Historic lectern is snatched at church

A brass lectern, linked directly to the first woman candidate for the American Presidency, has been stolen from a church in Worcestershire.

Antique dealers across the Midlands have been alerted to the theft from St Giles Church at Bredon's Norton, near Pershore.

American-born Victoria Claflin Woodhull-Martin presented the historic lectern, now valued at up to £12,000, after her husband John Biddulph Martin, of Norton Court, died aged 56 in 1897.

As well as being the first woman to be nominated for President of the USA in 1872, Mrs Woodhull-Martin was the first woman to speak at the Capitol in Washington DC, to open a bank on Wall Street, to drive a motor vehicle and offer a prize for a light over the Atlantic Ocean.