Old records mostly wrote about men: kings, lords and priests. That doesn't mean women weren't here! These are women connected to Manchester that we know about. Can you find out about more?
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Charlotte Brontë
Wrote Jane Eyre here
She wrote Jane Eyre in 1846 while staying in lodgings in Hulme.
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Elizabeth Gaskell
1810–1865
Lived here
A novelist whose books showed the lives of the very poor. She settled in Manchester, and her first novel, Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848), brought the city's crowded slums alive for readers.
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Isabella Banks
Born here
A writer born in the city, who wrote The Manchester Man (1876).
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Frances Hodgson Burnett
1849–1924
Born here
The author of The Secret Garden, A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. She was born in Cheetham Hill in 1849.
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Emmeline Pankhurst
1858–1928
Born here
She organised the British suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. She was born on Sloan Street in Moss Side, Manchester.
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Carol Ann Duffy
Lives here
Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019. She moved to the city in 1996 and lives in West Didsbury.
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Manchester was an important centre of the suffragette movement, which campaigned for women's right to vote.