Florence du Vergier

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Florence du Vergier, became the first woman Mayor in Hackney in 1943.

She campaigned for good public housing in the borough, as well as education and health improvements - long before the welfare state was established.

The fountain on the Common was dedicated to her in 1960 after she died, acknowledging her services to health and housing. 

Cllr du Vergier was also a teacher, a founding member of Hackney North Labour Party and of the National Association of Labour Teachers, which formulated much of Labour’s post-war education policy. She is also one of the few people to have been given the Freedom of Hackney – the highest award in what was then the Borough of Hackney, before the creation of the modern local authority area in 1965.

A portrait of her hangs in Hackney Town Hall (the link is to the Hackney Gazette. You need to scroll down the article to find Florence).


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