Edna Annie Crichton: York's first female Lord Mayor

DURING the London Blitz, Queen Elizabeth – later to be known as the Queen Mother – famously refused to leave the capital. “The children won’t go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave,” she is reported to have said.

So stay she did. And she made a habit of visiting the streets that had been worst hit during the bombing, turning up regally dressed to see the damage for herself.

Initially jeered at because of her expensive clothes, she soon became an inspiration, to Londoners and to the nation.

Adolf Hitler is said to have called her “the most dangerous woman in Europe” because he viewed her popularity as a threat to German interests.

York didn’t suffer as much as London. But in the early hours of April 29, 1942, during what has gone down in the city’s history as the Baedeker Raid, it suffered one of its darkest hours. The bombs rained down, and York burned. About 90 people were killed, more than 200 badly injured, and up to a third of York's homes were destroyed or badly damaged.

The most important building to be hit was the fifteenth-century Guildhall, which was left gutted by flames.

In York, as in London, one woman in particular rose to the challenge by providing inspirational leadership. Her name? Edna Annie Crichton, York’s first woman Lord Mayor.

Her elder sister May was later to describe how the Lord Mayor, a widow, was living at the time of the raid “unaccompanied, except for staff”, in the Mansion House.

The glorious medieval Guildhall next door was blazing uncontrollably.

“Through the flashing and rending she went from home to home, apparently, witnesses said, unperturbed,” May reported.

The Yorkshire Evening Press of April 30, 1942, agreed that the Lord Mayor had set a fine example. She had been “an inspiration to the citizens. Working untiringly for about 18 hours, superintending ARP arrangements, visiting hospitals and first-aid posts and generally alleviating distress among the victims,” the newspaper said.

Mrs Crichton’s Clifton colleague, the Conservative councillor H E Harrowell, was equally fulsome in his praise. He said: “There is, to my mind, one individual who ought not to have to wait for an acknowledgement of the magnificent example and service which was set to the city, and that is the Lord Mayor.”

The night of the York Blitz was perhaps Mrs Crichton's finest hour. But, as historian David Rubinstein says in his book Homage To Edna Annie Crichton, she was a remarkable woman in many ways – York’s first woman Lord Mayor, York’s first woman alderman, one of the first two women councillors ever elected in the city (she and Harriet Fawcett were both elected for the first time in 1919), and only the second woman to be awarded the honorary freedom of the city.

In all, this daughter of a Quaker corn merchant from Gloucester (she moved to York at the age of 25, following her marriage in 1901 to David Sprunt Crichton) served on the city council for 23 years (for 20 of which she chaired an important council committee), followed by 13 years as an alderman.

“She was the shining exception to the otherwise dismal record of women in local government in York during the period,” Mr Rubinstein writes.

And all that despite being a mother of two children.

Her husband was also a remarkable man. Born in Dundee, David Crichton served for a while on the West Ham School Board in London before, in 1900, being employed by the Rowntree Cocoa Works in York as its first welfare officer – a hugely important role, given Joseph Rowntree's pasionate interest in the welfare of his staff.

Crichton Avenue in York is actually named after David, not his wife, according to York historian Hugh Murray.

Sadly, Mr Crichton died in 1921 at the early age of 51 – a victim, Mr Rubinstein writes, of the post-war influenza epidemic.

Although not a Quaker, he was buried in the Quaker burial ground in Heslington Road.

“Hundreds of people assembled along the streets through which the funeral cortege passed,” a local newspaper reported.

At a memorial service at the Quaker meeting house, Seebohm Rowntree told the gathering that there had “seldom been in the city a more widespread, spontaneous and sincere expression of respect, love and appreciation of the part played by one man in the city's life.”

His death came as a terrible blow to Mrs Crichton and the two teenage children. “It is terrible for Edna and the children,” wrote a friend, Mary Pollard.

But the indomitable Mrs Crichton continued with her council work. And her finest hour, as the city's inspirational wartime Lord Mayor, still lay far in the future.

The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, Ald and Mrs WE Milburn, entertained Mrs Crichton to coffee at the Mansion House in May, 1967

Edna Annie Crichton, the Lord Mayor of York, plays bowls in August 1942

The Rowntree football team in 1902. David Sprunt Crichton, Edna Annie's husband, is seated in the second row, second from right

• Homage To Edna Annie Crichton by David Rubinstein was published by Quacks Books in 2013.

• We welcome contributions from readers to Yesterday Once More. However, we would ask you not to send in original old photographs, as we cannot guarantee that these will be returned. If you have old photographs or documents you would like to share with us, either send copies, phone Stephen Lewis on 01904 567263 or email stephen.lewis@nqyne.co.uk