Moira Cameron, who is the first woman to serve as a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London, Monday September 3, 2007, joining the 35 guards who protect the Crown Jewels. Cameron, a Warrant Officer Class 2 who joined the army at age 16, and now joins the Yeoman Warders, known as Beefeaters, as the first woman to serve here since the corps was created in 1485. AP Photo/Cathal McNaughton http://www.sacbee.com/857/story/358159.html I love it! Thanks for posting. I read of such on the fly, but did not realize it was a CAMERON! This is so cool. My daughters Laura and Jennifer are going to hear of this, likewise for my sisters, Christine, Heather and Allison as well as the world full of Cameron lassies! Aye, a Scots at that! A thousand loud cheers as our good friend Archie Mackinnon from Guelph, Ontario, Canada would cry ... my neighbour both we are ... Isle of Tiree, Scotland descendants! Slainte, Scott http://jscottcameron.blogspot.com Aye, blog is a wee behind, but I have been very busy. Check out Moira Cameron's links at http://rss.news.yahoo.com/imgrss/events/wl/090407femalebeefeate and http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=SUNA,SUNA:2006-02,SUNA:en&q=moira+cameron+yeoman+argyll Yeoman Warder Moira Cameron, the first female Beefeater starts work at the Tower of London, September 3, 2007. A 42-year-old Scottish woman became the first female 'Beefeater' on Monday, taking up her post as a guardian of Britain's Tower of London. (Luke MacGregor/Reuters). Moira is the first female guardian of the Tower of London in the Beefeaters' 522-year history started her new job on Monday. Cameron, 42, from Argyll in Scotland, beat five men to secure the coveted position.Aye, a Scots at that, all the better being from Argyll where my family is from! Anyone know where in Argyll? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- YO, WOMAN! For the first time in its 522 years, a woman began work on Monday as a member of the Yeomen of the Guard who act as warders at the Tower of London. Because one condition for joining the Guard is a continuous period of 20 years in the armed forces, reaching at least the rank of staff sergeant, it is only recently that women have become eligible to join the warders' ranks. Most papers that reported the event jokingly called the new member, Moira CAMERON, a yeowoman, no doubt believing they had invented it. But it turns out to have a long history - the OED's first example is from 1852. It became more widely known during the First World War when women began to serve in the US Navy. They had the official rank of Yeoman (F), "F" denoting female, as you would guess. An informal term was "yeomanette", which the women hated; "yeowoman" was a common alternative. The last member of the group, Charlotte WINTERS, died only last March at the age of 109. Both "yeomanette" and "yeowoman" vanished after the War except in reference to this period. Among other meanings, yeoman was the name given to a superior servant in a noble or royal household, one who often ate meat (in Old English, humbler servants were called loaf-eaters, who mainly subsisted on bread). Such well-fed menials were derisively named "beef-eaters" and this is the source of the famous nickname of the members of the Yeoman of the Guard, who acquired it in the seventeenth century. These days they carry it with pride. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------