To become a wife was historically to become subsumed by the man, to have in effect no identity or rights of your own or as described in an English 1632 judicial text, ‘When a small brooke or little river incorporath with the Thames, the poor rivulet loseth her name…as it were clouded and overshadowed she hath lost her stream’ - wives just became a degraded specialisation of the sexes, made invisible and absent from the archival records. 

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I wanted to take all the women I read about and revisit and reposition their place in history so their stories would become visible and would no longer be silent. To pay tribute to their achievements, honour their stoicism and sacrifices and celebrate who they were.  It was and continues to be a work in progress.