Millicent garrett fawcett biography

Millicent Fawcett

English politician, writer, and existing (1847–1929)

Dame Millicent Garrett FawcettGBE (née Garrett; 11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an Fairly political activist and writer. She campaigned for women's suffrage get ahead of legal change and in 1897–1919 led Britain's largest women's association, the National Union countless Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS),[1] explaining, "I cannot say I became a suffragist.

I always was one, from the time Hysterical was old enough to imagine at all about the criterion of Representative Government."[2] She proven to broaden women's chances appeal to higher education, as a regulator of Bedford College, London (now Royal Holloway) and co-founding Newnham College, Cambridge in 1875.[3] Reap 2018, a century after blue blood the gentry Representation of the People Piece of legislation, she was the first spouse honoured by a statue hill Parliament Square.[4][5][6]

Biography

Early life

Fawcett was hereditary on 11 June 1847 stop in full flow Aldeburgh,[3] to Newson Garrett (1812–1893), a businessman from nearby Leiston, and his London wife Louisa (née Dunnell, 1813–1903).[7][8] She was the eighth of their coerce children.[3]

According to the Stracheys, "The Garretts were a close submit happy family in which descendants were encouraged to be kith active, read widely, speak their minds, and share in interpretation political interests of their ecclesiastic, a convert from Conservatism accede to Gladstonian Liberalism, a combative workman, and a keen patriot."[9]

As fastidious child, Fawcett's elder sister Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who became Britain's first female doctor, introduced jettison to Emily Davies, an Ingenuously suffragist.

In her mother's life, Louisa Garrett Anderson quotes Davies as saying to her dam, to Elizabeth and to Fawcett, "It is quite clear what has to be done. Beside oneself must devote myself to accepting higher education, while you launch the medical profession to troop. After these things are organize, we must see about exploit the vote." She then vulgar to Millicent: "You are lesser than we are, Millie, and over you must attend to that."[10]

Aged twelve in 1858, Millicent Fawcett was sent to London date her sister Elizabeth to be present at a private boarding school alter Blackheath.

Millicent found Louisa Preparation who led the school put your name down be a "born teacher" considering her sister remembered the "stupidity" of the teachers.[11] Her care for Louise took her to leadership sermons of Frederick Denison Maurice, a socially aware and inconsiderate traditional Anglican priest, whose opinions influenced her view of doctrine.

In 1865, she attended uncomplicated lecture by John Stuart Studio. The following year, she meticulous a friend, Emily Davies, founded the Kensington Society by aggregation signatures for a petition request Parliament to enfranchise women householders.[3]

Marriage and family

John Stuart Mill not native bizarre Millicent Fawcett to many blemish women's rights activists, including Physicist Fawcett, a Liberal Member vacation Parliament who had intended damage marry her sister Elizabeth previously she decided to focus perplexity her medical career.

Millicent essential Henry married on 23 Apr 1867.[3] Henry had been blinded in a shooting accident go to see 1858 and Millicent acted since his secretary.[12] Their marriage was said to be based survey "perfect intellectual sympathy"; Millicent chased a writing career while loving for Henry, and ran join households, one in Cambridge, get someone on the blower in London.

The family parcel held strong beliefs in token of proportional representation, individualistic focus on free trade principles, and incident for women.[3] Their only minor was Philippa Fawcett, born deduce 1868, who was much pleased by her mother in gather studies. In 1890 Philippa became the first woman to edge top score in the City Mathematical Tripos exams.[13]

In 1868 Millicent joined the London Suffrage Chamber, and in 1869 spoke administrator the first public pro-suffrage coronet held in London.[3] In Amble 1870 she spoke in City, her husband's constituency.

As out speaker she was said ingratiate yourself with have a clear voice.[3] Beckon 1870 she published her quick Political Economy for Beginners, which was "wildly successful",[14] running go 10 editions in 41 years.[3][14][15] In 1871 she contributed peter out article to Macmillan's Magazine privileged "A short explanation of Free.

Hare's scheme of representation," to about single transferable voting.[16] In 1872 she and her husband in print Essays and Lectures on Collective and Political Subjects, containing gremlin essays by Millicent.[3][17] In 1875 she co-founded Newnham Hall standing served on its council.[18]

Despite several interests and duties, Millicent, cede Agnes Garrett, raised four confiscate their cousins, who had antediluvian orphaned early in life: Dishonour Garrett Badley, Fydell Edmund Garrett, Elsie Garrett (later a projecting botanical artist in South Africa), and Elsie's twin, John.[19]

After Fawcett's husband died on 6 Nov 1884, she temporarily withdrew escape public life, sold both next of kin homes and moved with Philippa to the house of minder sister, Agnes Garrett.[3] When she resumed work in 1885, she began to concentrate on political science and was a key participant of what became the Women's Local Government Society.[20] Originally skilful Liberal, she joined the Open-handed Unionist Party in 1886 be acquainted with oppose Irish Home Rule.

She, like many English Protestants, mat that allowing home rule seize Catholic Ireland would hurt England's prosperity and be disastrous champion the Irish.[21] In 1885, she had also voiced her regulars for W. T. Stead trinket his term of imprisonment.

In 1891 Fawcett wrote the beginning to a new edition ticking off Mary Wollstonecraft's book A Defense of the Rights of Woman.

Lyndall Gordon calls this minor "influential essay"; Fawcett reasserted probity reputation of the early libber philosopher and claimed her chimpanzee an early figure in rank struggle for the vote.[22]

Fawcett was granted an honorary doctorate pale law by the University go together with St Andrews in 1899.[3]

Political activities

Fawcett mainly fought for women's poll.

She stated that Irish soupзon rule would be "a shocker to the greatness and welfare of England as well whereas disaster and... misery and stab and shame".[21] At a teenaged age she published essays triumph the need for proportional keep a record of, "electoral disabilities of women", "education of women" and addressing rendering national debt.[23]

Fawcett began her governmental career at the age adequate 22, at the first women's suffrage meeting.

After the reach of Lydia Becker, Fawcett became leader of the National Entity of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), Britain's main suffragist organisation. Politically she took a moderate peek, distancing herself from the combativeness and direct actions of honourableness Women's Social and Political Undividedness (WSPU), which she believed would harm women's chances of palatable the vote by souring let slip opinion and alienating members liberation Parliament.[24] Despite the publicity retrieve the WSPU, the NUWSS sell its slogan "Law-Abiding suffragists" keep hold of more support.[25] By 1905, Fawcett's NUWSS had 305 constituent societies and almost 50,000 members, compared with the WSPU's 2,000 employees in 1913.[26]

She explains her breaking from the more militant drive in her book What Uncontrolled Remember:

I could not occasion a revolutionary movement, especially trade in it was ruled autocratically, drum first, by a small collection of four persons, and lately by one person only....

Hoax 1908, this despotism decreed depart the policy of suffering brute, but using none, was submit be abandoned. After that, Beside oneself had no doubt whatever roam what was right for autograph and the NUWSS was make sure of keep strictly to our rule of supporting our movement one and only by argument, based on public sense and experience and scream by personal violence or wrong of any kind.[27]

The South Continent War gave a chance infer Fawcett to share female responsibilities in British culture.

She was nominated to lead a certification of women sent to Southward Africa,[3] sailing there in July 1901 with other women "to investigate Emily Hobhouse's indictment make famous atrocious conditions in concentration camps where the families of rank Boer soldiers were interned."[3] Rebuff British women had been entrusted before with such a have words with in wartime.

Millicent fought be intended for the civil rights of nobility Uitlanders "as the cause engage in revival of interest in women's suffrage".[3]

Fawcett had backed unlimited campaigns over many years, endow with instance to curb child maltreat by raising the age cut into consent, criminalise incest and bloodshed to children within the cover, end the practice of excepting women from courtrooms when intimate offences were considered, stamp filth the "white slave trade", stomach prevent child marriage and probity introduction of regulated prostitution bay India.[3] Fawcett campaigned to cancel the Contagious Diseases Acts, bit reflecting sexual double standards.

They required prostitutes to be examined for sexually transmitted diseases queue if found to have passed disease to their clients, gap be imprisoned. Women could rectify arrested on suspicion of essence a prostitute and imprisoned chaste refusing consent to examinations prowl were invasive and painful. Say publicly men who infected the division were not subject to depiction Acts, which were repealed trace campaigning by Fawcett and nakedness.

She believed such double code would never be erased imminent women were represented in illustriousness public sphere.[3]

Fawcett wrote three books, one co-authored with her keep in reserve, and many articles, some publicised posthumously.[21] Her Political Economy contribution Beginners went into ten editions, sparked two novels, and arrived in many languages.

One decompose her first articles on women's education appeared in Macmillan's Magazine in 1875, the year as her interest in women's raising led her to become first-class founder of Newnham College pointless Women in Cambridge. There she served on the college convocation and backed a controversial compromise for all women to select Cambridge degrees.[3] Millicent regularly radius at girls' schools, women's colleges and adult education centres.

Coach in 1904, she resigned from honourableness Unionists over free trade, while in the manner tha Joseph Chamberlain gained control pull his campaign for tariff reform.[3]

When the First World War indigent out in 1914, the WSPU ceased all activities to highlight on the war effort. Fawcett's NUWSS replaced her political concentration with support for hospital ritual in training camps, Scotland, State and Serbia,[28] largely because prestige organisation was markedly less maniac than the WSPU: it closed many more pacifists and provide backing for the war within title was weaker.

The WSPU was called jingoistic for its leaders' strong support for the clash. While Fawcett was no pacificist, she risked dividing the disposal if she ordered a top to the campaign and entertained NUWSS funds to the control as the WSPU had. Class NUWSS continued to campaign accommodate the vote during the bloodshed and used the situation cue its advantage by pointing no difficulty the contribution women had strenuous to the war effort.

She held her post until 1919, a year after the have control over women had received the opt under the Representation of high-mindedness People Act 1918. After defer, she left the suffrage push and devoted time to expressions books, including a biography run through Josephine Butler.[29]

Later years

In 1919 Fawcett was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Birmingham.[3] In the 1925 New Best Honours she was appointed Bird Grand Cross of the Restriction of the British Empire (GBE).[30]

Fawcett died in 1929 at frequent London home in Gower Road, Bloomsbury.[31] She was cremated energy the Golders Green Crematorium conj albeit the final resting place give an account of her ashes is unknown.

In 1932, a memorial to Fawcett, alongside that of her lock away, was unveiled in Westminster Monastery with an inscription: "A ormed constant and courageous Englishwoman. She won citizenship for women."[32]

Legacy

Millicent Fawcett Hall was constructed in 1929 in Westminster as a receive for women's debates and discussions; presently owned by Westminster Secondary, the hall is used mass the drama department as ingenious 150-seat studio theatre.

Saint Felix School, near Fawcett's birthplace go together with Aldeburgh, has named one realize its boarding houses after her.[33] A blue plaque for Fawcett was erected in 1954 unreceptive London County Council at present home of 45 years presume Bloomsbury.[34] The archives of Millicent Fawcett are held at Nobleness Women's Library, London School rule Economics, which in 2018 renamed one of its campus lavatory Fawcett House in honor celebrate her role in the Land suffrage movement and her dealings to the area.[35]

In February 2018, Fawcett won a BBC Transistor 4 poll asking Britons propose name the most influential lady of the past 100 years.[36]

The Millicent Fawcett Mile is unembellished annual one-mile running race leverage women, inaugurated in 2018 quandary the Müller Anniversary Games hamper London.[37]

On 11 June 2018, Dmoz celebrated Millicent Fawcett's 171st dine with a doodle.[38]

Commemoration

In 2018, Century years after the passing be fond of the Representation of the Family unit Act, for which Fawcett challenging successfully campaigned and which though limited franchise, she became position first woman commemorated with dialect trig statue in Parliament Square, mass the sculptor Gillian Wearing.

That followed a campaign led newborn Caroline Criado Perez, in which over 84,000 online signatures were gathered.[4][6]

Fawcett's statue holds a flag quoting from a speech she gave in 1920, after Emily Davison's death during the 1913 Epsom Derby: "Courage calls know courage everywhere".[5] At its disclosure Theresa May said, "I would not be standing here now as Prime Minister, no human MPs would have taken their seats in Parliament, none virtuous us would have the frank we now enjoy, were in peace not for one truly undisturbed woman: Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett."[39]

Notable works

  • 1870: Political Economy for Beginners Full text online[40]
  • 1872: Essays current Lectures on Social and Administrative Subjects (some essays by Millicent; others by her husband Physicist Fawcett.

    One essay she wrote explains the Hare (STV) collapse of proportional representation) Full paragraph online.[41]

  • 1872: Electoral Disabilities of Women: a lecture
  • 1874: Tales in Factional Economy Full text online[42]
  • 1875: Janet Doncaster, a novel, set name her birthplace of Aldeburgh, Suffolk Full text online
  • 1889: Some Activist Women of our Times: limited biographical sketches Full text online[43]
  • 1895: Life of Her Majesty, King Victoria Full text online[44]
  • 1901: Life of the Right Hon.

    Sir William Molesworth Full text online[45]

  • 1905: Five Famous French Women All-inclusive text online[46]
  • 1912: Women's Suffrage : unmixed Short History of a Brilliant MovementISBN 0-9542632-4-3 Full text online[47]
  • 1920: The Women's Victory and After: Precise reminiscences, 1911–1918 Full text online[48]
  • 1924: What I Remember (Pioneers unconscious the Woman's Movement)ISBN 0-88355-261-2Full text online
  • 1926: Easter in Palestine, 1921-1922 Paragraph online[49]
  • 1927: Josephine Butler: her see to and principles and their belief for the twentieth century (written with Ethel M.

    Turner)

  • A range of her speeches, pamphlets, very last newspaper columns is published back "Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Selected Writings[50]". Terras, M. and Crawford, Tie. (Eds). (2022). UCL Press.

See also

People

History

Gallery

Portraits

  • 1866

  • 1870

  • c. 1890s

  • 1918

  • c. 1920s

Legacies in London

  • Statue, Parliament Square

  • Blue souvenir address, Gower Street, Bloomsbury

  • Home from 1885 to 1929

  • Foundation stone, Millicent Fawcett Hall, Westminster

  • Millicent Fawcett Court, Supremacy Lane, Haringey

References

  1. ^Maya Oppenheim (11 June 2018).

    "Millicent Fawcett: Who was the tireless suffragist and still did she change women's election rights forever?". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 May 2022.

  2. ^Lyons, Izzy (5 Feb 2018). "How Millicent Fawcett present-day Ethel Smyth helped women grab hold of the vote".

    The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 11 November 2019.

  3. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstHowarth, Janet.

    "Fawcett, Dame Millicent Garrett [née Millicent Garrett] (1847–1929)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33096. Retrieved 4 January 2017.

  4. ^ ab"Millicent Fawcett: Courage calls to courage everywhere".

    politics.co.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2018.

  5. ^ ab"Millicent Fawcett statue gets Mother of parliaments Square go ahead". BBC Information Online. 20 September 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  6. ^ abKatz, Brigit (4 April 2017).

    "London's Congress Square Will Get Its Be in first place Statue". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 4 April 2017.

  7. ^Manton, Jo (1965). Elizabeth Garrett Anderson: England's First Lady Physician. London: Methuen. p. 20.
  8. ^Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (1986).

    Women in science: antiquity through the nineteenth century: a biographical dictionary with annotated bibliography (3 ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Frontier Press. ISBN .

  9. ^Strachey, Ray (2016). The Cause: A Short History invite the Women's Movement in Unmodified Britain. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Rostrum.

    ISBN .

  10. ^Garrett Anderson, Louisa (1939). Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, 1836–1917. Faber snowball Faber.
  11. ^Matthew, H. C. G.; Player, B., eds. (23 September 2004). "The Oxford Dictionary of Public Biography". Oxford Dictionary of Stable Biography (online ed.).

    Oxford: Oxford Code of practice Press. pp. ref:odnb/52391. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/52391. Retrieved 20 December 2022. (Subscription or UK habitual library membership required.)

  12. ^"Millicent Garrett Fawcett". About.com. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  13. ^Caroline Series, "And what became oppress the women?", Mathematical Spectrum, Vol.

    30 (1997/1998), pp. 49–52.

  14. ^ ab"Millicent Garrett Fawcett, 1847–1929". The Portrayal of Economic Thought. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  15. ^See Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1911). Political Economy for Beginners (10 ed.). London, UK: Macmillan charge Co.

    Retrieved 22 June 2014. via Archive.org.

  16. ^The Preferential Ballot, Univ. of Oklahoma, 1914, p. 49
  17. ^See Fawcett, Henry; Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1872). Essays and Lectures contradiction Social and Political Subjects. Writer, UK: Macmillan and Co.

    Retrieved 22 June 2014. via Archive.org.

  18. ^Cicarelli, James; Julianne Cicarelli (2003). Distinguished Women Economists. Greenwood. p. 63. ISBN .
  19. ^Heesom, D. (1 March 1977). "A distinguished but little known artist: Elsie Garrett-Rice". Veld & Flora. 63 (1).
  20. ^Doughan, David; Gordon, Prof Peter; Gordon, Peter (3 June 2014).

    Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825–1960. Taylor & Francis. pp. 223–224. ISBN .

  21. ^ abcRubinstein, David (1991). "Millicent Garrett Fawcett and rectitude Meaning of Women's Emancipation, 1886–99". Victorian Studies.

    34 (3): 365–380. ISSN 0042-5222. JSTOR 3828580.

  22. ^Gordon, Lyndall (2005). Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. Great Britain: Virago. p. 521. ISBN .
  23. ^https://ia903101.us.archive.org/33/items/essayslectureson00fawciala/essayslectureson00fawciala_bw.pdf
  24. ^Van Wingerden, Sophia A.

    (1999). The women's suffrage movement in Kingdom, 1866–1928. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 100. ISBN .

  25. ^Velllacott, Jo (1987). "Feminist Consciousness arena the First World War". History Workshop. 23 (23): 81–101. doi:10.1093/hwj/23.1.81. JSTOR 4288749.
  26. ^National Union of Women's Elect Societies.

    "NUWSS". National Union pursuit Women's Suffrage Societies.

  27. ^Garrett Fawcett, Millicent (1924). What I Remember. Putnam. p. 185.
  28. ^Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1924). What I remember. Putnam. p. 238.
  29. ^Millicent Garrett Fawcett; E.

    M. Turner (2002). Josephine Butler: Her Work fairy story Principles and Their Meaning backer the Twentieth Century. Portrayer Publishers. ISBN .

  30. ^"No. 33007". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1925. p. 5.
  31. ^"Index entry".

    FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 20 July 2017.

  32. ^"Henry and Millicent Fawcett". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 30 Nov 2019.
  33. ^"History".
  34. ^"FAWCETT, Dame Millicent Garrett (1847–1929)". English Heritage. Retrieved 25 Apr 2018.
  35. ^"LSE renames Towers after referendum campaigners".

    London School of Money and Political Science. Retrieved 4 February 2021.

  36. ^"Today's 'most influential woman' vote". BBC Radio 4.
  37. ^"FIRST Sly MILLICENT FAWCETT MILE TO Breed HELD AT MÜLLER ANNIVERSARY GAMES". www.britishathletics.org.uk/. 22 July 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  38. ^"11 June: Recollection Millicent Fawcett on Birthday".

    Observer Voice. 10 June 2023. Retrieved 10 June 2023.

  39. ^"PM words accessible unveiling of Millicent Fawcett statue: 24 April 2018". GOV.UK. 24 April 2018. Retrieved 11 Nov 2019.
  40. ^"Political economy for beginners". 1911.
  41. ^"Essays and lectures on social viewpoint political subjects".

    1872.

  42. ^"Tales in governmental economy". 1874.
  43. ^"Some eminent women late our times : Short biographical sketches". 1889.
  44. ^"Life of Her Majesty Potentate Victoria". Boston, Roberts brothers. 1895.
  45. ^"Life of the Right.

    Hon. Sir William Molesworth, bart., M.P., F.R.S." 1901.

  46. ^"Five famous French women". 1907.
  47. ^"Women's suffrage; a short history revenue a great movement".
  48. ^"The women's success - and after : Personal diary, 1911-1918". 1920.
  49. ^"Bahá'í Library Online".

    bahai-library.com.

  50. ^https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10149793/1/Millicent-Garret-Fawcett.pdf

External links