Girl power that took on world
ISABELLA BIRD: Despite a string of chronic health conditions, Isabella became the first woman to be inducted into the Royal Geographic Society of London and kept adventuring until the age of 72. The writer, photographer and naturalist climbed mountains and volcanoes.
JEANNE BARET: The first woman to circumnavigate the world was French born, but as the Navy would not allow females on ships in 1766 she dressed as a boy and adopted the name Jean. Her secret remained under cover for three years and, once rumbled, the Navy praised her as an “extraordinary woman”.
GERTRUDE BELL: Exploring the Middle East, Asia and Europe, the British archaeologist and linguist has been called the greatest female mountain
eer of her age. The brainbox was also the first woman to achieve a first-class degree in modern history at Oxford and established modern Iraq in the 1920s.
ANNIE LONDONDERRY:
When two loaded Boston businessmen bet the Latvian immigrant that no female could bicycle across the world,
ambitious Annie, below, took them to the cleaners, aged 23 in 1894. Financing her trip by selling an advert on her bike, the canny lass gave lectures on her jaunt, claiming to have hunted Bengal tigers in India, been shot on a war frontline and waylaid by bandits in France.
ANNIE SMITH PECK:
Set mountain
climbing records from 1885 – but shocked by doing so wearing trousers. The fierce fighter for women’s rights didn’t take any nonsense when it came to sexism, hitting back that wearing a skirt would be dangerous and foolish. In 1909 she planted a “votes for women” flag on the summit of Peru’s Mount Coropuna. NELLIE BLY: The New York investigative journalist pitched a real-life Phileas Fogg trek of going round the world in 80 days to her editor. He initially wanted a man to go – but in 1889, after a journey involving ships, trains, rickshaws, horses and mules, Nellie became the first person of any sex to achieve the feat, managing it in just 72 days. IDA PFEIFFER: Austrian Ida got herself around the world twice, chalking up 32,000km by land and 240,000 by sea on her adventures between 1846 and 1855. Her journals recorded finds of plants, marine life, and minerals. RAYMONDE DE LAROCHE: Travelling on a plane, the French former actress decided she could do the job of flying it herself. In 1910 she became the first woman in the world to hold a pilot’s licence. During WW1, Raymonde switched her skills to driving a military vehicle.