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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’.
Introduction When the history of the struggle of women for freedom and opportunity, in this country is written, no name will stand higher than that of Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy (Margaret Sibthorp 1899)1 Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy was an ardent ‘woman emancipator’ from the 1860s, and the most significant British feminist theorist of her generation. Her principal contribution to feminist ideology was made in 1895, as honorary secretary of the Women’s Emancipation Union (WEU), a numerically small and short-lived parliamentary pressure group. Wolstenholme Elmy was the
carried detailed commentaries on the notorious case of Regina v. Jackson (known colloquially as the Clitheroe judgment on account of the location of events). The controversial case was brought to court on 16 March 1891 by Edmund WGH06.indd 151 151 5/26/2011 7:10:16 PM ELIZABETH WOLSTENHOLME ELMY Jackson, in an attempt to secure restitution of conjugal rights following his abduction and imprisonment of his wife Emily against her will.3 Though initially successful, his endeavours ultimately failed when the Court of Appeal set Mrs Jackson at liberty under a writ
middle daughter’s pregnancy out of wedlock in 1928 and, in her outrage, had openly castigated Sylvia for following Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy’s example.4 Sylvia’s estrangement from Emmeline was deeply affecting. It coloured her judgement and caused her to write The Suffragette Movement with a bitter pen; blaming the mother who ‘put the women’s cause before family loyalty’ for her own unhappiness.5 The resulting psychological trauma also likely coloured Sylvia’s attitude to Elizabeth (as the subject of her mother’s unkind comparison), for neglectful parenthood was
1 The making of a feminist: 1833–61 A past concealed The most well-known portrait photograph of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy presents an image of a petite, frail-looking elderly woman.1 Her hair is dressed in a cascade of grey ringlets and she gazes out at the viewer with penetrating, dark eyes. At the base of her throat a large cameo brooch is pinned to a dark dress. It is her only visible jewellery. While few of these images remain today, Elizabeth was proud that a professional photographer employed by the WSPU had travelled to her home in Buglawton, Cheshire
‘aspiring to prestige’, and amongst their number were those who shared with Elizabeth a clear sense of vocation to their task.12 She felt, at last, as if she were at the heart of a fellowship network, and her membership of the College of Preceptors provided her with the WGH02.indd 49 49 5/26/2011 7:10:14 PM ELIZABETH WOLSTENHOLME ELMY contextual framework in which to test her radicalism in a public way. Nowhere, however, did she indicate that these new professional opportunities should be offered to married women or mothers. Elizabeth’s commentaries on the nature
interest of Robert Smillie, the “adult” Suffragist’.12 While it may not have been an ‘unreasonable expectation of the ILP’ that the WSPU activists would campaign for Smillie, socialist moves to make reprisals were swift WGH08.indd 205 205 5/26/2011 7:10:49 PM ELIZABETH WOLSTENHOLME ELMY – although Elizabeth declared North Manchester’s censure to be an ‘impertinence [and] babyishly silly’.13 Julia Dawson, editor of the socialist newspaper The Clarion, felt differently, commenting that ‘the mighty’ force of the WSPU ‘had fallen’ by the wayside by its actions in
. The deterioration of her friendship with Becker, initially so uplifting to both, was a key contributing factor to her distress. Elizabeth made Becker’s acquaintance during the winter of 1867, only weeks after the founding of the North of England Council. Becker’s interests did not lie overtly in the field of women’s education, however. WGH03.indd 71 71 5/26/2011 7:10:43 PM ELIZABETH WOLSTENHOLME ELMY They centred instead on the possibility of their enfranchisement. She had only been introduced to the suffrage issue some months after Mill’s petition had been
that married women, once granted property rights, should be liable to contribute to the support of the household on an equal basis with their husbands. Why should they be thus constrained, she argued, when they had no rights whatever over the WGH05.indd 123 123 5/26/2011 7:10:45 PM ELIZABETH WOLSTENHOLME ELMY lives of their children?10 Only the boldest of claims adopted and pursued with the highest ethical motives would ever satisfy her and in the summer of 1883 she professed her intention to pursue legislation which sought ‘nothing less than the entire re
1890s to argue that women should never be forced to passively sanction laws which they had no voice in shaping – especially when their government had taken issue with such high-handedness elsewhere. As we have seen, Elizabeth argued in Women and the Law that motherhood, not militarism, should be the foundation for the granting of WGH07.indd 177 177 5/26/2011 7:10:47 PM ELIZABETH WOLSTENHOLME ELMY citizenship, and that the chief precondition to pregnancy should be a woman’s consent to it. In ‘Outlanders’ she explored the issue of consent from a wider