Discover the York Trailblazers: A Deep Dive into Their…

From 1 August to 30 September 2024, the heart of York will be transformed by an enchanting sculpture trail celebrating the remarkable individuals who have shaped the city's history. These Trailblazers, represented by stunning Tansy Beetle sculptures, offer a glimpse into the diverse and inspiring lives that have left an indelible mark on York. Here's a closer look at some of these extraordinary figures.

For more information about the trail, visit York Trailblazers.

Anne Lister: The Original Trailblazer

Anne Lister (1791-1840) was a lesbian, diarist, businesswoman, traveller, intellectual, scientific investigator, and most of all, a trailblazer. Strongly independent and willing to forge her own path, Lister lived confidently and authentically in early nineteenth-century Yorkshire as a woman who ‘loved and only loved the fairer sex’. Her exceptional life is recorded and preserved through her expansive 5½ million-word diaries, today held by the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Halifax. These documents offer extraordinary insight into all aspects of Lister’s daily experience. Her use of a ciphered ‘crypthand’ created a private literary space through which Lister negotiated the social, emotional, and sexual challenges of her lesbian identity. Anne Lister’s life and diaries have blazed a trail for the LGBTQIA+ community today, helping people understand their history and embrace their identity. York is closely linked to Lister’s queer identity. She fell in love with Eliza Raine while at school at King’s Manor and met other lovers in York’s polite society. It was also in York, at Holy Trinity Goodramgate, that Lister and Ann Walker took the sacrament together. This marked their commitment to and love for each other and was a momentous event in the relationship which lasted the rest of Lister’s life.

The Sculpture: The trail Lister blazed is preserved through the pages of her journal and the words which fill them. This sculpture foregrounds the role of Lister’s journal in recording her life and articulating her queer identity. Its design echoes the physical composition of Lister’s journal and is decorated with Lister’s own words written in both her abbreviated English and crypthand cipher. These quotes relate to Lister’s diary writing, travel, and scientific study, but most of all to Lister’s search for a female lover and life partner. Situated at Holy Trinity Goodramgate, this sculpture celebrates Anne Lister and Ann Walker’s relationship. It includes Lister’s record of the event and her ‘prayer that our union might be happy’. The decoration also includes ink sketches featured in Lister’s journal and a series of other sketches indicative of Lister’s life. The restrained use of primarily black and white emphasises the ink and paper through which Lister recorded and constructed her life.

Trailblazer Team: This sculpture was a collaboration between the Churches Conservation Trust and the University of York. It was developed by a group of students with an academic interest in Anne Lister and Holy Trinity volunteers. Many members of the group identify as LGBTQIA+ and are personally invested in Lister’s legacy to the LGBTQIA+ community. The artwork was created by Shannon Reed, a third-year biology student at the University of York. Shannon is a multimedia artist who produces work using oil, pointillism, and specialises in calligraphy. This project was generously supported by the University of York’s Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Institute for Public Understanding of the Past. Thanks also go to the West Yorkshire Archive Service for their permission to reproduce text from Lister’s journals.

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Vigdis: The Coppergate Woman

This is the story of Vigdis, a woman buried at Coppergate in York 1,000 years ago. We don’t know her real name; nothing about her is recorded in historical documents. Since her discovery in the 1970s, she has been known as ‘The Coppergate Woman’. The decision was made to name her ‘Vigdis’: an Old Norse name that means ‘spirit goddess of war’.

Viking York: From the 8th century, Scandinavian peoples (‘Vikings’) began to raid, and later to settle in Britain and Ireland. The north of England in particular saw a lot of Scandinavian settlement, leading to the foundation of the Viking kingdom of York. The region soon developed a distinctive Anglo-Scandinavian culture, bringing together elements of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and other traditions in a sort of cultural melting pot. York was the most important urban centre in the region, as the power base of the kings of York, and the seat of an archbishop. Like many Viking towns, it was also a centre for manufacturing and a key hub in international trade networks. Coppergate was an important street in the town, with narrow houses packed tightly together close to the waterfront. The excavations here in the 1970s and ‘80s told us about everyday urban living in the Viking Age: about the houses that people lived in, the things they made and sold, the food they ate, and even how they got rid of their rubbish. It is perhaps less well known that a small number of human burials were found, which allow us to say a little bit about individual, ‘ordinary’ people.

Vigdis: Vigdis is one of the more intriguing individuals found at Coppergate. Everything known about her comes from her bones. When she died, she was probably in her mid-forties. She was 5’2’’ tall and had severe joint disease; she must have walked with a limp, and perhaps with a crutch. She wasn’t born in York: a scientific technique known as isotopic analysis tells us that she grew up either on the south-western coast of Norway or perhaps in northern Scotland (another area settled by Vikings). Nonetheless, she somehow travelled all the way to York at some point in her life. Ultimately, she was buried at Coppergate (close to the River Foss), in a shallow pit with no grave goods. There she lay until she was discovered by archaeologists from the York Archaeological Trust in the late 1970s. The Viking Age sometimes comes across as a world of rich and powerful men: raiders and chieftains, or kings like Erik Bloodaxe. Vigdis tells us something different, and something important: she gives voice to the diversity of Viking-Age York. She speaks to the life of a woman: a woman living with a lifelong disability, and who nonetheless travelled great distances over her lifetime. It seems very fitting to remember her here as a trailblazer, this spirit goddess of war.

The Artwork: Vigdis’s story, presented here on the back of a tansy beetle, was produced by Sarah Schiewe, a York-based artist whose work involves the telling of stories through ceramics. Produced in consultation with archaeologists and historians from the University of York (Malin Holst, Dr Pragya Vohra, and Dr Steve Ashby), the piece narrates the story of Vigdis’s birth, travels, and life as a member of the Anglo-Scandinavian community in York. The story closes with her death, burial, and rediscovery. The artists and academics involved in the project are all represented in the artwork.

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John Chesterman and Stuart Feather: LGBTQ+ Pioneers

The public lavatory which used to sit here was the place that John Chesterman met Stuart Feather in 1956. They quickly formed a relationship, which was not an easy thing to do in a time when homosexuality between men was illegal. The Wolfenden Report of 1957 argued that laws around homosexuality should be changed to allow relationships between two men. Colleagues of Stuart’s spotted him and John reading newspaper reports of the Wolfenden decision and outed him at work. This forced them both to move to London.

Their Legacy: In London, Stuart and John went to the second-ever meeting of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in 1970. This organisation was set up to campaign for the rights of gay men and women and held many important protests fighting for equality. John Chesterman drafted the original demands of the GLF - they wanted freedom for all oppressed people and campaigned against discrimination at work, in schools and by doctors. In July 1972, the GLF organised the first Gay Pride march in London, an event which is still held today. Some of the images you see on this sculpture are from GLF posters and documents – you might be able to see some of John Chesterman’s handwriting on the original draft of the demands from 1970.

After the Gay Liberation Front ended in the mid-1970s, John Chesterman went on to found Gay News, the first newspaper focusing on the LGBTQ+ community in the UK. Stuart Feather was a member of the radical drag theatre group Bloolips, which performed across Europe and the United States. The fight for LGBTQ+ equality in the UK continued. Although homosexuality was partially decriminalised in 1967, many gay men were arrested for ‘gross indecency’ for years afterwards, sometimes for just showing affection to their partner. This law was only repealed in 2003. The age of consent for gay men was made equal in 2000 after decades of campaigning by LGBTQ+ community groups, and same-sex marriage was made legal in 2013.

John Chesterman passed away in 1996, leaving a huge archive of documents about the GLF and LGBTQ+ activism. Stuart Feather is still an activist and has recently published the book ‘Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens’. Stuart recently spoke at the York Festival of Ideas about his five decades as a campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights. The team that made this sculpture asked him what he would like the main message of this sculpture to be, and he said that if he had one message it would be the importance of community. This sculpture was made by local artist Jade Blood and members of QueerArts, a charity for LGBTQ+ people and allies which runs a choir, dance nights and creative workshops in York. Alongside this sculpture, Jade and QueerArts have developed a zine which will be updated with artwork and messages from people in the LGBTQ+ community in York.

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Delma Tomlin: A Cultural Powerhouse

Delma Tomlin MBE DUniv is truly a trailblazer – she is the founder of the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in York, and the first female Governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, established in 1357!

Under her leadership, the NCEM has gone from strength to strength: the flagship York Early Music Festival attracts patrons and musicians from around the world. She is an ambassador for Early Music nationally and across Europe, with the NCEM renowned throughout Europe for its festivals and development projects. She leads a national network of Early Music professionals and is a leading figure in the European Early Music Network. Her advocacy and influence within the continental European music world have played a considerable part in maintaining England’s status as a centre for excellence both in the performance and study of Early Music.

Delma is also a passionate advocate of musical education, ensuring that the joy of musical inspiration is available to everyone, regardless of their background. Many hundreds of young people in the last 20 years attribute their early inspiration, or their musical development, to Delma’s work. She has directed numerous projects, from music-making opportunities for young people from challenging backgrounds, for D/deaf young people, unique projects for talented young composers, through to projects for emerging ensembles across the UK and Europe.

After attending Manning Grammar School for Girls, Nottingham, Delma embarked on her studies as a classical singer at Trinity College of Music. Working for various high-profile music organisations, she came north to run the 1984 York Festival & Mystery Plays. Since then, she has built up a highly successful business model supporting the cultural development of the region, with clients including Sheffield Chamber Music Festival, English Heritage, National Trust, and the Yorkshire & Humberside Museums Council. Career highlights include the restoration of the Plays to the streets of York, the award-winning millennium production set in York Minster and the restoration of the medieval church of St Margaret’s leading to the creation of the NCEM in 2000. She is also an acknowledged expert in the promotion of the Medieval York Mystery Plays.

Delma is a board member of the European Early Music Network, the East Riding of Yorkshire Music Hub and has been a member of Court of the University of York since 2001. Delma has previously been a governor of both Leeds College of Music and York College. She has a particular interest in mentoring the careers of emerging professional musicians – nationally and internationally.

Delma was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of York in 2000 for her work in the city, and an MBE for Services to the Arts in Yorkshire & Humberside in 2008. In 2018, she was appointed Cultural Champion for York and in 2020 was elected an Honorary Freeman of the City.

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W. H. Auden: The Picasso of Modern Poetry

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in Bootham, York, in 1907. Fired by a love of science and engineering, he expressed his fascination with the world in a myriad of poetic forms, earning him the title “the Picasso of modern poetry”. He wrote much more than ‘Funeral Blues’, familiar from the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Along with over 400 poems of both profundity and wit, he produced drama, essays, libretti, travel writing, and works of criticism: a range that celebrates the multi-faceted nature of human life and his own aliveness to all of it.

Openly gay and defiantly anti-establishment, Auden was controversial and influential in his views on politics, morals, love, and religion. He was recognised as a leader of the British avant-garde at a time of cultural and creative flux in Europe. His editor hailed him as “the first poet writing in English who felt at home in the twentieth century”. W. H. Auden died in Vienna in 1973. A blue plaque marks his birthplace at 54 Bootham and a memorial to him can be seen in the courtyard of the City of York Council’s West Offices.

The Sculpture: Emphasising the unique design of the beetle frame, this sculpture is left uncovered with a canvas. The Tansy beetle's colour is formed by light bouncing off ridges on its shell, not from pigment. Designer Nick Walters has highlighted the structure with contrasting colours, so that the beetle changes colour as you walk past it. Dark blue represents Oxford University, to which Auden won a scholarship to study Science then Literature. He gained a 3rd class degree (keener to write words than to study them?) and later became Professor of Poetry. Always irreverent, he defined a professor as “someone who talks in someone else’s sleep”.

Words by Auden are woven on stainless steel ribbon through the structure of the beetle. The lines of ribbon reflect the famous cragginess of his face, which Auden himself likened to “a wedding cake left out in the rain”. The steel ribbon has been sprayed with a translucent paint to keep the metallic sheen. One side of the ribbon is green, with red text, and the other is orange: all referencing the Tansy beetle’s translucent colourings. Gold contrasts vividly with the blue, reflecting the importance of duality in Auden’s poetry itself, which pairs contrasting ideas in order to cast new light on each of them, or to illuminate connections between them.

About Navigators Art: Navigators Art is a collective of artists, writers, musicians, and performers. Since 2019 they have devised or engaged with over 20 projects in York. New members and emerging talents are always welcome. The collective is available for commissions, community projects, and events. Contact Navigators Art at navigatorsart@gmail.com and follow on Facebook/Instagram: @navigatorsart.

Auden Live: As I Walked Out One Evening: A celebration of W. H. Auden in words, music, and performance will be repeated with new material on 19th October. Advance booking is advisable. Details and tickets: bit.ly/nav-auden.

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June Hargreaves: Making Space for Girls

Friends of Rowntree Park ‘Make Space for Girls’ Project and Herstory.York: The Friends of Rowntree Park’s ‘Make Space for Girls in Rowntree Park’ project has teamed up with Herstory.York to collaborate on a York Trailblazer who was an influential woman.

Make Space for Girls: The project focuses on preventing the drop-off of girls’ use of parks as they enter their teenage years. Parks can be beneficial to mental and physical health and well-being, so creating welcoming parks for teenage girls and women is important. The project focuses on listening to what teenage girls want in their park and doing what can be done to make that happen.

Herstory.York: This community history project aims to make the stories of inspirational York women known and celebrated. The collaboration is focused on June Hargreaves, a York city planner in the 1960s. June considered how ‘space’ was used and got people to rethink previous ideas, linking to the project’s consideration of how design affects girls' and women's use of public spaces. The Make Space for Girls project looks at park and public space use through a gendered lens and explores improvements that can be made to make spaces more inclusive.

June Hargreaves: June's work led to a new law on 'Conservation Areas' in the 1960s. Prior to this, city planners had been focusing on ‘modernisation’, which included demolishing buildings to make way for new things. June saw how some old buildings and areas were key to the character and community of the area. She highlighted the idea that "a town is a place to live and work". The 1967 Civic Amenities Act established the idea of ‘special preservation areas’ and meant buildings couldn’t be knocked down without permission. The contribution to the whole street and character of the area had to be considered.

June was a young woman in a senior position, which wasn’t common in the 1960s when women were not regarded as equal in the workplace, and she worked in an area dominated by men. She personally convinced senior civil servants and government ministers to change the law, encouraging people to look at spaces in a different way.

The ‘Make Space for Girls’ project also looks at spaces in a different way, asking planners, designers, councils, and architects to consider how girls and women use the built environment and how inclusive design can make parks more welcoming to these groups.

For the Trailblazers project, a group of teenage girls and artist Emma Feneley produced a design for the sculpture that represents key themes shared by June Hargreaves and the project, such as space, having a voice, change, thinking differently, women’s rights, and equity.

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Geoff and Roma Oxford: Tansy Beetle Heroes

Geoff and Roma Oxford are York’s fantastic Tansy Beetle superheroes. Geoff is currently an Honorary Fellow in Biology at the University of York, and Roma is a Natural History Educator, as well as an expert Tansy Beetle breeder. They have decades of experience in both research and education between them, and their work has helped shape nature conservation in the city. Many current York-based conservationists can remember attending one of their Wildlife WATCH sessions or Roma’s legendary school wildlife visits as children.

Their Work: Geoff and Roma became fascinated by the Tansy Beetle some 30 years ago when Roma started to breed them and began to ask questions. This led to thousands of Tansy Beetles being reared in nets in Geoff and Roma’s back garden. The Tansy Beetle also became the focus of two Ph.D. research studentships and several Masters projects. Many educational sessions on the beetle were experienced by York’s citizens, young and old. As Roma says, “Nothing beats seeing a Tansy Beetle walking along a child’s finger”. In 2008, Geoff, Roma, and representatives from relevant authorities formed the Tansy Beetle Action Group (TBAG) to coordinate the species’ conservation – and TBAG still champions the beetle’s cause today.

The Tansy Beetle: The Tansy Beetle, Chrysolina graminis, is a stunning leaf beetle the size of a little finger nail (about 10 mm) with an iridescent green body that glints red, bronze, and blue in sunlight. Due to its rarity, it is IUCN Red Listed as Endangered in terms of its extinction risk in England. The beetle is also known as the ‘Jewel of York’.

As its common name suggests, in Yorkshire it eats predominantly Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare, a tall aromatic plant with yellow, button-like flowers, which grows in large clumps along the River Ouse. Beetles overwinter deep amongst Tansy roots, emerging in March. They feed on young Tansy leaves, mate, and lay batches of pale-yellow eggs on the food plant. The eggs hatch into beige, slug-like larvae, which also eat Tansy. In late June, the larvae head underground to pupate. A month later, the new generation of adults appears, by which time the overwintering generation has largely died. The new adults feed before disappearing underground again in late September to hibernate. Beetles on the River Ouse are surveyed annually in August by TBAG volunteers. Mapping the distributions of Tansy and Tansy Beetles is critical for understanding the ecology of the beetle and its food plants, and for informing conservation strategies. Threats to York’s Tansy Beetles include flooding (especially during the spring and summer), overgrazing, competition between Tansy and invasive plants (such as Himalayan Balsam, Impatiens glandulifera), and mismanagement of the banks. TBAG is working closely with riverbank managers to provide bespoke feedback from annual surveys and tailored advice on making their riverbanks more beetle-friendly.

Geoff and Roma are delighted that people in York take great pride in the beetle as a symbol of their city and how it has become, more widely, a spectacular ambassador for the importance of invertebrate conservation in Britain.

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Michael Rowntree: Leader of Good Causes and Lover of Nature

Michael Rowntree (1919-2007), proposed by The Rowntree Society, led a full and fascinating life of public service despite his unassuming character. He was born and brought up in Yorkshire, attending Bootham School in York. Michael had a lifelong interest in natural history and the environment, especially birding. He was one of six children, a scion of the Quaker Rowntree and Harvey families, and the great-nephew of Joseph Rowntree, the founder of the world-renowned Rowntree confectionery company. As a Quaker, his life was informed by his faith, and the importance of public responsibility, social justice, and peace were instilled in him from an early age.

During World War Two, he was a conscientious objector and served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in Finland, the Middle East, and Germany. After the war, Michael’s first career was as a journalist and in the 1950s he became the general manager of the Oxford Mail and Oxford Times. Significantly, he held a number of senior roles in Oxfam, serving on the Executive Committee from 1952 right until the end of his life, and was Chairman from 1971 to 1977. He believed in encouraging local initiative, particularly in agriculture, and was an early advocate for recycling and the impact of climate change, especially in relation to Africa. Closer to home, Michael was a Trustee of both the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust. He was also an advocate for the National Health Service, serving on the governing bodies of both Oxford Hospitals and Scarborough Health Authority.

About the Rowntree Society: The Rowntree Society is a registered educational charity based in York. Its mission is to build and share knowledge about the histories of the Rowntree family, company, and trusts and their continuing relevance for the local, national, and global challenges facing our contemporary world. Famed as hugely successful chocolate makers, the Quaker Rowntrees were pioneers in business management and industrial welfare, social research on poverty, and high-quality, affordable housing in Britain – all subjects that still resonate today. The society facilitates and supports projects and activities for a range of audiences through collaborative working across education, libraries, and archives, the voluntary sector, and the cultural sector. It functions as a reliable source of information, promotes and supports new interdisciplinary research, produces heritage-related materials for people of all ages and backgrounds, and acts in an advisory capacity on relevant projects and initiatives.

Key Themes: The sculpture will focus on three key themes:

Leader of Good Causes: Michael’s work with Oxfam and, closer to home, two of the Joseph Rowntree Trusts, are good examples of his sense of public responsibility and service.
Nature Lover: Michael’s love of nature and his particular hobby of bird watching will be represented in his sculpture.
Member of the Rowntree Confectionery Family: Rowntrees were one of the biggest employers in York in the first half of the twentieth century when York was an industrial city rather than the tourist attraction that it is today.

For further information about Michael Rowntree, visit:

Rowntree Society
The Guardian Obituary

The Luddites

Tansy Beetle Sculpture: The sculpture by Good Organisation emerged through a series of informal conversations with 15 people affected by homelessness in York. Instead of celebrating an individual local 'trailblazer,' the group chose to commemorate 64 Luddites who were tried during a 'Special Commission' at York Assizes in 1813.

The Luddites: Luddites were an early 19th-century workers movement which protested against machinery they believed threatened their jobs and livelihoods. The movement began in the textile industry, where mechanised looms replaced traditional hand-weaving, leading to job losses and reduced wages for skilled workers. Although the Luddite movement didn’t stop industrialisation, it highlighted the social and economic challenges workers faced during a period of unprecedented change, and many of their fears still resonate today, with the rapid rise of AI and digital technology.

The term "Luddite" is often used derogatorily to describe those who oppose new technology or progress. However, the original movement’s concerns ran much deeper, focusing on who controlled production in terms of quality, skills, safety, wages, and prices. Luddites also raised funds to influence Parliament and campaigned to protect apprenticeship laws and workers' rights, making them early precursors to the trade union movement.

The 'Show Trial': The 'show trial' in York, from January 2 to January 12, 1813, was seemingly designed to deter the self-organisation of ordinary workers. The first three hanged, accused of being ringleaders, were George Mellor, William Thorpe, and Thomas Smith, all under 23 years old. Their bodies were dissected at York County Hospital, most likely to prevent their funerals from becoming focal points for further protest.

The Sculpture: Luddites gained notoriety for smashing machinery, so North Yorkshire artist Alex Gray was tasked with conceptualising this aspect. After exploring various ideas and creating mood boards, Alex was given free rein to sculpt a piece reflecting the Luddite movement. Her degree in Theatre and Performance Design from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and her set-building skills were crucial in the final design.

Connect with Alex via LinkedIn: Alex Gray

Good Organisation (Social Ventures) CIC: This Community Interest Company supports some of York’s most marginalised residents to share in the positive benefits of the city’s thriving tourism sector, and has piloted a number of successful initiatives to that end. The organisation provides learning opportunities and offers intensive personal development support to individuals affected by homelessness, substance addiction, and/or those with experience of the criminal justice system.

Find out more about their work: Good Organisation

Explore the stories of these inspiring trailblazers as you navigate the York Trailblazers Sculpture Trail. Each sculpture and story adds a unique piece to the rich tapestry of York's history, celebrating the diverse contributions of its remarkable residents.

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For more information about the trail, visit York Trailblazers.