English author. She acquired a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, and making herself conversant with nearly every study which occupies thoughtful men, from an early age she carried on a correspondence with many eminent persons.
English poet and novelist
Poetess of the Spiritual Life
Actress Adah Isaacs Menken was noted as a woman of extraordinary beauty, culture, and brilliancy. She was famous for her marriages and divorces, and a volume of poetry by her was published as Infelicia (1868).
Australian labour activist Zelda D’Aprano’s leadership was exercised by ‘fighting inequality and injustice through confronting employers, fellow male unionists and CPA office holders by speaking out, naming problems and working hard’.
Proficient in modern Greek, Arabic, and Syriac, she wrote a number of novels and accounts of travel. In 1892, with her twin sister, Mrs. Margaret Dunlop Gibson, she discovered in the library of the convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai, the palimpsest containing the Four Gospels in Syriac, representing the oldest text known of any part of the new Testament.
English poet, suffragist essayist and critic
In addition to her work for penal reform, Blanche Baughan was an outspoken opponent of capital punishment, a financial supporter of the Red Cross and a member of the Akaroa Borough Council. Baughan was recognised for her contribution to social services with the award of the King George V Jubilee Medal in 1935. For her literary work she deserves recognition for indicating new directions in the nation’s literary history and as a significant harbinger of change in early New Zealand poetry.
One of New Zealand’s most assiduous but least-remembered writers
Australian artist, author, disability rights activist and filmmaker