tailor, and he came from humble origins. His mother… Read More from Ivor Gurney
May Billinghurst
The Women’s Suffrage campaigner Rosa May Billinghurst was born into a middle class family in Lewisham in 1875. At five months old, she contracted an illness – almost certainly polio – which left her completely paralysed. Despite some recovery, she was left paraplegic, relying on calipers and crutches to walk, and usually resorting to a… Read More from May Billinghurst
Ian Dury
There’s been no shortage of disabled popular musicians (Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Gene Vincent), and even a good sprinkling of polio-survivor musicians (Judy Collins, Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young), but no other mainstream-successful singer-songwriter has ever explored disability and attitudes to disabled people as powerfully and memorably as Ian Dury. Ian Dury was born in… Read More from Ian Dury
Harriet Martineau
This week, the distinguished contemporary writer Ali Smith gave the inaugural Harriet Martineau lecture for Norwich Writers’ Centre, bringing alive a woman who in her time was ubiquitous, but who now is hardly known. Martineau was a political journalist, an early sociologist, a radical campaigner, a traveller and an author who inspired Charlotte Bronte, Charles… Read More from Harriet Martineau
Bryan Pearce
Obituaries in The Times, The Guardian and The Independent would suggest a life of distinction for any person, but are a unique achievement for a man with intellectual disabilities. But Bryan Pearce earned his fame more for what he did than for who he was. One of the leading naïve artists of the twentieth century,… Read More from Bryan Pearce
Mabel Cooper
For some time, I have been seeking out a person with intellectual disability to include in this website. Despite books such as Downs: a history, and other historical research about intellectual disability, very few named individuals with intellectual disability have left a record. In the late twentieth century, with the growth of deinstitutionalization and consensus… Read More from Mabel Cooper
Sylvia Plath
A very welcome guest post to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath, contributed by my dear and esteemed friend Jackie Leach Scully, another graduate of Newnham College. There are a lot of women of a certain age – around 50 – who have, let’s say, an ambivalent relationship with the story… Read More from Sylvia Plath
Jacqueline du Pré
It is exactly 25 years since the death of the greatest ever English cellist, a player who will be forever associated with the Elgar Cello Concerto, and whose passion and directness struck all who heard or saw her. Jacqueline du Pré grew up in Oxford. Her father was an accountant, from a Channel Islands family,… Read More from Jacqueline du Pré