Winchester

The wife of King Alfred the Great and the mother of King Edward the Elder. As Alfred's widow she founded the convent of Nunnaminster in Winchester, and she was buried in her son's New Minster in Winchester.

The daughter of King Henry I, she claimed the English throne in the war called the Anarchy. In April 1141 the clergy meeting in Winchester declared that she should be monarch in place of King Stephen. Later that year her forces were besieged at Winchester Castle, in the Rout of Winchester.

An English Jewish businesswoman. She lent money from the early 1230s. In 1244 she returned to live with her family in Winchester, where she carried on her late husband David's business and began new ones of her own. A statue of her stands in Jewry Street, opposite where her house once stood.

The novelist Jane Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817 and was buried in the cathedral's north nave aisle. Many visitors still come to see her resting place.

A stage actress and theatre manager, born Mary Frances Moss in Winchester. In her twenty-year career she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York.

An academic, born in Winchester on 16 September 1846, the tenth of 15 children. She was taught at home and gained basic skills in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. She was the first Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford, from 1886 until she retired in 1915.

An electrical engineer, born in Winchester in 1893. In 1926 she took over her family's firm, and in 1934 she led the work to put permanent electric light and heating into Winchester Cathedral. She was one of the first women to join the Electrical Contractors Association, and became President of the Winchester Chamber of Commerce.

A philosopher, born in Winchester on 14 April 1924, the youngest of seven children, and a pupil at St Swithun's School in the city. She chaired an inquiry whose report formed the basis of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, and was Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, from 1984 to 1991.

The Winchester Cathedral Girls' Choir was founded in 1999. It is made up of 20 girls aged 12 to 17, who go to schools across Hampshire.