Four Women Join Durham Freemen

Sisters Sarah Nattrass and Vicky Heslop, Rebecca Wright and Sandra Allison are sworn in as members of the City of Durham Freemen in a ceremony at Durham Town Hall.

Sisters Sarah Nattrass and Vicky Heslop, Rebecca Wright and Sandra Allison were sworn in as members of the City of Durham Freemen in a ceremony at Durham Town Hall today (Monday, November 4), alongside brothers Craig and Gavin Nightingale and Mark and Peter Anderson.

Ms Nattrass, who lives in Weardale, is an area manager for County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, while her sister is a dinner lady at Neville’s Cross Primary School, in Durham City.

They were entitled to join the drapers’ guild as their mother is a freeman.

Miss Wright, 18, works for her father’s firm of undertakers, Stuart Wright Funeral Service. In 2011, she became Britain’s youngest funeral director.

All the new male freemen followed in their fathers’ footsteps in joining the barbers’ guild.

The freemen’s oldest guilds date back to 1327. Women were first admitted in February 2012.