You may not have heard of Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, but she’s influenced so much of modern life. This illustrated talk by historian Jane Robinson celebrates the charismatic founder of the first university college for women, the first women’s suffrage society and the campaign to allow women to keep their own property after marriage. She was Florence Nightingale’s secret cousin, George Eliot’s best friend and one of Victorian England’s finest female painters.

Jane Robinson is the author of Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education and Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders: The Pioneering Adventures of the First Professional Women.

“Lively and well researched … [Bodichon] was a vital cog in the wheel of social change for women. Her energy is contagious.”   Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times