News
The Cambridge First All-Ladies Fire Brigade at the British Science Festival 2026
We’re delighted to see a project supported through a BSHS Outreach and Engagement Committee (OEC) Grant reaching the stage this autumn.
In 2025, the team behind “The Cambridge First All-Ladies Fire Brigade” received a BSHS OEC project grant to help develop a new British STEM musical. Inspired by real events, it tells the story of physicist, engineer and mathematician Hertha Ayrton and the stereotype-busting fire brigade she founded at 1880s Girton College, Cambridge.
Writers Helen Arney and Brian Mackenwells, and composer Jenni Pinnock, used it to create three songs for the musical that highlighted three of their main characters: astronomer and eclipse chaser Annie SD Maunder, chemist and teacher Ida Freund, and Charlotte Angas Scott, the first British woman to receive a PhD in mathematics.
The songs are now complete – as is the whole musical, which tells a tale of friendship, rebellion and choosing action over silence.
A new concert performance of the show has been created specially for the British Science Festival in Southampton this year. It’s taking place at MAST Mayflower Studios, just a few miles away from where Hertha was born in Portsmouth. Tickets are free on the link below!
Saturday 19th September, 6pm
MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton
Free Tickets here
- External Announcements, News & Announcements, Outreach & Engagement
- 3 August 2026
This event is supported by a BSHS OEC Project Grant, which offers grants of up to £500 to support engagement and outreach projects in the history of science. Applications are invited three times a year, with submission deadlines in February, May and September. Find out more about the scheme and how to apply here.
We are happy to share announcements that may be of interest to our community. Please note that this event is organised independently of the BSHS, and enquiries should be sent to the organisers directly.