Victoria Hughes

Victoria Hughes (née Rogers, 22 June 1897 – 30 August 1978) was a British lavatory attendant, and the first of her profession to have an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, having published her memoirs Ladies' Mile (1977) at the age of 80, which some found shocking but which have since become a valuable local history resource. Early life Victoria Hughes was born Victoria Rogers on 22 June 1897 at Woodbury Lane, off Blackboy Hill, Bristol. She was the fifth of ten children of Alfred William Rogers, a scaffolder, and his wife, Ellen Rogers. On 16 July 1916, she married Richard Hughes (1896–1965), an apprentice ironmonger, who the same day left to fight in France as a member of the Royal Berkshire Regiment during the First World War. He was present at the Battle of the Somme. They had two daughters together, Margaret (born 1920) and Barbara (born 1931). Career Hughes' husband returned from the war with "trench foot, a limp, and failing eyesight". She became the family's main breadwinner.