According to the blue plaque erected by Wakefield Civic Society this week:
Ann Hurst
(1772-1832)Wakefield’s first female newspaper owner and proprietor. (1823-1830) Played a leading role in the promotion of the abolition of Slavery and was an active supporter of early medical provision for women and the poor. Her paper ‘The Wakefield & Halifax Journal’ was distributed from this property at 56 Westgate
Wakefield Civic Society, 2021, with Dream Time Creative.
I’m not sure if a portrait exists of her, so I imagined her reading galleys from her paper. I’m guessing that to do all she did, she must have been quite a commanding figure, so I thought of Anne Reid’s character, Lady Denham, in the recent television version of Jane Austen’s Sanditon. Hopefully Ann Hurst wasn’t quite so intimidating.