International Women's Day 2026
- Feb 27
- 6 min read
Elaine Pritchard looks ahead to International Women's Day 2026 in Burton upon Trent.
I'm delighted to be attending the annual International Women's Day event in Burton upon Trent on Friday, March 6. Organised by town-based charities SARAC and YMCA, it is being held at the Pirelli football stadium on Princess Way and promises to be an inspiring event. This year's theme is #GiveToGain and emphasises the power of support and reciprocity. Evidence shows that when women thrive the whole of society benefits.
During the day I will have a stall where I will have information sheets on five women who are included in the two local history books and two plays that I have written. Three of them were innovators and achievers in Burton upon Trent, whose achievements have largely been forgotten down the years. Two of these women had their lives cut short through tragic circumstances.
You can download the three information sheets below. I have included the content and pictures on this page if you would prefer to read them on this website.
Annie Orton and Annie Spooner
Annie Orton was the youngest of four children born to George Orton, half of the world-renowned partnership Orton & Spooner, who made fairground rides and ran three cinemas in Burton upon Trent.
Annie was born on October 30th, 1879. She had an elder sister and two elder brothers. As soon as she left school she began to work for her father’s growing business, which was then based on Princess Street. She worked in the office and quickly learned about managing the accounts and bookkeeping. Her father called his business George Orton & Sons, but she was an integral, if publicly unrecognised part of their success.
A year after her father’s death in 1924, a limited company was formed called George Orton, Sons and Spooner (GOSS). Still no mention of Annie. She did become a director of GOSS and of a second company called the Burton Picturedrome Company Limited – originally founded by her father and Charles Spooner in 1913. Annie played a major role in the creation of The Ritz cinema on Guild Street in the 1930s and she was finally acknowledged in the local press for her design of its Art Deco-style interiors. She continued to oversee wages and many financial aspects of the company and played a key role in all decisions. She died in 1965 aged 86 and GOSS closed in 1977.
‘Annie’ Spooner was born Matilda Anne Rosser in Newport, Wales, in 1869 and moved to Burton upon Trent with her family when her father Isaac got work as a cooper in a Burton brewery. She lived on Uxbridge Street and later Byrkley Street with her father, mother Ann and brother Albert. Annie worked as a dressmaker for a time.
On May 20th, 1894, she married Charles Spooner at St Paul’s Church, Burton-upon-Trent and they lived with his uncle and aunt at the Swan Hotel on Burton Bridge.
On June 7th, 1895, she gave birth to a son at home. Tragically, she became critically ill with what was variously called ‘womb fever’, ‘milk fever’ or ‘childbed fever’ and died within a few days. Like many new mothers in this era, her death was caused by an infection. Today’s antibiotics and more stringent childbirth hygiene would most probably have enabled her to make a full recovery. Her son was named John Rosser Spooner – given her maiden name as his middle name in honour of the mother he never knew.
Although Charles remarried, to George Orton’s elder daughter Rose Ann, a few years later, descendants say he never forgot his first love. They tell me her son kept a picture of her by his bedside for the rest of his life.
Constance Shreeve
Constance Shreeve was born around 1905 in a workhouse at Stratford upon Avon and died in Burton Workhouse about 23 or 24 years later.
Newspaper coverage gives us a window into the tragedy and chaos of her life. She is often referred to by journalists and officials merely as ‘the girl’, dehumanising her and losing any sense of her as a person. Repeatedly they described her as ‘difficult’ and said ‘she is trouble’.
Constance’s parents lost custody of her, before she was five years old, after they were convicted for drunkenness, violence and neglect. Constance and her two younger brothers were sent to the workhouse where Queen’s Hospital now stands. Boys and girls had to live separately, so the boys stayed together but Constance was on her own. Her elder sisters went together to a small offshoot of the workhouse run like a family home in Barton-under-Needwood where they were trained for domestic service.
Her siblings all left the workhouse eventually, but Constance never did. In 1926 she was taken to court after she ran away from the workhouse as far as the workhouse at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Running away wasn’t a crime, but Constance was wearing her drab workhouse uniform, so she was charged with theft of it.
A brief spell working at a Derbyshire silk mill ended abruptly, after unspecified ‘trouble’ with the boss. Constance was later sent to The Burton Ladies’ Association Girls’ Home, on Union Street – run by an organisation set up to protect young women from ‘a life of sin’. One night she was found in a nearby street after curfew by a patrolling policeman. As a result, the home sent her back to court and she was sent back to the workhouse she hated.
The inquest into her death was told that on August 13th,1929, Constance complained of feeling unwell and was found ten minutes later unconscious with a bottle of Lysol disinfectant nearby. She died soon afterwards. Workhouse staff testified that they only kept Lysol in large drums. They said Constance must have sneaked out and bought this smaller bottle, but there is no evidence of any attempt to check that theory with nearby shops. We will never know the truth of whether anyone else had a hand in Constance’s death. The inquest was held just two days after she died. The jury returned a verdict of ‘suicide during temporary insanity’.
Lily Thomas and Lily Rawlings
Lily Thomas was born on Guernsey in March 1875. She worked as a teacher on the island before meeting brewery export manager Edward Thomas and marrying him in 1906.
They moved to Burton upon Trent and set up home on Malvern Street in Stapenhill. Their daughter Marguerite was born in 1910, but Edward died on Christmas Eve, 1911.
In 1915, a few months into World War 1, Lily heard that five Burton soldiers, taken prisoner in Germany, had written home asking for dog biscuits as they would not spoil and would fill them up. Lily decided her ‘little bit of war work’ would be sending food parcels to these five men. By the end of the war she had sent out 25,750 parcels of food, clothes and medicines and saved many lives.
She faced ridicule from many people who said her parcels would never arrive or would be stolen by the Germans. In fact, 90% were safely delivered. She also faced anonymous letters claiming that she was a foreigner and not to be trusted with donations, claims she answered through the local press. She created a code that enabled messages to be safely passed between prisoners and their Burton families and friends outwitting the German and British censors. Despite her tireless efforts, she received no formal recognition when the war ended.
Edith Lily Mary Rawlings, known as Lily, was born on King Street, Burton upon Trent in 1880. Her family, including an elder sister, moved to Bond Street where five more siblings were born.
Their home was opposite the boys’ grammar school and Lily’s mother Maria had the innovative idea of turning their front room into a tuck shop business serving pupils.
Years later Lily and her younger sister Gertie would take over the shop and expand the business, becoming a key part of school life.
In June 1914, Lily’s younger brother Vale was jailed for assaulting a police inspector on a factory girls’ picket line. Convinced of his innocence, Lily travelled to Nottingham and marched into a male-dominated trade union meeting to speak to Keir Hardie, a founder of the Labour Party, and convinced him to raise Vale’s case in Parliament and speak on his behalf.
After Vale’s release, and the outbreak of war, Vale became a conscientious objector but as he was only 4ft 11 and suffered from congenital heart disease his family did not expect him to be conscripted. He was called up in 1916 and locked up for refusing to follow orders. In an unusual move for the time, Lily replaced her brother as Honorary Secretary of the Burton branch of the Workers’ Union and wrote a series of passionate, often fiery letters to MPs and others demanding her brother’s release.
