Special day to celebrate women who shaped Ironbridge Gorge

With the Gorge hailed as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the event will aim to give centre stage to the role of women and girls who played their part down the years, from working in the factories and around the pits, to the more modern work of nurturing and protecting the industrial heritage of the area.

Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust will host its Ladies Day on September 18 at its Coalbrookdale site, where it all began in 1709 with Abraham Darby’s first smelting of iron using coke.

Visitors will be welcomed to an exclusive showing of the museum’s historic costume collection and hear from Lady Laura Cash, one of the country’s top society milliners.

Karen Davies, the trust’s director of museum development, said the day would be a celebration of the women of the past, but also the present and future.

She said: “Ironbridge is an internationally significant industrial heritage site and we want to celebrate the important role that women have played in the story, from the women who supported the Gorge’s industries by working in them day in and day out, to the women who helped protect and restore the site to its current state - and those who now support us with events like this, to ensure our historic assets live on for future generations.”

While the ironmaster Abraham Darby is a name known to many, the family company was actually run by women following the death of Abraham Darby III as there were no male heirs.

Their Quaker beliefs meant the sexes were seen as equal and sister Sarah Darby headed up the Coalbrookdale Company with a "firm, prudent hand", alongside her sister Mary Rathbone and brothers’ widows Rebecca and Deborah.

As well as finding out more about the influence of female figures in Ironbridge’s history, guests to the ladies day will also be able to wander through the figures of 37 life-sized silhouettes, installed to mark the centenary of women’s right to vote and the continued inequality that existed for a further 10 years.

The silhouettes represent the 37 women who gained the right to vote in 1918 out of approximately 160 who were working in the ceramic and iron industries across the Gorge. The name and profession of each woman is written on the back of the silhouettes.

The museum has been researching the women of the Industrial Revolution and while it already had a good understanding of those who worked in the china and tile firms of the Coalport China Works, Craven Dunnill and Maw & Co, it had less information about "pit girls" or "Shroppies" who worked on the pit banks of mine shafts picking out the nodules of iron from the seams of clay and shale before transporting them in containers balanced on their heads.

By 1880, more than 10 per cent of the workforce was female. It was usually younger girls found working as if the family could afford it, they would give up work once they got married.

The Ladies Day takes place from 11.30am to 2.30pm and tickets are £50 per person including refreshments and a two-course lunch with wine.