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Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy (1833–1918) was one of the most significant pioneers of the British women's emancipation movement, though her importance is little recognised. Wolstenholme Elmy referred to herself as an ‘initiator’ of movements, and she was at the heart of every campaign Victorian feminists conducted — her most well-known position being that of secretary of the Married Women's Property Committee from 1867–82. A fierce advocate of human rights, as the secretary of the Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights, Wolstenholme Elmy earned the nickname of the ‘parliamentary watch-dog’ from Members of Parliament anxious to escape her persistent lobbying. Also a feminist theorist, she believed wholeheartedly in the rights of women to freedom of their person, and was the first woman ever to speak from a British stage on the sensitive topic of conjugal rape. Wolstenholme Elmy engaged theoretically with the rights of the disenfranchised to exert force in pursuit of the vote, and Emmeline Pankhurst lauded her as ‘first’ among the infamous suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union. As a lifelong pacifist, however, she resigned from the WSPU Executive in the wake of increasingly violent activity from 1912. A prolific correspondent, journalist, speaker and political critic, Wolstenholme Elmy left significant resources, believing they ‘might be of value’ to historians. This book draws on a great deal of this documentation to produce a portrait that does justice to her achievements as a lifelong ‘Insurgent woman’.
This chapter reviews the reasons for presenting a chronological biography of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, as opposed to a thematic or theoretical interpretation of her ideals. It also provides a brief assessment of current historiography relating to Wolstenholme Elmy. The development of Wolstenholme Elmy's feminism is then addressed. She was deeply appreciative of her transatlantic friendships. The object of this biography is to argue that Wolstenholme Elmy was foremost among the Radical suffragists of her generation and to interpret that radicalism as a force for change. Her life shows that there is no simple dichotomy between the suffragist and the suffragette. She did not consider her own sex ‘superior’, but equal, and her unshakeable belief in this equality demanded of her, from her twenties, that she live a public life. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is shown.
This chapter addresses the first thirty years of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's life, and new evidence of both her familial context and her ‘conversion’ to feminism at the age of seventeen. Wolstenholme Elmy's ‘private’ mind is more difficult to assess than the reformer's zeal which prompted her public labours. Her experience of double orphanhood was unique among the leading members of the mid-Victorian feminist movement. Elizabeth's feminism was constructed through what she would later term as ‘the stress of storm and strife’. The bitter family quarrels surrounding Elizabeth's yearning for higher education occurred at precisely the same time as she acknowledged the ‘iniquitous English law of sex slavery’ that enforced the loss of personal identity of every wife in the land. For her, the challenge to ‘sex slavery’ was the taproot on which all other causes were grafted.
This chapter discusses the education campaign of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy. It also describes the friendship networks that supported her campaign. She was an experienced headmistress at the age of twenty-eight, following a profession she had consciously chosen. Her commentaries on the nature and purpose of women's education reveal an appreciation of how the instruction of middle-class girls and women impacted upon the advancement of humanity as a whole. Her brother's, Joseph Wolstenholme, religious proclivities are only referenced once in his sister's voluminous correspondence. Though her association with Jessie Boucherett would be significant, the two women did not see eye to eye over every aspect of their work. Boucherett realised Elizabeth's potential worth to the women's movement, her clear-sighted intellect and keen knowledge of the law. Elizabeth began the campaign by which she would become defined, the challenge to the ‘slavery’ of the English wife.
The years between 1868 and 1874 were among the most demanding when considering Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's lifelong commitment to feminism. She took a leading role in securing for married women the ownership of their personal property. Her work for the Married Women's Property Committee (MWPC) remained for many years the only area of her life that could never be entirely subsumed by those who saw her as a marginal figure in women's politics, so great was her part within it. Elizabeth believed that the role of the state was to protect the innocent and wronged, not to interfere in the personal liberties of adult, reasoning individuals. She eventually had found love and was contemplating motherhood, but she had lost treasured friendships with Emily Davies and Lydia Becker.
This chapter presents a narrative set within the context of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's work as honorary secretary of the Married Women's Property Committee (MWPC). Elizabeth worked hard to shield Ben Elmy from the censure of their friends. The principles of moral ‘justice’ and freedom of expression long held by Elizabeth and Ben were pushed aside, and the ‘flutterings in the suffrage dovecotes’ escalated. As their son, Frank Elmy, approached his first birthday, his mother faced the challenge of resurrecting the MWPC from the doldrums. While Elizabeth's efforts to improve the lives of the married women of Britain received commendation by at least some of her peers, her attempts to change attitudes to encompass a perception of wives as possessing a moral right to determine their own actions were less successful. The Criminal Code Bill did not pass into law, much to Elizabeth's satisfaction.
This chapter investigates Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's ‘single-handed’ campaign to secure guardianship rights for mothers to their own children. It also demonstrates her broad challenge to every aspect of patriarchal dominion—even the effects on children of the ‘dead hand’ of their father's will. The way Elizabeth elected to describe the inauguration of the infants' campaign provides a different insight into her character from that ‘loyal unselfishness’ with which she was often credited by her friends. The Guardianship of Infants Act provided a catalyst to rejuvenate the campaign for the parliamentary vote. Elizabeth continued to support the women's suffrage campaign. The Women's Franchise League's (WFrL) campaign strategy sought the removal of the effects of inequality of opportunity for women. It promoted ‘a communion of middle-class and working-class women in their shared labour, both productive and reproductive’.
This chapter demonstrates that Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy took the analysis to new lengths in the work of the Women's Emancipation Union (WEU). Elizabeth joined her husband in working for the Fair Trade alliance after resigning from the Women's Franchise League. The central place played by the Clitheroe judgment in the WEU's formation was mirrored in the prominence given to the issue of women's sexual subjection in WEU endeavours. As head of the WEU, Elizabeth advocated partnerships which placed ‘the moral regeneration of mankind’ at their heart. The highs and lows of WEU campaigning were recorded purely because Elizabeth believed its activities historically significant and wished to secure its archive. Few could dispute Elizabeth's willingness to partake personally in those ‘politics of disruption’ that she would continually advocate as the right course for suffragists in the new century.
This chapter describes Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's pacifism over her militancy. She wrote of ‘our outlanders’ at home, castigating the government for preparing to defend the rights of disenfranchised male settlers in the Boer Republics of South Africa while every British woman remained without a political voice. Her personal construction of militancy was never one that would envisage the loss of human life. Elizabeth's peerless organisational skills and her philosophy of ‘consent’ to government based on personal autonomy were crucial in achieving the success of the National Convention. She undertook the arduous work following the National Convention at a time of extreme anxiousness in her private life. Her engagement with socialist ideals took a final and possibly surprising turn and her total commitment to the style of militancy advocated by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was revised.
Though Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy privately lamented the loss of her husband, she seldom reflected on their lives together in her correspondence after 1906. As always, she resolutely overcame distress and looked to the future. Elizabeth journeyed to Manchester for two days of energetic campaigning and discussion regarding the planned ‘women's month’ in London, where both the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) had organised mass public demonstrations. She had wholeheartedly praised Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst's determination to take direct, disruptive action in seeking the adoption of a government women's suffrage bill, but the escalation of the methods of militancy used during 1908–12 brought her increasing unease. The Equal Franchise Act gave women the vote on the same terms as men.