Millicent Press

Ever since Laura Probert met a real live suffragette on holiday in Guernsey when she was eight years old she has been interested in the lives of women in late Victorian and Edwardian times. Her parents both grew up in Kent and Laura knew for many years that she would come to live in Ramsgate when she retired. Laura always enjoyed both her grandmothers' tales about their childhood and the First World War and when studying at university in Canterbury wrote a dissertation on the same period of German history. Laura has spent many days exploring Berlin on foot preparing a guide book on the sites associated with famous women in Berlin.

A founder member of the Edith Nesbit Society, Laura wrote several booklets for the society and began to study the lives of women in the Edwardian period more closely and was fascinated to see how many of the well-known writers, campaigners and social reformers all knew each other. These include the landscape gardener Fanny R Wilkinson, the socialist Maude Pember Reeves and the pioneer of birth control Marie Stopes. While still working in London Laura researched the lives of Emma Cons, founder of the Old Vic and Morley College, and Octavia Hill and her scheme to rescue open spaces especially old churchyards as "open-air sitting rooms" for the poor of the Metropolis . This led to her being asked by Robert Whelan of Civitas to be a contributing editor to his edition of Octavia Hill's "Letters to Fellow Workers", and a talk to the Lewisham Local History Society attended by the Mayor of Lewisham.

Laura's other interests include art nouveau architecture and design, especially the more angular styles from the Glasgow School, the Bauhaus and the Vienna Secession. She also enjoys taking part in quizzes, visiting museums and Roman sites like Herculaneum, and steam railways. Laura is a member of the Ramsgate Society, King's Church, Western Front Association (East Kent branch) and is currently newsletter editor for Thanet Senior Citizens' Forum. in 2010/11 Laura was also involved in the Great Wall of Ramsgate art project on Ramsgate seafront.

List of illustrated talks given 1997   Which Railway to Edith Nesbit Society at North Woolwich Station Museum,1998   Edith Nesbit’s links with Derbyshire at New Mills Library, November 1997    Women in Imperial Berlin to Sidcup Local History Society, August 1998   Women in Imperial Berlin in Melbourne, Australia, Nov 2002       Emma Cons, founder of the Old Vic to Vic-Wells Association at Sadlers-Wells Theatre,    March 2004    The Lungs of Lewisham (and Octavia Hill’s role in saving land for local parks) to Lewisham Local History Society in front of Mayor of Lewisham, January 2006  Dame Janet-Stancomb Wills, the first woman mayor of Ramsgate to Ramsgate Society, also later to Ramsgate TWG, March 2007    Edwardian Thanet to Ramsgate Society, Feb 2008       Are you a Peth or a Pank? To Women’s History Conference at UKC Chatham, May 2008      Infection Prevention is in our hands Westminster Health Forum, June 2008      Edwardian Thanet to Year 2, St Ethelbert’s Primary School, Sept 2008      Edwardian Thanet to Wingham Local History Society, 2009   Edwardian Thanet to Sandwich Local History, Ramsgate TWG and Eastcliff Residents’ Association, June 2009      Creating a reliable hand hygiene regime- Led  Improvement Foundation workshop for care home workers