Two Newcastle MPs have demanded action to recognise more “woefully underrepresented” women with the city’s highest honour.
Catherine McKinnell and Chi Onwurah have united in a call on International Women’s Day for more females to be given the Freedom of Newcastle. Only a handful of women have ever been granted Newcastle’s top honorary civic status since it was first awarded in 1642.
The first female recipients were honoured in 1966 and there have been only 10 in total recognised for their contribution to life on Tyneside, not including several babies born on the first day of the new millennium who were also given the honour. Since the year 2000, only four women have been recognised – but 20 men have been honoured by Newcastle City Council in that time, on top of dozens more in the preceding centuries.
