Welcome to the Isleworth Society Website

Eileen Sheridan lives in Isleworth. She began her cycling career in Coventry and smashed all the records of the Women's Road Records Association during the late 1940s and 1950s. Eileen was awarded the Bidlake Memorial Prize in 1950 "for creating a new high standard in women's cycle racing with an outstanding series of three championships and five record performances on the road in 1950." In 1951, Hercules Cycle and Motor Company sponsored her for three years to break distance and place to place records. She did not disappoint- including in 1954, an epic and gruelling Land’s End to John o’ Groats road journey in 2 days, 11 hours and 7 minutes, reducing Marguerite Wilson’s record, then after a short break of under two hours, she continued to notch up a new 1,000 mile women’s record of three days and one hour!! 

Eileen has immersed herself in Isleworth community life over decades, including inspiring part of the 2015 production of ‘The Rock and Roll Years’ at Gumley School

Read more about Eileen’s outstanding contributions to sport and to women’s cycling here.

Watch a 1956 Pathe news clip here

Relive some of her achievements here

Princess Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh was a nurse in Percy House Auxiliary Military Hospital in Isleworth during the First World War. 

Her godmother was Queen Victoria and she lived in Hampton Court in a ‘grace and favour’ apartment in Faraday House. She was one of several Indian women who campaigned for women’s rights. Sophia campaigned in both the Women’s Tax Resistance League and as a Suffragette. She is commemorated on the Royal Mail’s ‘Votes for Women’ collection issued in 2018 on the £1.57 stamp with the 1910 picture of her selling ‘The Suffragette’ outside Hampton Court. 

Read more about her extraordinary life here. 

Watch a short video clip here

(Picture above Wikimedia Commons)

You can read more about other people with connections to Isleworth here. Do get in contact if you have any other suggestions for us to include using our Contact Form