Anne Greaves (18891971), was the first woman to become a member of the

Institute of Quarrying The Institute of Quarrying is the international professional body for quarrying, construction materials and the related extractive and processing industries. The Institute's long-term objective is to promote progressive improvements in all aspect ...

and created artificial stone through her quarrying company.

Early life

Born Annie Harris in Goole, Yorkshire in 1889 to musician John Harris, Greaves married shipbroker Somerton Greaves when she was 20. They had two sons, Eric and Raymond. Sometime after the children were born, Greaves and her husband were no longer living together. His business had suffered badly due to the war.

Business career

Although in 1911 Greaves worked as a confectioner, by 1925 she was a quarry manager and that year became the first woman to be a member of the Institute of Quarry Managers (now the

). The land Greaves quarried was leased and in 1926 she had 9,130 acres of land at Weeland,

Hensall, North Yorkshire Hensall is a village and civil parish in the English county of North Yorkshire. History Hensall can trace its roots back at least as far as the 1086 Domesday Book, in which it is listed as Edeshale. The name of Edeshale is said to derive from ...

. It was leased from

Robert de Yarburgh-Bateson, 3rd Baron Deramore Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Wilfrid de Yarburgh-Bateson, 3rd Baron Deramore (5 August 1865 – 1 April 1936) was a British peer and an officer in the Yorkshire Hussars. He served as Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire from 1924 until his ...

and the Church Commissioners for fifty pounds a year. Greaves ran a quarrying company called ''Weeland Sand Company''. It became a Limited company in 1933. The produce was used in road-building industry and was known as ‘Addingham Edge Grit’ in The British Geological Survey which described it. Greaves closed that company in 1948 but another called ''Weeland Sand Co. (Leeds) Ltd.'' continued to trade. A second business which Greaves established in 1934, with her brother, Charles Harris, ''CF Harris Ltd''. also continued to trade. This was initially also a quarry company but it moved into transport. Greaves retired from the business in about 1948. Greaves created an artificial stone which she called " Betna Cast Stone", as it was made using a combination of crushed stone and cement. Artificial stone on the market was often coated with a layer of stone over a cement block. Greaves marketed her product on the grounds that it was superior, as the outer layer could not simply wear off or be damaged. Use of this stone allowed it to be created in any shape needed thus eliminating the need for stone masons who were in short supply after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Greaves conducted the experimentation necessary to identify the best recipe for the stone. Anne Greaves moved with one of her sons to

Salisbury, Rhodesia Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its ...

, now

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

, where she lived until 1971.

Commemoration

On 30 April 2022 a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

was installed on the side of the Royal Hotel, 9 Aire Street in Goole where the family had their confectionery business, the home Anne Greaves grew up in. The plaque was installed by the Goole Civic Society.

References and sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greaves, Anne 1889 births People from Goole 1971 deaths 20th-century British businesswomen Quarrying in the United Kingdom Businesspeople from Yorkshire