A fitting backdrop to celebrate International Women’s Day

The Royal Pavilion proudly played host to the Sussex Business Times photoshoot for this supplement, marking International Women’s Day 2025 and celebrating the achievements of female business leaders in Brighton & Hove.

The Pavilion’s iconic Adelaide suite balcony and Music Room provided a fitting backdrop for the occasion, symbolising both history and progress as these women: entrepreneurs, executives, and changemakers came together to be recognised for their contributions to the local economy and community.

As a charity responsible for operating museums and preserving local history in Brighton & Hove, we wanted to take this opportunity to talk about inspiring and ground-breaking women from the past, through the lens of Preston Manor, reopening to the public after five years’ closure on April 5.

Preston Manor has been the home of many redoubtable women in its history, none more so than its last owner, Ellen Thomas Stanford, who died in 1932, bequeathing the building to the town of Brighton.

Born in 1848 in the Manor itself, Ellen inherited vast wealth at the tender age of five following the death of her father. The Stanfords’ fortune came from land and Ellen had a typical gentry lady’s upbringing. After a first marriage, which took her to Wiltshire, she returned to Preston Manor in 1905 to make it her main home with her second husband, the MP and future Mayor of Brighton Charles Thomas.

By now Ellen would have been almost 60. With her solid Victorian background and values, it’s interesting to wonder what she made of her hometown, which was changing rapidly, particularly for women. As one half of Brighton’s foremost power couple, entertaining dignitaries and attending important civic events, Ellen must have crossed paths with some of the women who were challenging people’s ideas of what a woman should be. The museum has a seating plan for a dinner event around 1910 which shows Ellen sitting opposite a ‘Miss Martindale’. Could this be Brighton’s first female GP, Dr Louisa Martindale?

Before the First World War Dr Martindale was a visiting medical officer at the pioneering Lady Chichester Hospital Brighton Branch at the bottom of Ditchling Road. This offered a wide range of charity-funded or free medical treatment and help to some of the poorest women in Sussex. Following the war, during which she served in Northern France, Dr Martindale became senior surgeon at the New Sussex Hospital for Women in Windlesham Road. She is remembered today for groundbreaking work in treating certain cancers and for ceaselessly promoting medicine as a career for women in her many books and talks.

Maybe Ellen subscribed to the traditional idea that medicine was no place for women. I wonder if dinner opposite the hard-working and formidable Dr Martindale changed her mind?

During WW1 Ellen threw herself into charity work in support of the Red Cross and other organisations. Scrapbooks at Preston Manor reveal that she was active in the Ladies Committee of the General Hospital for Indian Troops. Would she have come across Sophia Duleep Singh, a Sikh princess who visited the soldiers in the Royal Pavilion?

Sophia was the daughter of exiled Sikh Maharajah Duleep Singh. She had been brought up as Queen Victoria’s god-daughter in comfort and luxury and, like Ellen, had been educated in Brighton as a girl. Unlike Ellen, Sophia rejected her aristocratic comforts to become a suffragette. Embracing militancy, Sophia threw herself into the fight for the vote, selling The Suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court, marching to the House of Commons and, on one occasion, throwing a suffragette poster at the Prime Minister’s car.

During the war Sophia trained as a nurse and tended Indian soldiers at a private hospital in Isleworth while visiting soldiers hospitalised here in Brighton. It is unlikely that Ellen approved of Sophia’s militancy but, concerned with the comfort and wellbeing of the Indian soldiers in the town, she must have been grateful for her help.

After the war, Ellen received a Red Cross Medal for completing more than 1,000 hours of voluntary work. Her idea to give her beloved family home to the town in 1932 was a kindness that we can still enjoy today as we look around her personal rooms following its re-opening in April.

Written by Louise Peskett, Museum Educator at Brighton & Hove Museums. Louise also runs her own guided tours around local women’s history, ‘The fearless and fabulous women of Brighton & Hove’ as well as lecturing on women’s history.

Preston Manor reopens on April 5 with a brand new visitor experience. Step back in time to 1912 and embark on a Downton Abbey-style journey through one of Britain’s most haunted houses. Come and celebrate with us on April 12, 10am-4pm, at our Edwardian Easter Fete, kindly sponsored by Preston Insurance Brokers, and open to all to enjoy some family fun and Easter magic.

As a charity, Brighton & Hove Museums relies on the generosity of people like you. As a member, you will benefit from unlimited free visits to our sites and exhibitions all year, priority booking and members’ prices for events and discounts in our shops and cafes.

Find out more at brightonmuseums.org.uk/membership.