The quartet – along with two of their daughters – will be simultaneously sworn in as the very first women members of the City of Durham Freemen’s ancient craft guilds at a ceremony that gets under way in Durham’s Town Hall at 11am.
And they will be immediately followed by 11 others, among them a grandmother with family trade links believed to stretch back at least to the 17th century.
Less than two years ago the city’s freemen, whose guilds and companies are believed to date back to 1327, overwhelmingly backed proposals to amend admissions criteria to give equal rights to women.
The decision ran into a legal hitch but last summer the Government advised equality legislation, introduced in 2010, effectively set aside earlier laws excluding women.
The sisters, Barbara Charney, from Darlington; Laura Provett, from Sedgefield; Karen Crawford from Crook; and Sandra Heslop from Spennymoor; will follow their late father George Ridley, all of their husbands and their brother Stuart into the Curriers’ Company. Karen will be joined by daughter Charlotte and Sandra by her daughter Kate. Karen said: “There was no hesitation on our part when the opportunity presented itself.
“It is something we value and respect and feel honoured and proud to be among the first women freemen to be sworn in.”
The other women making history at the public inauguration include Church of England vicar, the Rev Mrs Dorothy Snowball from Felling, Gateshead, who follows her grandfather, father and brother into the Drapers’ Company; bus driver Ann Thurlow, a freeman’s daughter from Bowburn and time-served funeral director Lynne Swann become members of the Joiner’s Company.
Stonemason Beverley Renwick, from Bishop Auckland, who served her apprenticeship at Durham Cathedral, takes the oath of the Masons’ Company.
The youngest newcomer, at just 19, is Katherine Wortley from West Rainton who joins her dad in the Plumbers’ Company.
Other women joining them are Mary Hayes from Barnet in Hertfordshire whose family ties stretch back to 1900; and freemen’s daughters Amy Wesencraft from Bowburn; Ann Mallen from Craster in Northumberland; Vera Davidson from Durham City; and Alison McDonough from West Rainton.
Mrs Snowball, rector of St Thomas’s Church in Eighton Banks, Gateshead, said: “I read an article about the freemen admitting women for the first time and I decided to apply.
“I am originally from Langley Park, near Durham, and was keen to maintain the family tradition. I suppose I could now graze my cattle in the city in the unlikely event that I decide to buy some.”
John Heslop, chairman of the freemen wardens, said: “We have been working towards this day for years now. We wanted to extend the eligibility criteria since I became chairman 10 years ago but we have been held back by legislation.
“Monday will not only be a very happy occasion, it will also be a momentous milestone in our history and one which will change us for the better.
“I am happy to discuss interest in the Freedom with anyone who feels they may be eligible.”
The membership of 130 before today’s inauguration is a modern-day record. Freemen maintain a number of ancient privileges – including the right to graze livestock (known as herbage) and hold a fair on the Sands area of the city.
Guilds still survive in 40 towns and cities across England and Wales.
