House Leader - Emma Anastasi 11MW

House Champion - Bee Rowlatt (see below)

Mary Wollstonecraft - This extraordinary woman lived in Beverley as a child and was educated in the town. She lived in a house in Wednesday Market from age 9 to 15 (you might have seen the plaque that is outside the front door) the longest she ever lived in one place. This time covered the important years of her education developing her into the writer and philosopher she became. She is best known for her written pieces. Most famously a piece called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman this is one of the trailblazing works of feminism. When men read it at the time they reacted by calling her “a hyena making a lot of noise in a skirts” and they said “although she has some worthy points I despise her lifestyle and overall opinions

Mary Woolstonecraft- https://youtu.be/T_Z-46-QCzQ

House Champion - Bee Rowlatt

Bee Rowlatt is a writer and cultural events programmer. In Search of Mary (Alma) inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft, won the Society of Authors’ K Blundell Trust award and is available here. The best-seller Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad (Penguin), co-written with May Witwit, was dramatised by the BBC and translated into numerous languages.

Bee chaired the Mary on the Green campaign to memorialise Mary Wollstonecraft and is a founding Trustee of the human rights education charity the Wollstonecraft Society. She wrote the play An Amazon Stept Out for its launch at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. She judged the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year (2020) and the Poetry Society young writers’ challenge (2019).

Bee contributed to Virago’s Fifty Shades of Feminism, and clocked over two decades as a journalist for BBC World Service. She speaks fluent Spanish and has a research background in Latin America. She’s written for BBC Online, The Telegraph, Grazia, Die Welt, Times, Guardian and Daily Mail, and appears regularly on tv and radio.

Bee’s public speaking includes the Jaipur Literature Festivals in India, London and Belfast, 5×15, Hay Festivals in Cartagena and Xalapa, Southbank WOW festival, and British Council literary events in Iraq, Norway, Palestine and Russia. She hails from Yorkshire, used to be a showgirl, has four kids and lives in London.