Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas was born in Abeokuta, in what is now south-west Nigeria, and was the first girl admitted to the town's grammar school. She finished her education in England, came home, dropped her English names and became a teacher. In 1925 she married Israel Ransome-Kuti, a clergyman and schoolmaster who supported everything she did.

She began with a ladies' club for educated women that taught reading and hygiene. A market trader asked whether illiterate women could join, and the club changed character. By 1946 it had become the Abeokuta Women's Union, with tens of thousands of members, most of them traders who paid a special tax levied on women while having no say in how it was spent. The union's demands were simple: abolish the tax and give women a voice in local government.

When petitions failed, Ransome-Kuti led thousands of women to camp outside the palace of the Alake, the traditional ruler who collected the tax for the colonial administration. They sang songs mocking him, and refused to disperse. In 1949 the Alake abdicated, the tax on women was abolished and four women were given seats on the local council. He was later restored, but the tax did not return.

She went on to campaign for women's suffrage across Nigeria, travelled to the Soviet Union and China, and had her passport withdrawn. In 1977 soldiers raided the compound of her son, the musician Fela Kuti, and threw her from an upstairs window. She never recovered and died the following year.