Bristol road to be named after city's first female mayor following cigarette name row

A new road on the site of a former Bristol tobacco factory will be named after the city’s first female lord mayor.

The street was set to be called 'Navy Cut Road' in honour of a product made at the site’s former Imperial Group tobacco factory.

But following criticism from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and doctors from around the region, the current mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, vetoed the idea of honouring a cigarette brand.

The 70-home affordable housing development at Imperial Park, Bishopsworth, will have Florence Mills Brown, who held the role in 1963, in its title.

Tory ward Councillor Richard Eddy, who appeared to have won a campaign to link the street to the area's industrial heritage says he was disappointed with the decision.

He said the late Cllr Brown was a Labour politician who represented two wards miles away in north Bristol and had no links to Bishopsworth.

Who was Florence Brown?

Florence Brown worked at the Wills tobacco factory in Bedminster as a tobacco stripper and trade union rep and later became a city councillor and alderman, serving for almost three decades before being appointed Bristol’s first woman lord mayor.

Her citation to the role said she was born in 1899 just three minutes from The Council House and was a governor at several secondary schools and managed a number of primary schools.

Mr Rees tweeted: “We’ll be naming a new road after Florence Mills Brown, the first woman to serve as @brislordmayor (1963) – long overdue since #Bristol’s Mayoralty dates to 1216!

“Florence was elected to @BristolCouncil in 1937, after working as a trade union rep and tobacco-stripper.”

Credit: Adam Postans, Local Democracy Reporter