PENARTH Women’s Trail was officially launched at an event to celebrate International Women’s Day last week.

Councillor Lis Burnett praised the 15 famous Penarth women that feature on the trail during her speech at the Paget Rooms last Friday, March 7.

Cllr Bronwen Brooks and Assembly Members Vaughan Gething, Jeff Cuthbert and Jane Hutt also gave speeches during the International Women’s Day event aimed at ‘Empowering women in Wales in times of austerity’.

Julie Grady, from Atal y Fro, also gave a speech about the work carried out by the charity that supports families that are the victims of domestic abuse.

During her speech Cllr Burnett praised the impact of women in their local communities and said that their work should be recognised and praised.

She highlighted a number of women that feature on the Penarth Women’s Trail and paid tribute to the likes of Catherine Meazey, who has had flats named after her on Queen’s Road in recognition of her work, Hester Milicent Mackenzie, a suffragist and the first woman to be addressed as ‘professor’, Edith Parnell, who swam from Penarth to Weston-super-mare when she was just 16 in 1929, Joan Collins, who co-ordinated the ‘We Remember it Well’ and ‘I could have told you’ oral reminiscence historical books, and Eveline Allen, who helped form links between Penarth and St Polo de Leon.

Other notable women that appear on the trail include Mary Glynne, a Penarth-born actress that starred in ‘The Good Companion’, and Elisabeth Sheppard-Jones, a former manager of Headlands School that overcame being confined to a wheelchair after being the victim of a war-time VI flying bomb and went on to become a successful children’s author.

The Penarth Women’s Trail is also made up of Marguerite (Bunty) Thomas, Hilda Janet Cross, Emily Ada Pickford, Kathleen Thomas, Rosemary (Ray) Howard-Jones, Kathleen Evans OBE, Sheila Margaret Noel Gibbs and Constance Mary Maillard BEM.