Marea Hartman

Marea Hartman is credited with the post-World War II integration of British women athletes into full competition and parity with that of their male counterparts.

She left home at an early age lodging in Clapham in south London and working for the paper manufacturers Bowater as a human resources officer devoting her non-work time to women's athletics.

Any chances that Hartman would become an International athlete were ended by the onset of war during which conflict she served in the Welfare Division based in London.

[2] Hartman was one of the few women, along with Dorothy Nelson Neal and Vera Searle, who reached senior positions in the male-dominated world of post-war British athletics.

In the 1950s female athletics had little or no media profile, and it is to Hartman's credit that she was able to secure sponsorship deals with a number of manufacturers of well-known brands, including Unilever products Bovril and Sunsilk.

[8] She was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1994 New Year Honours, "for services to Sport, particularly Athletics";[9] she died eight months later from undisclosed causes.