Dunfermline women have always been made of strong stuff and two ladies that made waves in the 1900’s prove it.

As a part of their ‘Break the Bias’ campaign for International Women’s Day, OnFife have highlighted the extraordinary lives of Vonda Sturrock and Anna Munro.

Sara Kelly, OnFife’s local studies officer, said: “March, as International Women’s Month, is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women around the world but often we’re not aware that some of these great women came from right here in Fife.”

Anna, born in 1881, lived in Dunfermline and was a suffragette who fought for women’s rights, spending time in prison for her efforts to get women the vote.

She was the organiser for the Women’s Social and Political Union for Dunfermline and went on to help form the Women’s Freedom League of which she was eventually president and was jailed in Holloway prison for her protesting in 1908.

Anna was a supporter of the temperance movement and president of the National British Total Abstinence Movement. After the First World War she became a magistrate in England and president of the Women’s Freedom League.

Sara said: “The theme of International Women’s Day last week was Break the Bias to promote a gender-equal world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination.

“That we’re doing this almost a century after Anna was fighting – and being jailed – for women’s rights highlights the determination and commitment that must have been needed by those who went before.

“For Vonda it would appear to be her faith that took her from the comfort of her life in Dunfermline to what must have been the completely alien world of 1930s Belgian Congo, with its tropical climate and brutal colonial history.”

Vonda was born in Dunfermline in 1902 and lived on Canmore Street and then Comely Bank.

She worked as a missionary and sailed for Africa in 1934 where she put her intensive study to use.

Her mother and father were also missionaries and they met in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1900. They married there before having Vonda two years later. She studied the bible at a young age and often helped her father to dispense medicine.

From Sunday school and helping her father, she went on to study the bible for two years as part of her Faith Mission training at Livingstone College in 1924 and earned her diploma of tropical medicine in 1933.

Vonda took a furlough from Missionary work in 1939 but didn’t return to the Congo, living in Edinburgh until her death in 1987.

Anna and Vonda’s stories are published in the OnFife’s archives and go into detail about the incredible life of these amazing woman who walked the very streets we do now.

Sara said: “Suzie Marshall, who volunteers at our Local Studies department at Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries, spent many hours researching these two amazing women and we’re delighted to be able to share the results as part of International Women’s Month.”