The inaugural lunch was held on 29 September 1955 at the Savoy Hotel, and raised money for the Greater London Fund for the Blind.
The Women of the Year Lunch was co-founded in 1955 by Tony Lothian, Georgina Coleridge (journalist and Marquess of Tweeddale), and Odette Hallowes (a British spy captured and tortured by the Nazis during World War II).
[1] Writing in The Observer in October 2005, Viv Groskop noted, "Since 1955, the list of guest speakers reads like a Who's Who of female achievement: Margaret Thatcher (1960), Sheila Hancock (1969), Germaine Greer (1975), Zandra Rhodes (1981).” She added: “I have enjoyed the unlikely pairings the lunches have inspired: Kate Adie and Toyah Wilcox shared a platform in 1986 (theme: 'Vision'), Floella Benjamin and the Duchess of York in 1991 ('Harmony')”.
In November 2005, following her appointment as president of the Women of the Year lunch, Joan Armatrading told The Guardian's Helen Birch: "Lady Lothian was such an inspiration.
[5] Taking a more negative view in 2005, Groskop recalled: “I remember asking a (female) newspaper editor 10 years ago if it was necessary to have a women's page in the paper.
Catherine and Claire McCartney said: "Our campaign is one of justice, and as an Irish republican family we feel we cannot share the same platform with a former PM who inflicted injustices on our community".
Such a woman is a modern maverick, combining extraordinary insight with determination and an inspiration to other women to strive and achieve more from their own lives.
The inaugural Lecture was given in February of that year by Mary Robinson, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Republic of Ireland's first female President.