He won the seat for Labour for the first time, holding it until his surprise defeat by Dame Joan Vickers at the 1955 general election.

In 1455, by the order of King Charles VII of France, who Joan had publicly supported, a rehabilitation trial was opened in the Notre Dame de Paris to investigate the dubious circumstances which led to Joan's execution.

* 1926 – Dame Joan Sutherland, Australian operatic soprano ( d. 2010 )

Michael Denison ( Algernon ), Michael Redgrave ( Jack ), Dame Edith Evans ( Lady Bracknell ), Dorothy Tutin ( Cecily ), Joan Greenwood ( Gwendolen ), and Margaret Rutherford ( Miss Prism ) were among the cast.

* November 7 – Dame Joan Sutherland, Australian soprano ( d. 2010 )

* February 21 – Dr. Dame Joan Metge, New Zealand social anthropologist, educator, lecturer and writer

* September 14 – Joan of Lusignan, Dame de Lusignan ( approximate date )

After World War II, a small number of technically able sopranos, the most notable of whom were first Maria Callas ( with performances from 1952 and especially those at La Scala and Berlin in 1954 / 55 under Herbert von Karajan ) and then Dame Joan Sutherland ( with her 1959 performances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1959, which were repeated in 1960 ), revived the opera in all of its original tragic glory.

Zeffirelli also collaborated often with Dame Joan Sutherland, designing and directing her performances of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 1959 amongst others.

* Dame Joan Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE-( 1926 – 2010 ), Australian opera singer

The company is perhaps best known internationally for its association with Dame Joan Sutherland, and for Baz Luhrmann's production of Puccini's La bohème in the early 1990s.

Dame Joan Sutherland gave her farewell performances for the Australian Opera in 1990 in a production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots.

Two years later, the company named its major rehearsal studio after Dame Joan.

* Dame Joan Sutherland

Notable Australian musicians include: the opera singers Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Joan Sutherland ; country music stars Slim Dusty ( Australia's biggest selling domestic artist ) and John Williamson ; solo artists John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John, Pub rock band Cold Chisel, folk-rocker Paul Kelly ; Dance group The Avalanches ; jazz guitarist Tommy Emmanuel ; pioneer rocker Johnny O ' Keefe, global folk-rock band The Seekers, global rock and pop bands Men At Work, The EasyBeats, Air Supply, Crowded House, AC / DC, INXS, Little River Band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Midnight Oil, Dragon, Silverchair, Youth Group, You Am I and Powderfinger ; the " pop princess " Kylie Minogue, Pendulum, Pop Rock duo Savage Garden and alternative music stars the John Butler Trio, Xavier Rudd, Wolfmother, Tame Impala and The Vines.

* – Dame Joan Sutherland in the title role of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia

As Flute the bellows-mender, he performed a drag parody of Dame Joan Sutherland in the mad scene of Lucia di Lammermoor.

Major bequests include Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend's collection of 154 gems bequeathed in 1869, Lady Cory's 1951 gift of major diamond jewellery from the 18th and 19th centuries, and jewellery scholar Dame Joan Evans ' 1977 gift of more than 800 jewels dating from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century.

Dame Joan Sutherland in 1990

Well-known Australian classical performers include: sopranos Dame Joan Sutherland, Dame Joan Hammond, Joan Carden, Yvonne Kenny, Sara Macliver and Emma Matthews ; pianists Roger Woodward, Eileen Joyce, Michael Kieran Harvey, Geoffrey Tozer, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Leslie Howard and Ian Munro ; guitarists John Williams and Slava Grigoryan ; horn player Barry Tuckwell ; oboist Diana Doherty ; violinists Richard Tognetti and Elizabeth Wallfisch ; cellists John Addison and David Pereira ; organist Christopher Wrench ; orchestras like the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra ; and conductors Sir Bernard Heinze, Sir Charles Mackerras, Richard Bonynge, Simone Young and Geoffrey Simon.

In 1971 Agatha Christie was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

In the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1968, Holt's widow Zara Holt was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, becoming Dame Zara Holt DBE.

* 1878 – Dame Adeline Genée, Danish-born British ballerina ( d. 1970 )

Outside the British honours system it is usually considered improper to address a knighted person as ' Sir ' or ' Dame '.

* 1882 – Dame Sybil Thorndike, British actress ( d. 1976 )

British examples are At Risk ( 2004 ), Secret Asset ( 2006 ), Illegal Action ( 2007 ), and Dead Line ( 2008 ), by Dame Stella Rimington ( formerly the Director General of MI5 from 1992 to 1996 ) and The Code Snatch ( 2001 ) by Alan Stripp, formerly a cryptographer at Bletchley Park.

* July 26 – Dame Helen Mirren, British actress

** Dame Eileen Atkins, British actress

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, ( born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934 ) is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace.

A series of distinguished British actresses have portrayed Queen Mary on stage and screen, including Dame Wendy Hiller ( on the London stage in Crown Matrimonial ), Dame Flora Robson ( in A King's Story ), Dame Peggy Ashcroft ( in Edward & Mrs Simpson ), Phyllis Calvert ( in The Woman He Loved ), Gaye Brown ( in All the King's Men ), Dame Eileen Atkins ( in Bertie and Elizabeth ), Miranda Richardson ( in The Lost Prince ), Margaret Tyzack ( in Wallis & Edward ), and Claire Bloom ( in The King's Speech ).

Law professor Charles E. Rice of Notre Dame as well as International Law professor at the University of Illinois Francis A. Boyle have argued that the British government committed genocide by pursuing a policy of starvation in Ireland.

In 1966, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( DBE ).

Rutherford was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) in 1961 and was raised to Dame Commander ( DBE ) in 1967.

She was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in 1952, and raised to Dame Commander ( DBE ) in 1960, an award which was partly for her charity work, largely unnoticed, which she carried on until her death, often for small and rather obscure charities rather than the grand ones which would have given her more publicity.

Dench was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) in 1970 and advanced as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( DBE ) of the order in 1988.

Regarded as one of Britain's great dramatic talents, she was created an Officer of the British Empire ( OBE ) in 1971 and raised to Dame Commander ( DBE ) in 1975.

Tutin was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in 1967, and raised to Dame Commander ( DBE ) in 2000.

Other actors associated with British comedy films include Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, Dame Margaret Rutherford, Irene Handl and Leslie Phillips.

* Dame Antoinette Sibley DBE British Prima Ballerina

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS, the British astrophysicist known for first discovering radio pulsars, is currently a visiting professor.

In line with the Commonwealth Government's priorities for higher education, in 2009 Notre Dame signed an interim agreement for Mission based compacts with the Commonwealth, outlining its goals as well as its vision for a unique place in Australian higher education.