This project has come to an end. The website can still be used to view the letters and the research of volunteers however no new information can be added. We are grateful to the Heritage Lottery for funding the project and to all the volunteers who helped to make it such a success.
The Dear Mrs Pennyman project is inspired by letters written to Mary Pennyman who was Secretary of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) Widows and Orphan Fund. They are from women whose husbands, sons and brothers had been killed in action during the First World War. Over one hundred letters were found at Ormesby Hall in Middlesbrough where Mary Pennyman’s husband’s family had lived for nearly 400 years.
The aim of the project is to discover more about the women who wrote the letters and to increase our understanding of what shaped women’s lives in the years during and after the war.
Dear Mrs Pennyman is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.