Melissa Hardie-Budden MBE PhD
April 20th 1939 – July 5th 2022

“Speak louder. Be brave. To be too quiet is evidence of disinterest”

Melissa Hardie founded The Hypatia Trust in 1996 to support and promote women's achievements through research, documentation, exhibition, publication and training, in Cornwall and beyond. 

The Trust has grown from its beginnings to now have women’s literature and non-fiction archives placed in the University of Exeter libraries at Exeter and Falmouth, the University of Bonn in Germany, the Autonoma University in Barcelona and a small collection in Leeds University. Locally, her Elizabeth Treffry collection of books relating to Cornish women is housed in Morrab Library in Penzance in a room of our own, fitted out with the hardwood shelving from Melissa's original library project; The Jamieson Library in Newmill.

Melissa was a book publisher before she came to live in Cornwall. Her Patten Press morphed into Hypatia Publications, the publishing arm of the Trust. Together they have published over fifty titles. In March 2022, The Hypatia Trust opened a specialist ‘women focused’ bookshop - Women in Word - at its premises in Penzance. It has the same objectives as Melissa’s original Deborah Books shop, which was on Richmond Hill in London in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It sells fiction and non-fiction by women authors, including Hypatia Publications' own releases, and titles by local and regional women authors, as well as also stocking a large range of pre-loved books, written by women and donated by the public.

Melissa died peacefully in hospital with family by her side. She will be missed by so many, but never forgotten for her fearlessness and determination to make things better and her kindness whilst doing so.

Instead of sending flowers, Melissa’s family have requested that any donations are kindly made to her beloved Hypatia Trust in her memory.