Posted on: 6th March 2025

Revd Catherine Shelley of St Mary’s Todmorden is one of our Diocesan Advisers on Women’s Ministry and said the initiative would mark 30 years of women’s ordination and ten years of women bishops.

“We want to commission O’ Hooley and Tidow, a Yorkshire-based folk band of Gentleman Jack fame, to write a song celebrating some of the first women to be ordained,” Revd Catherine said.

“They will include Revd Margaret Mabbs,who campaigned for women to be ordained from 1942, was amongst the first to be ordained in 1994 at the age of 70 and retired from ministry aged 92. It will also include Jemima Prasadam, mother of the current Bishop of Huddersfield, +Smitha Prasadam, who was the first South Asian woman to be ordained in the CofE, plus others who continue to minister today.

The project is supported by NADAWM, the National Association of Diocesan Advisers for Women's Ministry and friends, CofE members and wider communities, across the UK and beyond.

Read more here.