Giving Historic Women A Voice…
Author, Beverley Adams, gave up her job to become a full-time writer with a passion for telling the stories of some important women in history, who have often been overlooked
It is a passion for history that sees author Beverley Adams working on her seventh book in five years and it was the global pandemic that gave her the opportunity to take this big risk.
The former St Mary’s Catholic High School and Runshaw College student found her passion for history when her grandmother, keeping her occupied in the summer holidays, gave her a book to read on Mary, Queen of Scots. And she hasn’t looked back.
“The books of history writer Jean Plaidy became my favourites,” Beverley explained. “I became fascinated on how people lived 500 years ago – who married who. It’s being interested in human nature I suppose. I can study a family tree for hours. Maybe it’s just being nosy!”
Though fascinated by history, Beverley didn’t choose the option for GCSE as the period was too modern for her interests. After leaving school she went to work for an insurance firm where she stayed for 20 years: “I didn’t go to university at 18 but I did go on to study an English honours degree and then a Masters’ with the Open University. I wrote my dissertation on the Bronte sisters which sparked my interest in writing about historical women.”
When the pandemic forced a lockdown and home working, Beverley found that the time saved in travelling to and from work could be used to write instead. She also saved the money usually used for commuting: “I had got very interested in Preston suffragette Edith Rigby and felt her story needed to be told. Everyone has heard of Pankhurst but what Edith did was just as important. I had commented to a work colleague that I should write a book about her and my colleague said: ‘Then why don’t you?’ I then put a tweet/post out on X to ask how I could get a book published and someone contacted me from a publishing company and it went from there. I am now published by Pen and Sword and my publishing editor is really easy to work with and approved my ideas the majority of the time. I’ve been very lucky.”
Beverley’s first book Edith Rigby: The Rebel Suffragette was published in 2021. Having saved some money, Beverley gave up her full-time job in 2022 and has been a full-time author ever since. She currently has three books on sale – the Edith Rigby book, Ada Lovelace, The World’s First Computer Programmer, published in March 2023 and The Forgotten Tudor Royal, Margaret Douglas, Grandmother to King James I and VI, published August 2023. This year, readers can look forward to The Tragic Life of Lady Jane Grey, released in August and the story of Elizabeth of York to be released in October. Beverley is currently writing her sixth book on the heirs of Elizabeth I and is researching her seventh on Elizabeth Stuart which should be available to buy in 2026. Beverley continued: “I made a conscious decision to write about women who had achieved a lot in their lifetime that history hadn’t remembered. For example, not many people know the grandmother of James I of England, VI Scotland, but she was incredibly influential. Had she been beheaded, she would have been written down in history, but the fact that she died in her bed consigned her to the footnotes of history. I want to make sure these women’s voices are heard. They become part of my life – I live with them every day.”
And it is through her passion for history that Beverley discovers other fascinating women, researching one and discovering another: “I came across Ada Lovelace through my degree studies of Lord Byron and I kept coming across her name. I started to discover how feisty she was, so ambitious. I loved her so much, I just had to write about her. I often find myself going down rabbit holes and discovering more and more fascinating women.”
When it comes to research, Beverley spends hours tracking down files and artefacts: “It was harder during lockdown with so many places shut,” she said. “But luckily a lot of archives are digitalised. Researching Edith was easier as she lived so close but in the research phase, I could be visiting museums and archives all over the place looking at artefacts and piecing information together.”
Beverely is also a freelance editor and proofreader. She has also written a short story for the Lancashire Stories Anthology that was run by Lancashire Libraries and has been hired as a historical consultant for an up-and-coming game about Ada Lovelace. She plans to keep on writing though she would like to go down the historic novel route: “I’m looking at creative writing courses and developing my imagination to write fiction. I’d also love to see these women’s stories told on a bigger scale, like Horrible Histories for the forgotten women. On a local level, I’d love to see more about Edith Rigby in the city. We have the Blue Plaque on her house in Winckley Square and a new road named after her but maybe there could also be a statue of her – everyone should know about her story, especially as she was from Preston.”
pen-and-sword.co.uk/Beverley-Adams/a/4203
