Dame Florence Hancock honoured with Chippenham blue plaque

The plaque will be unveiled by the town mayor and Dame Florence’s family

One of the first female presidents of the Trades Union Congress has been commemorated with a blue plaque.

The plaque in honour of the life of Dame Florence Hancock was unveiled in Chippenham, Wiltshire, where her relatives still live.

The local civic society has been campaigning for a blue plaque for the local heroine for a number of years.

It now hangs on a wall near to the cottage where she was born on Westmead Lane in 1893.

Dame Florence Hancock's nieces and family at Chippenham Museum for the unveiling

Dame Florence rose from poverty in the town to a life in the trade union movement.

A Chippenham Civic Society spokesperson said: "We are fortunate that the owner of the nearest standing building to the house where Florence was brought up is delighted to be part of the scheme and has kindly given us permission to erect a plaque in her honour."

Dame Florence pressed the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to set up a women’s advisory committee

One of 16 children, she was the daughter of Jacob and Mary Hancock, weavers at the local cloth mill.

She attended Westmead School until the age of 12 when she left to work in the kitchen of a local cafe for three shillings a week.

At the age of 14, she went to work at the Nestle Condensed Milk Factory, where in 1913 she helped organise a strike for a living wage - the very first factory strike in the town.

A life in the trade union movement followed, first with the Workers' Union and then the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU), for whom she was National Woman Officer.

In 1949, Dame Florence was elected the second female president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

She died in 1974 having lived long enough to see her life's work, equal pay for men and women, become law in Britain.