Almyra Gray

Almyra Vickers Gray or Almyra Gray (15 March 1862 – 6 November 1939) was a British suffragist and social reformer.

Almyra Vickers Gray
Born
Almyra Vickers

15 March 1862
Sheffield, England
Died6 November 1939 (1939-11-07) (aged 77)
Spouse(s)Edwin Gray
Parent(s)Albert Vickers
Helen Horton

Early life

Almyra Vickers Gray was born in Sheffield into the influential Vickers family. She was the first child of Albert Vickers (1838–1919) and America Helen Horton.[1]

Activist

In 1907 she was elected President of the National Union of Women Workers.[2] She was the first woman magistrate in York and among the first in the country to join the Bench in 1920.

She lobbied for improved maternity services and infant welfare to reduce child mortality. In 1913 she became president of the North and East Riding Federation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.

In 1925, a memorial was unveiled at The Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Saint Peter in York, also known as York Minster, recording the names of over 1,500 women who died in World War I. The money for the memorial was raised by Helen Little and, independently, by Gray. It was speculated that the memorial was approved by the Dean of the cathedral because of the need to restore stained glass windows that had been removed in 1916 for protection against enemy bombs.[3]

In 1927, Shelson Press published a book of Gray's writings entitled Papers and diaries of a York family 1764-1839'.'[4]

Personal life

Almyra Gray's husband, Edwin Gray, died in 1929.

References
  1. Broughton, Trev Lynn (2019-08-08), "Gray [née Vickers], Almyra (1862–1939), social reformer and philanthropist", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.59921, ISBN 9780198614128
  2. Glick, Daphne (1995). The National Council of Women of Great Britain: the first one hundred years. National Council of Women of Great Britain. ISBN 978-0900915079.
  3. Alison S. Fell (12 July 2018). Women as Veterans in Britain and France after the First World War. Cambridge University Press. pp. 46–. ISBN 978-1-108-42576-6.
  4. Almira Vickers Gray (1927). Papers and diaries of a York family 1764-1839. Sheldon Press.
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