The surprising feminism of Beatrix Potter

Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle Duck, Squirrel Nutkin and Timmy Tiptoes are names that take me back to my childhood. Every year, my mum would drive me and my four siblings to the Swiss mountains for family holidays. To avoid our moans of ‘are we there yet?’ she created voices for all of the Beatrix Potter characters and invented songs which we all sang along to. Although we knew the stories of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and, of course, Peter Rabbit, it was later that I learnt about the fascinating woman behind the famous tales who is the subject of the V&A’s exhibition, Beatrix Potter: Dawn to Nature.

As the exhibition shows, Potter’s talents were multi-faceted: she was not just an author and illustrator but a natural scientist, anthropologist and award-winning farmer. We follow her life from her childhood in Victorian England to the beautiful landscapes of the Lake District which she later called home.