Poor Willoughby (whoever he is).
I think you should go for nearly famous women, such as women who lived in the shadows of their famous husbands or brothers, such as the brilliant Clara Schumann, a child prodigy who gave her first piano recitals at nine years of age and was touring by eleven years old. Her maiden name was Wieck, she bore seven children, one of whom died as a baby, another inherited her husband's mental illness and died in an insane asylum. As a musician she was regarded as much more accpmplished then her more famous composer husband Robert, but basically subjugated her own career to his while he lived. She was very courageous and you should look her up on Wiki if nothing else. She was also very opinionated on other composers work, as she was every bit their equal.
However, she once famously said (and you won't like this): "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?" and though she did compose pieces as a younger woman she gave up in her later years.
Nowadays her own works are highly regarded and increasingly played, so maybe it will serve to illustrate what many men are afraid to say in public. Sometimes women are wrong.
Another one of my pet projects is Gwen John, sister of Augustus John and lover of the sculptor Rodin, who studied under James McNeill Whistler at the Academie Carmen in Paris but is almost unknown today as a painter in her own right.
Gwen has always come across to me as a little nutter, who formed attachments to others too quickly and became fixated on them, men and women. She was apparently not too hygienic and lived in what would nowadays be considered squats, or sometimes even lived rough in fields. You can readily see her these days as a Goth, or (as they're called now) Emo, black fingernails, etc...
Like Clara, her career was willingly subordinated to others, and that was their lot in life, and perhaps their tragedy.
