Pioneering women of the 20th Century

Charlotte Dawson fondly known as ‘Auntie Lottie’ or simply just ‘Lottie’ could trace her lineage to the first families of Fleetwood. Her Great Grandfather Robert Wright was one of the fishermen who had moved from Southport at the behest of Fleetwood founder Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood to kickstart the fishing industry and the Wright family is named in the 1861 Census. Her uncle Jeffrey Wright was a smacksman, Jeffrey served in the RNLI for over forty years and awarded medals for rescues made.   

Photo credit: Robert Dawson

She was first recognised as having a lovely singing voice at aged four when she sang a solo at church. From the age of nine, she toured the north of England in choirs competing in music festivals with great success. She won the gold medal in the under 16’s open solo singing class at the Liverpool Music Festival. 

Charlotte formed her first impromptu children’s choir at the age of twelve. The same year, she formed the “Charlotte Blaylock Children’s Choir”. Their first concert was in the old wooden hall that stood beside Mount Methodist Church.     

Through the 1940’s Charlotte was occasionally performing with the Tom Smith Light Orchestra and conducting the Claremont Choir as well as running her own choir and working!  At twenty one Charlotte won the local heat of “Search for Stars” at the Marine Hall. 

By 1945 she gained her formal teaching qualifications from the London College of Music and began teaching music as well as running the choir.   

Throughout the 1950’s and 60’s choir practices and concerts continued at local venues with money being raised for good causes throughout the town.  Competing in music festivals continued too with her choirs and individual pupils winning awards. In 1965, Fleetwood’s Mayor organised a European tour to publicise Fleetwood as a tourist resort. Charlotte was invited to take a choir of sixteen girls to a number of European cities.   

By the late 1960’s, Fleetwoods magnificent outdoor swimming baths was in disrepair and there were plans to demolish it without replacing it.  Charlotte was adamant this could not be allowed to happen.  She ran for Council and was duly elected to Pharos Ward.  Duncan Brown, The Fishermans Mission Superintendant, supported her by saying how ridiculous it would be for a fishing town such as Fleetwood not to have a swimming baths.  She fought at Council for the new baths and organised fund raising concerts at the Marine Hall.  She won her battle and the new baths were opened in 1974.  Subsequently, the swimming club there has produced several successful swimmers including Olympians. 

Every year from the mid 1970’s until Charlottes death in 2004 Charlotte organised concerts at Marine Hall in Spring and Autumn.  Some other memorable moments from that time were the Choir’s appearance on Esther Rantzen’s show “That’s Life” when they donated £1000 to the Childline Project, and conducting the massed choirs for the BBC’s 1989 “Songs of Praise” 

Many of Charlotte’s pupils have gone on to do well, some well-known faces include:  

Alfie Boe MBE
Alfie had his singing lessons with Charlotte for about two years from 14 to 16 years of age and appeared in various concerts.  He is now an international singing star.  His first performances of the Les Miserables songs that made him famous took place at the Marine Hall in 1989. 

John Lawrenson
Probably best known for BBC’s “Friday Night is Music Night”  

John Fife
John became a vocalist and guitarist with The Settlers 

Roy Walker
Already a star of comedy fame and host of ‘Catchphrase’, Roy came to Charlotte for singing lessons.  

Kelsey-Beth Crossley
Played Scarlett Nicholls in “Emmerdale” and appeared in “The Voice” 

It’s hard to comprehend the profound impact Charlotte had on her many pupils and the community of Fleetwood throughout her sixty five year career. Lottie created love and affection through music, no one has done more for music than Lottie, through all the hundreds of children from Fleetwood that have made a career of it all over the world.

Known as a trailblazer in women’s boxing, she was the first British woman to receive a professional boxing licence and fought a landmark legal battle in the 1990s to overturn the ban on women’s professional boxing in the UK. Today an advocate for community projects in Fleetwood. 

In 2024 Jane was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame which sees Jane recognised as one of the all time boxing greats and a pioneer for women in the ring. She is now ranked among the very best in the sport’s history, and rightly takes her place alongside legendary fighters such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ricky Hatton and Lennox Lewis.

Renowned businesswoman and philanthropist who led the Fisherman’s Friend manufacturer based in Fleetwood, supporting numerous charitable causes across in Fleetwood and across the Fylde coast. Doreen Wilson Lofthouse, OBE (née Cowell; 27 February 1930 – 30 March 2021) was a British businesswoman. Leaving school with no qualifications, she found work at the Lofthouse of Fleetwood chemists. She married into the Lofthouse family and opened a chemist’s shop. Lofthouse became interested in one of the products, Fisherman’s Friend, a liquid sold to soothe aching joints and ease coughs in seamen. She developed a solid lozenge format which she marketed more widely to the general public. 

After becoming managing director of Lofthouse of Fleetwood, Doreen Lofthouse expanded the manufacturing of the lozenges and introduced distinctive red and black packaging and achieving their first export deal in 1974. Fisherman’s Friend became particularly popular in Germany and Singapore and, by 2021, annual output was 5 billion lozenges and revenue was £55 million. Lofthouse received three Queen’s Awards to Industry for her success. 

In 1994, Lofthouse and her husband established a charitable foundation that donated tens of millions of pounds to a variety of causes in the Fleetwood area. For her work with the company and for charity, she was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire and was granted the freedom of the borough. 

The formidable yet supportive headmistress of the demolished Bailey Girls School. She was a very strict yet fair teacher who made it possible for many girls in Fleetwood to get a good level of education. 

She was Headmistress for over 20 years up to 1970, and always pushed for the absolute best out of her students.  

A talented sportswoman  she was involved in the early days of women’s football and cricket in the 1930s. May Helme was a notable member of the renowned Dick, Kerr Ladies football team, one of the earliest and most famous women’s football teams in England, which played from 1917 to 1965. She was a goalkeeper for the team.

Hailing from Garstang, Lancashire, May Helme was a talented multi-sport athlete, also playing hockey. She is listed on the official Dick, Kerr Ladies Roll of Honour and was known to be a close friend of fellow player Lizzy Ashcroft. She is featured in historical accounts of the team, including talks and articles documenting the lives of these pioneering players 

Teresa Mary O’Shea, affectionately known as “Tessie,” was born on 13 March 1913  in Cardiff.  From early childhood she demonstrated an exceptional gift for performance, making her first public appearance at the age of six under the billing “The Wonder of Wales” 

O’Shea’s career flourished within the music hall and seaside circuits that formed the backbone of British entertainment in the early twentieth century. During the 1930s she performed frequently in Blackpool, then the undisputed capital of variety theatre. Her exuberant personality and generous physique became part of her stage identity, and she adopted “Two Ton Tessie from Tennessee” as her signature song—a number that encapsulated her humour. 

Throughout the 1940s she established herself as one of Britain’s most popular variety stars, headlining at the London Palladium and appearing regularly in summer seasons along the Fylde Coast. Her voice, rich and powerful, made her equally successful as a recording artist in the 1950s. A familiar figure in Blackpool’s entertainment scene, she performed at the North Pier, the Opera House and the Winter Gardens, where her rendition of “You’re at Blackpool By the Sea” became a favourite with holiday audiences. 

In 1950 she appeared alongside the actor Terry-Thomas at the opening of the Moorland Sports Club, reflecting her status as both a national celebrity and a friend to the resort’s community. Her growing reputation carried her beyond Britain, and in 1963 she made her debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States. Her return engagement in 1964, when she shared the billing with the Beatles, attracted what was then the largest audience in American television history, introducing her to millions of new viewers and securing her international fame. 

O’Shea also pursued a parallel film career, appearing in productions such as London Town (1946), The Blue Lamp (1950), The Shiralee (1957), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). On British television she became a familiar face on the long-running BBC series The Good Old Days, which celebrated the music-hall tradition from which she had sprung. 

In 1939, Tessie O’Shea moved to Rose Cottage, then called Mulberry Cottage, on Breck Road in Poulton, close to her beloved Blackpool theatres and to her in-laws the Rollo family, who owned the Bloomfield Hotel, where she used to lodge whilst performing in Blackpool. The cottage she lived in has since been divided into at least 3 units.  She remained a beloved figure in British entertainment until her death on 21 April 1995.