In our fortnightly Picture This column, Lynn Museum focuses on the first female mayor of the town.

This year marks 100 years since Florence ‘Ada’ Coxon became mayor of Lynn – a defining moment in the town’s civic history.

This photograph from 1925 captures her standing proudly outside the town hall, flanked by the ceremonial sword bearer and four mace bearers.

These symbols of authority, steeped in centuries of tradition, underscore the significance of her role.

Coxon’s election was truly pioneering. It came three years before women achieved equal voting rights in 1928, making her appointment a powerful statement of progress.

Her daughter, serving as Mayoress, commemorated the occasion with a poem: “…she spoke as well of women’s fight, to obtain for her sex an equal right, and with fine purpose and unafraid, she went forward, with hope in a new decade.”

Her leadership marked an early step toward greater representation of women in public life.

In the century since Coxon’s groundbreaking term, 14 women have followed in her footsteps as mayor – a testament to her enduring legacy of courage, service and civic progress.