On 9 January, 1839, exactly 180 years to the day, Sarah Jane Rees was born in Llangrannog, Ceredigion. Better known by her bardic name, Cranogwen, she challenged all the restrictions of a woman’s life in the Victorian age and enjoyed a groundbreaking career. In the words of Professor Deirdre Beddoe:

'Cranogwen was the most notable Welsh woman of the nineteenth century.'

In her late teens, she persuaded her father, who was a  ship’s captain, to take her on board ship. For two years, she worked as a sailor on cargo ships between Wales and France before returning to London and Liverpool to further her nautical career. She gained her master mariner certificate, and, at the age of 21, she established a school in Ceredigion where she taught seamanship to local young men.

In 1865, she became an overnight sensation as the first woman ever to win a poetry prize at the National Eisteddfod, beating the major male poets of the day. Cranogwen’s winning poem, ‘Y Fodrwy Briodasol’—the wedding ring—was a stirring satire on the fate of the married woman. She went on to be one of the most popular poets in Wales, exploring themes ranging from patriotism to shipwrecks.

She was a lecturer and a preacher in an age when public speaking by women was frowned upon. She established a women’s magazine, Y Frythones. She established the South Wales Women’s Temperance Union in order to secure the safety of women in both their homes and within society.

One of her most progressive ideas was a refuge for young women, and while she did not live to see her dream of a home for homeless women being built, the Llety Cranogwen shelter was opened in her memory in the Rhondda in 1922.

Cranogwen is one of the five Welsh Hidden Heroines subject to a public poll this week. The winner will be immortalised by a public statue. The other four are Elizabeth Andrews, Betty Campbell, Elaine Morgan and Lady Rhondda. This poll will open at 9.30 p.m. this Friday night. I will cast my vote for Cranogwen from Ceredigion, but all five, and more, deserve to be both remembered and honoured.