One of the most significant political figures in Norfolk history is Dorothy Jewson. And yet no plaque commemorates her remarkable achievements…yet!

Dorothy was born in Thorpe Hamlet, Norwich in 1884. Her progressive parents, Alderman George Jewson JP, a coal and timber merchant and Mary Jane Jarrold, sent their daughter to Norwich High School, Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Girton College, Cambridge, all institutions pioneering the education of women. At university she joined the Fabian Society and Independent Labour Party, qualifying as a teacher. She was involved in the suffrage movement and a trade unionist, joining the Women’s Social & Political Union.

In 1923, Dorothy was elected as Labour Member of Parliament for Norwich, becoming Norfolk’s first woman and only the fifth female MP in the nation. She began raising Westminster eyebrows by refusing to wear a hat in the chamber, reported to have replied women were ‘not in Parliament to discuss dress or millinery, but to do something’.

Her maiden speech called for lowering the voting age for women and amplifying women’s voices within the Labour Party. She championed policies such as family allowance and access to birth control, controversial now and seriously radical at the time. Subsequent electoral defeats couldn’t quench her ardent political determination and she served on Norwich City Council from 1929 to 1936.

Norwich City Hall opened in 1938, after Dorothy’s last term. Surely, in 2023, 100 years after her trail-blazing election triumph, this landmark is the right place for Dorothy’s long overdue blue plaque!