This book provides the first full-length biography of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy (1833–1918) – someone referred to among contemporaries as ‘the grey matter in the brain’ of the late-Victorian women’s movement. A pacifist, humanitarian ‘free-thinker’, Wolstenholme Elmy was a controversial character and the first woman ever to speak from a public platform on the topic of marital rape. Lauded by Emmeline Pankhurst as ‘first’ among the infamous militant suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Union, Wolstenholme Elmy was one of Britain’s great feminist pioneers and, in her own words, an ‘initiator’ of many high-profile campaigns from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Wright draws on an extensive resource of unpublished correspondence and other sources to produce an enduring portrait that does justice to Wolstenholme Elmy’s momentous achievements.
Table of Content
Introduction
1. The making of a feminist: 1833–62
2. Headmistress: The Education Campaign 1863–October 1867
3. The “Parliamentary Watch-Dog”: November 1867–October 1874
4. Calvary to resurrection: October 1874–82
5. The ‘Great Mole’ of the women’s movement: 1883–90
6. The Women’s Emancipation Union: 1891–July 1899
7. ‘The Cold Dark Night is Past’: August 1899–May 1906
8. ‘At Eventide There Will Be Light’: June 1906–March 1918
Conclusion
Poem: ‘New Year’s Day’, 1900
Cast of characters
Select bibliography
Index
About the author
Maureen Wright works in the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, University of Portsmouth
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