Some famous and infamous women of the Isle of Wight

The infamous Dorothy O’Grady narrowly escaped the hangman’s noose after having been accused of spying.

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She was the first British woman to be accused of spying and sentenced to hang, but fortunately for her had the sentence reduced on appeal to 14 years imprisonment.

Dorothy O'Grady. (Image: Courtesy of David White)

She had lived a chequered life, in and out of prison for stealing and later turning to prostitution.

Upon marrying she left London and moved to Sandown, and it was there that during the Second World War she had apparently been observed monitoring and making notes while in the vicinity of restricted areas. She had also been caught cutting communication wires. 

Following bail, she had failed to attend her trial having gone on the run, but shortly after was apprehended and tried as a saboteur and spy.

She was eventually released after nine years and returned to Sandown where she lived until her death in 1985.

The government files were released to the public in 1995, but some of the information had mysteriously been lost.

Helen Duncan was a practising occultist and medium who spent some time in Ryde, and it was during the Second World War that, at one of her seances, she told of the sinking of the navy warship HMS Barham.

Although this had been kept a secret from the public still to be released, government authorities suspected her knowledge to have come via enemy sources. 

Upon investigation no evidence to this fact could be uncovered, therefore she was arrested in 1944 tried and imprisoned for nine months sentenced under the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

Upon her trial and conviction Winston Churchill called the whole affair “utter tomfoolery”. This was one of the last witchcraft trials ever held in the UK.

READ AGAIN: From royal patronage to strong links with Winston Churchill, Cowes has it all

Upon her release she continued practising as a medium. Despite a campaign to overturn her recorded conviction as a witch, it remained on file. Duncan died at her home in Edinburgh in 1956.

Mary Gleed Tuttiet was a famous local novelist writing under the name of Maxwell Gray, who was born in 1846 at Pyle Street, Newport, and later moved to Castle Road.

She suffered from asthma and acute arthritis and spent most of her time confined to her sofa. 

Her father Frank Tuttiet was a medical surgeon and occasionally she would ride in her father’s carriage when he went on visits to his patients. 

Her most famous novel was The Silence of Dean Maitland, set in and around mostly Calbourne, but also other Isle of Wight villages and towns.

In her story she would often slightly change the names ie: Calbourne to Malbourne, Newport to Oldport, Swainstone to Swayneston, Brading to Barling and Arreton to Arden. 

Although she wrote many books, The Silence of Dean Maitland  proved the best-seller and one of her literary admirers was Alfred Tennyson, who had visited her at her home. 

Eventually upon her parents’ death she moved to London where she lived until 1923.

Another famous Isle of Wight woman was Pearl Mary Teresa Richards who was born in 1867 and wrote under the pen name of John Oliver Hobbes. 

She had a brief unsuccessful marriage to Mr Reginald Craigie by which she had one son.

Her first book, Some Emotions and A Moral, proved to be a sensation in its day, selling 80,000 copies in only a few weeks. She also wrote some successful theatre productions.

Her father, John Morgan Richards, and his wife, Laura, both lived at Steephill Castle and their daughter lived at Craigie Lodge in St Lawrence.

READ MORE: Isle of Wight Steephill Castle among forgotten buildings

In 1905 she suddenly died of a heart attack while visiting London.

Dolly Shepherd is perhaps best described as an early career “daredevil”. Dolly (real name Elizabeth Spencer) had lived in Ventnor. 

She was born in 1886 and in her 20s took to the skies to perform dangerous stunts, including a trapeze act suspended under a hot air balloon, after which she would parachute to the ground using a crude form of chute. 

At one point in her career she actually ascended to over 15,000 ft. 

It was in 1908 that she also was involved in a daring rescue when one of her co-parachutists’ chutes failed to open. 

Dolly grabbed her female friend in mid-flight and safely brought her down to the ground.  

Following many more high-level daring jump performances, Dolly decided to retire from the skies in 1912.

During the First World War she took to driving a munitions truck and it was during this time that she met and married her future husband and became Elizabeth Sedwick. 

Her final daring achievement was in her mid-90s when she flew with the Red Arrows display team. She died aged 96.

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HMS Barham during the Second World War (see Helen Duncan). (Image: Wikipedia)