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Related Resources • Index to Etexts on Women's History • Woman Suffrage

Note that this entry is a product of its time, and should be read in that context. Footnotes have been omitted to make the text easier to follow. Also note that scanning and editing may have introduced a few errors into the transcription. Because of these errors, if you need to use this information in an academic paper, please consult the original, available at many libraries.

This continues the entry under "Women" in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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The earliest known handbill representing the modern "women's suffrage" movement in England dates from about 1847, and in 1857 the first society was formed in Sheffield, the "Sheffield Female Political Association," due largely to the work of a Quaker lady, Anne Kent of Chelmsford. In July of the same year Mrs John Stuart Mill published an article in the Westminster Review. The earliest outstanding figure, however, is Lydia Ernestine Becker (1827-1890), descended on the mother's side from an old Lancashire family, her father being the son of a German who settled in England in early youth. She became a well-known botanist, and an intimate friend of Charles Darwin. In 1858 the Englishwoman's Journal was started, and by this time there was a vigorous agitation for the alteration of the law relating to the property and earnings of married women. Among the leaders of that movement were Barbara Leigh Smith (Mrs Bodichon) and Bessie Rayner Parkes (Madame Belloc). At the same time a famous group of women, Emily Davies, Miss Beale and Miss Buss (founders respectively of the Cheltenham Ladies' College and the North London Collegiate School) and Miss Garrett (Dr Garrett Anderson), Miss Helen Taylor (John Stuart Mill's stepdaughter) and Miss Wolstenholme (afterwards Mrs Elmy), discussed women's suffrage at the " Kensington Society."

Next page > Woman Suffrage 1865-1906

More of this article: General | Mosaic Law, Ancient India | Roman Law | Christian Law  | Northern Europe Law | English Law | Husband and Wife | Criminal Law | Education | Professions | Nursing and Medicine | Government and Politics | Women Practicing Law | Women as Clergy | Women's Rights Agitation | Woman Suffrage | Woman Suffrage 1865-1906 | Woman Suffrage 1906-1910 | Woman Suffrage Societies | Woman Suffrage New Zealand and Australia | Woman Suffrage America | Woman Suffrage Europe | Woman Suffrage International | Sources

<Index to Etexts on Women's History>

Part of a collection of etexts on women's history produced by Jone Johnson Lewis. Editing and formatting © 1999-2003 Jone Johnson Lewis.