Our story
The Hypatia Trust was founded in Penzance in 1996 by Melissa Hardie-Budden MBE, with a simple but ambitious idea: that women's lives, work, and creativity deserved to be collected, preserved, and shared.
Thirty years on, that idea has grown into an archive, a library, a bookshop, an events programme, and a community of readers, researchers, and volunteers who keep it all alive. We're based on Chapel Street in the heart of Penzance, and everything we do connects back to the same conviction that women's stories matter, and that finding them should be easy.
Our founder
The Hypatia Trust was created by Melissa Hardie-Budden MBE, writer, publisher, and tireless champion of women's history in Cornwall. Her vision shapes everything we do.
Who was Hypatia?
A mathematician and philosopher in ancient Alexandria, Hypatia was one of the earliest recorded women in the history of science. She gave us our name and our inspiration.
The backstory
From a single collection in 1996 to thirty years of archive, bookshop, and community: a timeline of how the Trust grew and what we've been up to.
Aims of the Hypatia Trust
To maintain, develop and protect in perpetuity the Hypatia Library (of Collections), which focuses on the literary, artistic and scientific works of women and their contributions to society and culture.
To further the contribution of women, through civic and community activity, to their societies both nationally and internationally.
To provide the means and facilities through which women can enhance their cultural and academic achievements and can address gender inequality in their working lives.
The Trust was formed in 1996 to collect, and make available, published and personal documentation about the achievements of women in every aspect of their lives. Central to activities has been the care, development and re-distribution of the Hypatia Collection, a unique set of sub-collections of books, artefacts, and archives, by and about women.
Created initially to oversee a major collection of women’s literature now placed on permanent loan to the University of Exeter, the Hypatia Trust has extended its interests to a wide and international range of educational engagements and partnerships.
The Hypatia Trust is a collaborative community hub advancing cross-platform women’s equality. The Trust helps to celebrate and create visibility for individuals and other organisations as well as making available the Hypatia Library and rentable event/workshop spaces. Our focus is on celebrating the everywoman as well as literary, artistic and scientific works of women. Our Bookshop, open to the public, is one of the only few in the country that celebrates exclusively female authors.
