Dr Robyn Atcheson

Dr. Robyn Atcheson takes a particular interest in the complex early history of the medical institutions of Belfast. She is also an expert on disease, poverty, childbirth and women's issues. She is very knowledgable and articulate, and is shining the light of understanding on some dark episodes of our history. A social historian and history communicator living and working in Belfast. Robyn teaches and writes on social history, the social history of medicine and women’s history in Britain and Ireland from the early modern period to the nineteenth century.

Robyn will be giving a talk on Isabella Tod (18 May 1836 – 8 December 1896) who was a Scottish-born campaigner in Ireland for women’s civil and political equality. She lobbied for women’s rights to education and to property, for the dignified treatment of those drawn into the sex trade and, as an Irish unionist, for female suffrage. In 1887, her North of Ireland Suffrage Society helped secure the municipal vote for women in Belfast.

Isabella Tod