Motivational Monday – Actor & Campaigner

This month’s Motivational Monday features Class of 1890 alumna Dorothea Baird – an actor and campaigner for women’s health.

Dorothea attended South Hampstead from the 1880s until the early 1890s. After leaving school, she went on to study at Oxford University where she acted in the university Dramatic Society. Scouted by Lewis Carroll and inspired by Ellen Terry, Dorothea soon became a professional actor, and a successful one at that. She appeared in a wide variety of plays, from Shakespeare to Peter Pan. It was during her esteemed acting career that she met her future husband Harry Irving, eldest son of Sir Henry Irving.

Dorothea retired from the stage in 1913 and then devoted herself to charities supporting maternity services, becoming a full-time campaigner for women’s health. She became a board member at the St Pancras School for Mothers and soon became involved in organising fundraising events for the services.

In 1917, she created a film, ‘Motherhood’ the aim of which was to offer up to date advice to pregnant women rather than old-fashioned rumour that had been relied on previously. Dorothea was progressive in her views, and her aim was to ‘better the women of Britain’. She represents the trailblazing spirit of South Hampstead, speaking up and speaking out from the very start.

You can read about Dorothea and many more of our inspirational alumnae here.