A record missing half its subject.

Half the population. A fraction of the record. The reasons are not mysterious: women were less often the storytellers, less often the subject of the storytellers, less often kept in archives, less often the names on the buildings. The result is a history that under-describes the people who lived it.

Women in History is a research and public engagement programme working to recover and tell the stories of the women whose work shaped public life and whose names are missing from the record. The programme produces accessible writing, school resources, public lectures, and convenings.

Where we begin: the Dove family.

We start with the women in the family the Foundation is named for. Two figures sit at the front of that work.

Politics & press

Mabel Dove

1905 — 1984

The first female MP in Africa, taking her seat in the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly in 1954, on the eve of Ghana's independence. Before politics, she was one of the earliest women journalists on the continent.

Stage & broadcast

Evelyn Dove

1902 — 1987

A West African-British singer and broadcaster who was the first Black woman to sing on the BBC, building a career across the stages of Europe and broadcasting at a time when neither her gender nor her background made any of it easy.

The full family history, including the wider Dove family of Sierra Leonean and Ghanaian descent and the Ghartey lineage of Effutu, Ghana, sits on its own page.

Read a short summary of the Dove & Ghartey family history Back to all programmes