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Authority record
GB 1534 · Corporate body · 1971-2010

British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was a nuclear energy and fuels company owned by the UK Government. It was a former manufacturer and transporter of nuclear fuel, ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel (mainly at Sellafield), and decommissioned nuclear plants and other similar facilities.

GB 1534 ATS1 · Corporate body · 1938 - 1949

Created in 1938, the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was created in response the growing threat of a second world war. It recruited women to fill in as cooks, clerks, orderlies, storekeepers and drivers, thereby allowing more male soldiers to be sent to the front line. The women in the ATS were given full military status by 1941, and though they were still not given combat roles, it further meant conscription expanded to include women, all of whom were drafted to the ATS unless a nurse. They were never permitted to engage in combat, but their jobs and responsibilities continued to broaden, and by 1943, over fifty thousand women served in anti-aircraft units. Black women were also allowed to enlist in. Eventually, in 1949, the ATS was absorbed into the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC).

Burford, Barbara (1944-2010)
GB 1534 BB1 · Person · 09/12/1944-20/02/2010

Barbara Burford was born in Jamaica in 1944. She moved to London in 1955 with her family, where she attended school and went onto study Medicine at London University. Barbara enjoyed a varied career with the NHS, the civil service and later as a consultant to various public-sector organisations. Barbara pioneered learning and social change throughout her career, and promoted equality in all that she did.

Barbara’s career in the NHS began in 1964. Initially, she specialised in postgraduate teaching hospitals, before leading a team at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. She ran the pulmonary vascular laboratory there for several years during the 1980s and her team was central to several breakthroughs in heart and lung transplant surgery for infants and children. Later in the 1990s, Barbara moved to Leeds to set up IT systems for the NHS executive, a key achievement of which being Positively Diverse – a programme of guidelines designed to help achieve equality in the NHS. From 1999 Barbara was the director of Equality and Diversity at the Department of Health, beginning many initiatives that are now well established. In 2005, shortly before her retirement, the University of Bradford appointed her Deputy Director of its Centre for Inclusion and Diversity. Barbara then set up a consultancy to carry on her mentoring and coaching work.

During her lifetime Barbara was also a writer, with a particular interest in science fiction and very engaged in feminist politics. She wrote plays, poetry, short stories and a novella. Her play Patterns was produced at the Drill Hall theatre in 1984; the same year that her poetry featured in A Dangerous Knowing – Four Black Women Poets. In 1986 she published The Threshing Floor, a novella and collection of short stories.

GB 1534 CLCBLG · Corporate body · 1982-1996

The Camden Lesbian Centre Project (CLCP) was founded in 1982, when several women from a loose social collective known as Kentish Town Lesbian Group (based at the nearby Kentish Town Women’s Workshop) recognised the need for a space expressly for lesbians. The group - all of whom were white lesbians - successfully applied for grant funding from Camden Council Women's Committee, and they began organising regular meetings and events with a view to establishing a centre for lesbians. In 1984, the Black Lesbian Group was founded as a support group for Black lesbians and lesbians of colour, who faced the tripartite barriers of homophobia, racism, and misogyny; the group used the term 'Black' in the broader political sense.

Having worked closely together, Camden Lesbian Centre Project and the Black Lesbian Group merged to form the Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group (CLCBLG) in 1985. Despite their differences and the fact that CLCP had originally excluded Black lesbians from its initial stages, BLG members felt the merger presented an opportunity to improve things for their community. The merger agreement stipulated that at least 50% of CLCBLG's staff and its Management Committee would comprise Black lesbians and that around half of the Centre's events and workshops would be for Black lesbians only.

From 1985-86, CLCBLG sought out premises across Camden. Although initially unsure of how the site would work for them, the group eventually applied for a change of use for a former retail space at 54-56 Phoenix Road, which they were granted amidst vocal resistance and homophobia from some local residents. The group signed the lease in September 1986. CLCBLG worked with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, Support Community Building and Common Ownership Design and Construct (CODAC) to renovate and alter the Centre before opening its doors to the public on Saturday 31 October 1987. From this point onward, the Centre was a social and political hub for many strands of London's lesbian community, becoming home to workshops, socials, seminars, discussion groups and other events. It became the base of groups like the Older Lesbian Network, Zamimass Black lesbian group, and GEMMA, the friendship network for disabled and non-disabled lesbians.

With successive and ever more severe cuts to grant funding from Camden Council, CLCBLG was forced to scale down its paid staff members and operations from c.1990 onwards. The Centre eventually wrapped up its operations in 1996, when the group was informed that they'd receive no grant funding in that year's budget.

Cathy McCormack
GB 1534 CM · Person · 1952-2022

Cathy McCormack (July 5th 1952 – present), is a Scottish grassroots activist based in EasterHouse, Glasgow, prominent for her involvement in local and international anti-poverty campaigns. Becoming part of the EastHall Residents Association (ERA) in 1982, McCormack began her activism through a Glasgow-wide Anti-Damp campaign, helping to tackle a chronic damp housing problem experienced in EasterHouse and other post-war housing schemes. McCormack’s continued campaigning in the 1990s led to her involvement in setting up the Scottish Public Health Alliance in 1992, her attendance as a Scottish representative at the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development in 1994, and two study trips to Nicaragua and South Africa in 1992 and 1998. Today, McCormack still resides in Easterhouse Glasgow and is the author of a 2009 autobiography, ‘The Wee Yellow Butterfly’.

GB 1534 CM1 · Person · 1899 - ? (fl 1921-1947)

Catherine Charlotte Robinson Morrison was born on the 16th of December 1899. In 1918 she joined the Scarborough Union - a workhouse - where she worked as a Probationer Nurse until 1920, then as an Assistant Nurse until 1921. She then underwent training to become a Nurse at Stepping Hill Poor Law Hospital near Stockport, which she completed in 1925. During this period she took courses in Elementary Anatomy, Physiology, and Medical and Surgical nursing. She then undertook a further year of training at the Moorfield Eye Hospital in Bedford. Having qualified, she worked at the 5th(1st) General Scottish Hospital at Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire. It was from here that she was recruited by the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), and on the 25th June 1940 left on the HMS Aquitonia for Egypt. She then worked at the 15th Scottish General Hospital in Cairo for the majority of the war, before working in India. During this time she visit numerous places, including Japan, Singapore and Sri Lanka, capturing the places she visited in photographs. She later returned to Scotland, received her Ophthalmic Nursing Diploma from the Ophthalmic Nursing Board in 1952, and by the later 1960s was living in the village of Meigle.

Close the Gap, 2001-
GB 1534 CTG1 · Corporate body · 2001-

Close The Gap was launched by the Social Justice minister and the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Minister on 8 March 2001. It was launched as a campaign to raise awareness about the gender pay gap in Scotland, and has since continued to host conferences and seminars on the subject, provide training and evaluations to ensure companies are able to commit to the equality act, as well as working with trade unions in order to educate and advise their representatives. They are also a prolific source of articles pertaining to the gender pay gap. Originally a partnership initiative, it has operated as a charity since 2017.

GB 1534 CWO1 · Corporate body · 1993-

Catholic Women’s Ordination (CWO) began in 1993 as a national group of women and men demanding that women be equal with men in the church community, not only in the vocational sense, but in the ministerial priesthood. They aim to achieve a forum for examining, challenging and developing the present understanding of priesthood, with the desire to achieve ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church a secondary, though equally important, goal. By 2000 there were CWO groups throughout Britain and a membership of 500 people. Campaign activities include support networks, newsletters, conferences, advertising, participation in ecumenical activities, and monthly vigils in London and Edinburgh. It is run and organised on a volunteer basis, with members of CWO contributing to their National Co-ordinating Group (NatCog) in order to maintain a cohesive message across the UK. By 2014 there were two hundred Roman Catholic Women Priests across four continents, though on ordination to the priesthood they are automatically excommunicated. CWO continues to campaign for reformation of the Roman Catholic priesthood and for women to be recognised as priests in Canon Law.

Dick, Dorothy, 1905- ?
GB 1534 DD · Person · 1905- ?

Dorothy Dick was born in 1905 in either Bearsden or Milngavie to a fairly wealthy family. Her childhood was affected by World War I, and thus, she does not have many records from that time. At the age of 13, Dorothy began to attend the St Leonard's School for Girls in St Andrews. Despite her status, she never married and instead began working as a nurse in the 1930s. In 1938/39, Dorothy passed her driving test and was added to the roll of ambulance drivers for the St Andrew's Ambulance Association, Glasgow. Dorothy was a very companionable person and took many holidays with her friends and family. She kept many well-organized photo albums with pictures of her vacations, family, friends, and many dogs.

GB 1534 DJ1 · Corporate body · c. 1973-1984

The “Dear Doctor” column, published in the weekly girl’s magazine Jackie, was a Q&A style piece that answered girl’s questions relating to physical and mental health. The demographic of the magazine was 10-14 year olds, and questions sent in covered topics from appearance, to diet, to depression, to puberty, to sex education. Due to the anonymity of both the supplicant and the response, the column acted as a source of medical information on all subjects for young girls who, for whatever reason, were hesitant to reach out to their parents or GP. The letters were answered by Doctor Elizabeth Proudfoot, a GP in Dundee.