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 at the age of 80, which some found shocking but which have since become a valuable local history resource.

The public toilets in Stoke Road, Bristol, where Hughes worked.

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. A 1955 map of Durdham Down showing the Ladies Mile diagonally, centre, running south from Stoke Road. Hughes' workplace indicated by arrow. 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. The book "shocked some at the time, but since has become a valued source of local history". and in 2006 she became the first of her profession to be given an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.