A great grandmother from County Durham, thought to be the oldest female freeman in the UK, has died aged 103.
Connie Hotchkiss passed away days before what would have been her 104th birthday.
She became the country’s oldest “new recruit” when she was sworn in as a member of Durham City Freemen’s Masons’ Guild, more than a decade ago, at the age of 92.
Connie returned to Durham from her marital home on the Isle of Man to attend the ceremony in the city’s Guildhall, in the spring of 2014.
It extended her family’s long links to one of the city’s eight surviving craft guilds.
But her journey was brought about by chance, with her North East ancestry discovered after research by her son Ian, a Durham University graduate.
Amid his inquiries, he stumbled across a report in The Northern Echo outlining a change in Freemen membership rules which gave women the right to apply for admission.
Prior to enactment by Parliament of the Equality Act, entry to the freemen’s ranks across the ages had been a male-only preserve.
Up to that stage only the sons of freemen, or craftsmen with a recognised apprenticeship within the city boundaries, were eligible to join the guilds, some of which date back to the Middle Ages.
She had almost reached her 93rd birthday when she was welcomed into the ranks of the city Freemen, which for nearly 700 years had been an all-male preserve.
Those equality changes paved the way for not just Connie, but 13 counterparts to be the first women admitted to the Freemen, all who qualified by having served apprenticeships in Durham, or being the daughters of existing freemen.
The new legislation gave her the right of succession to join the path first walked in the 19th century by her paternal grandfather, Joseph Elliott, a master mason from Gilesgate.
He was followed by her father Frederick, her brother Fred and his son Michael.
Connie first met husband Ken Hotchkiss during a holiday on the Isle of Man.
When she returned to the North East, her future husband attended university in Liverpool.
During the Second World War she worked with the Red Cross in Newcastle.
Following their marriage, her husband worked first as a science teacher in Washington before ending his career as head of science at a high school in Doncaster.
Read more:
- Centenary celebration for ‘Freeman’ Connie Hotchkiss
- Women allowed to join 700-year-old group
- Two Durham women installed to historic city freemen body
The couple had four children, Susan, another Durham graduate, and sons Stuart, Paul and Ian.
In retirement they moved back to the Isle of Man.
Stuart said it was always his mother’s wish to “follow in the footsteps” of her grandfather, father and brother and she was, “delighted to be able to fulfil that ambition.”
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