Optician sadly reports the death of Dr Anne Silk on November 30.
Silk was the first female Master at the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers (WCSM), holding office between 1990 and 1991. WCSM said Silk was rightly proud of her progression at a time when Livery Company Masters and Wardens were assumed to be men. She was only the fourth woman in the City to become Master of a Livery Company and the only female appointed in her year of office, 1990-1991.
She was president of the Association of Dispensing Opticians from 1971 to 1974, and was the first woman to take that position.
‘Anne Silk was no ordinary woman,’ said a WCSM spokesperson. ‘She takes her place in the Company’s history as the first female Master in more than 360 years, a pioneer and a formidable presence in optics.’