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Millicent Fawcett

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Dame
Millicent Fawcett
GBE
Born
Millicent Garrett

(1847-06-11)11 June 1847
Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England
Died5 August 1929(1929-08-05) (aged 82)
Bloomsbury, London, England
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Suffragist, union leader
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1867; died 1884)​
ChildrenPhilippa Fawcett
Parent(s)Newson Garrett
Louisa Dunnell

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was a British intellectual, political leader, activist and writer. She was the daughter of Newson and Louisa Garrett (née Dunnell) and is primarily known for her work as a campaigner for women's suffrage.

Fawcett, a suffragist, took a moderate line regarding women's rights, but was a tireless campaigner. In 1897, she became the president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), a position she held until 1919.[1] She placed much of her focus on improving women's opportunities for higher education, seeing that she served as a governor of Bedford College, London[2] (now Royal Holloway) and co-founded Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1875.[2]

Fawcett was also involved in politics and, in July 1901, she was appointed to lead the British government's commission to South Africa investigating conditions in the concentration camps that had been created there in the wake of the Second Boer War. Her report corroborated what the campaigner Emily Hobhouse had said about the terrible conditions in the camps.[3]

Biography

Fawcett's parents, Newson and Louisa Garrett, in their old age

Early life

Millicent Garrett Fawcett was born on 11 June 1847 in 1991Aldeburgh[2] to Newson Garrett (1812–1893), an entrepreneur from Leiston in Suffolk, and his wife, Louisa (née Dunnell; 1813–1903), from London.[4][5] She was the eighth of ten children.[3]

According to Ray and Barbara Strachey in their book The Cause:56 

A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain: "The Garretts were a close and happy family in which children were encouraged to be physically active, read widely, speak their minds, and share in the political interests of their father, a convert from Conservatism to Gladstonian Liberalism, a combative man, and a keen patriot".[6]

As a child, Fawcett's elder sister Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who became Britain's first female doctor, introduced her to Emily Davies, an English suffragist. In her mother's biography, Louisa Garrett Anderson quoted Davies saying to her mother, Elizabeth, and to Fawcett: "It is quite clear what has to be done. I must devote myself to securing higher education, while you open the medical profession to women. After these things are done, we must see about getting the vote." She then turned to Millicent, "You are younger than we are, Millie, so you must attend to that." [7]

At the age of 12, in 1858, Fawcett was sent to London with her sister Elizabeth to study at a private boarding school in Blackheath. Their sister Louise took Millicent to the sermons of Frederick Denison Maurice, a socially aware and less traditional Church of England minister, whose opinion influenced Millicent's view of religion. Fawcett's interest in women's rights[2] began when Millicent became an active supporter of John Stuart Mill, an early advocate of universal suffrage work.[3] At 19 she went to hear a speech of Mill's, on equal rights for women. Fawcett was impressed by Mill's practical support for women's rights on the basis of utilitarianism – rather than abstract principles.

In collaboration with ten other young, mostly single women, Garrett, Davies and Fawcett worked to form the Kensington Society in 1865. It was a discussion group focused around English women's suffrage.[3] A year later, aged 19, although too young to sign, Fawcett collected signatures for the first petition for women's suffrage[8] and became secretary of the London Society for Women's Suffrage.[2]

Suffrage Alliance Congress with Fawcett presiding, London 1909. Top row from left: Thora Daugaard (Denmark), Louise Qvam (Norway), Aletta Jacobs (Netherlands), Annie Furuhjelm (Finland), Madame Mirowitch (Russia), Käthe Schirmacher (Germany), Madame Honneger, unidentified. Bottom left: Unidentified, Anna Bugge (Sweden), Anna Howard Shaw (USA), Millicent Fawcett (Presiding, England), Carrie Chapman Catt (USA), F. M. Qvam (Norway), Anita Augspurg (Germany).

Marriage and family

Doorway of Millicent Fawcett's home at No. 2, Gower Street, London, with blue commemorative plaque

John Stuart Mill introduced her to many other women's rights activists, including Henry Fawcett, a Liberal Member of Parliament who had intended to marry her sister Elizabeth before she decided to focus on her medical career. Millicent and Henry became close friends, and, despite a fourteen-year age gap, they married on 23 April 1867.[8] Millicent took his surname, becoming Millicent Garrett Fawcett.[8] Henry had been blinded in a shooting accident in 1858, and Millicent acted as his secretary.[9] Their marriage was described as based on "perfect intellectual sympathy",[2] and Millicent pursued a writing career while caring for Henry. Their only child, Philippa Fawcett, was born in 1868.[2] Philippa excelled in school, which fared well with her mother and with women's rights.[10] Fawcett ran two households, one in Cambridge and one in London. The Fawcetts had some radical beliefs, as they supported proportional representation, trade unionism, individualistic and free trade principles, and opportunities for women.[10]

In 1868 Millicent joined the London Suffrage Committee, and in 1869 she spoke at the first public pro-suffrage meeting to be held in London.[2] In March 1870 she spoke in Brighton, her husband's constituency, and as a speaker was known for her clear speaking voice.[2] In 1870 she published Political Economy for Beginners, which although short was "wildly successful",[11] and ran through 10 editions in 41 years.[2][11][12] In 1872 she and her husband published Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects, which contained eight essays by Millicent.[2][13] In 1875 she co-founded Newnham Hall, and served on its council.[14]

Despite her many interests and duties, Millicent, together with Agnes Garrett, took on the raising of four of their cousins who had been orphaned at an early age; Amy Garrett Badley, Fydell Edmund Garrett, Elsie Garrett, later to become a prominent botanical artist in South Africa, and Elsie's twin, John.[15]

After the death of her husband on 6 November 1884, Fawcett temporarily withdrew from public life. She sold both family homes and moved with Philippa into the house of her sister, Agnes Garrett.[2] When she resumed work in 1885, Fawcett began to concentrate on politics and was a key member of what became the Women's Local Government Society.[16] Originally a Liberal, she joined the Liberal Unionist party in 1886 to oppose Irish Home Rule. She, much like other English Protestants, felt that allowing for Catholic Ireland to have home rule would hurt the prosperity of England and be a disaster for the Irish.[17]

Fawcett was granted an honorary LLD by the University of St Andrews in 1899,[18]

Foundation stone of Millicent Fawcett Hall in Westminster, London. Laid by Dame Millicent Garret Fawcett on 24 April 1929.

Political activities

Fawcett began her career in the political platform at twenty-two years old at the first women's suffrage meeting. After the death of Lydia Becker, Fawcett became the leader of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), the main suffragist organisation in Britain.

As leader of NUWSS, she was a moderate campaigner, distancing herself from the militant and violent activities of suffragettes like the Pankhursts and the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She believed their actions were harming women's chances of gaining the vote as they were alienating the MPs who were debating this topic and souring public opinion towards the campaign.[19] Despite the publicity given to the WSPU, the NUWSS, one of whose slogans was "Law-Abiding suffragists",[20] retained most support for the women's movement. By 1905, Fawcett's NUWSS had 305 constituent societies and almost fifty thousand members. In 1913 they had 50,000 members compared with the WSPU's 2,000.[21] Fawcett mainly fought for women's right to vote, and found home rule to be "a blow to the greatness and prosperity of England as well as disaster and ... misery and pain and shame".[22]

In Fawcett's book, Women's Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement, she explains her disaffiliation with the more militant movement:

I could not support a revolutionary movement, especially as it was ruled autocratically, at first, by a small group of four persons, and latterly by one person only ... In 1908, this despotism decreed that the policy of suffering violence, but using none, was to be abandoned. After that, I had no doubt whatever that what was right for me and the NUWSS was to keep strictly to our principle of supporting our movement only by argument, based on common sense and experience and not by personal violence or lawbreaking of any kind.[23]

The South African War created an opportunity for Fawcett to share female responsibilities in British culture. She was nominated to be the leader of the commission of women who were sent to South Africa.[10] In July 1901, she sailed to South Africa with other women "to investigate Emily Hobhouse's indictment of atrocious conditions in concentration camps where the families of the Boer soldiers were interned".[10] In Britain a woman had never been trusted with such a responsibility during wartime. Millicent fought for the civil rights of the Uitlanders, "as the cause of revival of interest in women's suffrage".[10]

Over many years, Fawcett had backed countless campaigns. A few campaigns she supported were "to curb child abuse by raising the age of consent, criminalising incest, cruelty to children within the family, to end the practice of excluding women from courtrooms when sexual offences were under consideration, to stamp out the 'white slave trade', and to prevent child marriage and the introduction of regulated prostitution in India".[10] Fawcett campaigned for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which reflected sexual double standards. The Acts required prostitutes to be examined for sexually transmitted diseases and if they were found to have passed disease to their clients, they were imprisoned. Women could be arrested on suspicion of being a prostitute, and be imprisoned for refusing consent to examinations which were invasive and painful. The men who infected the women were not subject to the Acts, which were repealed as a result of campaigning by Fawcett and others. She believed the double standard of morality would never become eradicated until women were represented in the public sphere of life.[10]

Fawcett was an author usually writing as Millicent Garrett Fawcett, but as a public figure she was Mrs Henry Fawcett.[10] Fawcett wrote three books, a co-authored book with her husband Henry and many articles, some of which were published posthumously.[24] Fawcett's textbook, Political Economy for Beginners, went to ten editions, sparked two novels and was reproduced in many languages. One of her first articles on women's education was published in Macmillan's Magazine in 1875. In 1875, Fawcett's interest in women's education lead her to become one of the founders of the Newnham College for Women in Cambridge. She served on the college council and supported a controversial bid for all women to receive Cambridge degrees.[10] Millicent was a speaker and lecturer at girls' schools, women's colleges, and adult education centres. In 1904, she resigned from the party on the issue of Free Trade when Joseph Chamberlain gained control in his campaign for Tariff Reform,.[25]

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the WSPU ceased all of their activities to focus on the war effort and Fawcett's NUWSS ceased political activity to support hospital services in training camps, Scotland, Russia and Serbia.[26] This was largely because the organisation was significantly less militant than the WSPU: it contained many more pacifists and support for the war within the organisation was weaker. The WSPU was called jingoistic because of its leaders' strong support for the war. While Fawcett was not a pacifist, she risked dividing the organisation if she ordered a halt to the campaign, and diverted NUWSS funds to the government, as the WSPU had done. The NUWSS continued to campaign for the vote during the war, and used the situation to their advantage by pointing out the contribution women had made to the war effort. She held this post until 1919, a year after the first women had been granted the vote in the Representation of the People Act 1918. After that, she left the suffrage campaign and devoted much of her time to writing books, including a biography of Josephine Butler.[27]

Later years

Fawcett was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 1925 New Year Honours.[28] She died four years later at her home in Gower Street, London.[29] Fawcett was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. Her memory is preserved in the name of the Fawcett Society, and in Millicent Fawcett Hall, constructed in 1929 in Westminster as a place where women could debate and discuss issues that affected them. The hall is owned by Westminster School and is used by its drama department in a 150-seat studio theatre.

Legacy

Fawcett, Mary Blathwayt and Dr Mary Morris at Eagle House

In 1910, Fawcett and Dr Mary Morris were invited to Eagle House near Bath. The house was owned by the Blathwayt family and it featured a garden where the leading suffragettes and suffragists had created an arboretum with a plaque for each notable activist.[30] Fawcett joined dozens of other women who had left commemorative plaques at the house. There was no complaint from the local archaeological society when it was demolished in the 1960s.[31]

The statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square.
The statue of Millicent Fawcett.

Fawcett is considered to be instrumental in gaining the vote for 8.5 million British women over 30 years old in 1918 (as occurred with the Representation of the People Act 1918.)[32]

The Fawcett Society continues to teach British women's suffrage history to younger generations and inspire young girls and women to continue the fight for gender equality while also creating campaigns like the #FawcettFlatsFriday to make strides in lessening the gender equality gap in Fawcett's name.[33]

The Fawcett archives are held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics, ref 7MGF.

"A memorial inscription added to the monument to Henry Fawcett in Westminster Abbey in 1932 asserts that Fawcett 'won citizenship for women'".[10]

The blue plaque for Fawcett, which states, "Dame Millicent Garrett FAWCETT 1847-1929 pioneer of women's suffrage lived and died here", was erected in 1954 by London County Council at 2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 6DP, London Borough of Camden, where Fawcett lived for 45 years and died.[34]

In February 2018 Fawcett was announced as the winner of the BBC Radio 4 poll for the most influential woman of the past 100 years.[35]

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, a statue of Fawcett by Gillian Wearing was erected in Parliament Square, London.[36][37][38] The campaign to erect the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square, led by Caroline Criado Perez, garnered more than 84,000 signatures on an on-line petition.[38] Fawcett's statue holds a banner quoting from a speech she gave in 1920, following Emily Davison's death during the 1913 Epsom Derby, reading "Courage calls to courage everywhere".[37] The statue was unveiled on 24 April 2018, by Britain's second female Prime Minister, Theresa May.[36]

Works

  • 1870: Political Economy for Beginners. Full text online.
  • 1872: Essays and Lectures on social and political subjects (written with Henry Fawcett). Full text online.
  • 1872: Electoral Disabilities of Women : a lecture
  • 1874: Tales in Political Economy. Full text online.
  • 1875: Janet Doncaster, a novel.
  • 1889: Some Eminent Women of our Times: short biographical sketches. Full text online.
  • 1895: Life of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Full text online.
  • 1901: Life of the Right Hon. Sir William Molesworth. Full text online.
  • 1905: Five Famous French Women. Full text online.
  • 1912: Women's Suffrage : a Short History of a Great Movement. ISBN 0-9542632-4-3. Full text online.
  • 1920: The Women's Victory and After: Personal reminiscences, 1911–1918. Full text online.
  • 1924: What I Remember (Pioneers of the Woman's Movement). ISBN 0-88355-261-2.
  • 1927: Josephine Butler: her work and principles and their meaning for the twentieth century (written with Ethel M. Turner).
  • dozens of articles for periodicals including The Englishwoman, Woman's Leader, Fraser's Magazine, National Review, Macmillan's Magazine, Common Cause, Fortnightly Review, Nineteenth Century and Contemporary Review.
  • Fawcett wrote the introduction to the 1891 edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Lyndall Gordon states this was an "influential essay", in which Fawcett cleansed the reputation of the early feminist philosopher and claimed her as a foremother of the struggle for the vote.[39]

See also

References

  1. ^ Maya Oppenheim (11 June 2018). "Millicent Fawcett: Who was the tireless suffragist and how did she change women's voting rights forever?". The Independent.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "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.
  3. ^ a b c d "Spartacus educational".
  4. ^ Manton, Jo (1965). Elizabeth Garrett Anderson: England's First Woman Physician. London: Methuen. p. 20.
  5. ^ Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (1986). Women in science: antiquity through the nineteenth century: a biographical dictionary with annotated bibliography (3 ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-15031-6.
  6. ^ Strachey, Ray (2016). The Cause: A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1539098164.
  7. ^ Garrett Anderson, Louisa (1939). Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, 1836–1917. Faber and Faber.
  8. ^ a b c "Fawcett Society History".
  9. ^ "Millicent Garrett Fawcett". About.com. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Howarth, Janet. "Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  11. ^ a b "Millicent Garrett Fawcett, 1847–1929". The History of Economic Thought. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  12. ^ See Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1911). Political Economy for Beginners (10 ed.). London, UK: Macmillan and Co. Retrieved 22 June 2014. via Archive.org.
  13. ^ See Fawcett, Henry; Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1872). Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects. London, UK: Macmillan and Co. Retrieved 22 June 2014. via Archive.org.
  14. ^ Cicarelli, James; Julianne Cicarelli (2003). Distinguished Women Economists. Greenwood. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-313-30331-9.
  15. ^ Heesom, D. (1 March 1977). "A distinguished but little known artist: Elsie Garrett-Rice". Veld & Flora. 63 (1).
  16. ^ Doughan, David; Gordon, Professor Peter; Gordon, Peter (3 June 2014). Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825–1960. Taylor & Francis. pp. 223–224. ISBN 978-1-136-89777-1.
  17. ^ Rubinstein, David (Spring 1991). "Millicent Garrett Fawcett and the Meaning of Women's Emancipation, 1886-99". Victorian Studies. 34 (3): 367–368. JSTOR 3828580.
  18. ^ Howarth, 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 16 February 2013. She was also a frequent speaker and lecturer at girls' schools and women's colleges and in adult education: it was for her services to education that the University of St Andrews awarded her an honorary LLD in 1899. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  19. ^ Van Wingerden, Sophia A. (1999). The women's suffrage movement in Britain, 1866–1928. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-312-21853-9.
  20. ^ Velllacott, Jo (1987). "Feminist Consciousness and the First World War". History Workshop. 23 (23): 81–101. doi:10.1093/hwj/23.1.81. JSTOR 4288749.
  21. ^ National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. "NUWSS". National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
  22. ^ Rubinstein, David. "Millicent Garrett Fawcett and the Meaning of Woman's Emancipation, 1886–99". Victorian Studies. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  23. ^ Garrett Fawcett, Millicent (2015). Women's Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 185. ISBN 9781534750159.
  24. ^ Rubinstein, David. "Millicent Garrett Fawcett and the Meaning of Women's Emancipation, 1886–9 9". Victorian Studies. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  25. ^ "Fawcett, Dame Millicent Garrett [née Millicent Garrett] (1847–1929), leader of the constitutional women's suffrage movement and author | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". www.oxforddnb.com. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001 (inactive 8 March 2019). Retrieved 2 March 2019.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of March 2019 (link)
  26. ^ Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1924). What I remember. p. 238.
  27. ^ Millicent Garrett Fawcett; E. M. Turner (2002). Josephine Butler: Her Work and Principles and Their Meaning for the Twentieth Century. Portrayer Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9542632-8-7.
  28. ^ "No. 33007". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1925. p. 5.
  29. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  30. ^ "Suffragettes Millicent Fawcett, Mary Blathwayt and Dr. Mary Morris (front right to left) 1910, Blathwayt, Col Linley". Bath in Time, Images of Bath online. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  31. ^ Cynthia Imogen Hammond (5 July 2017). "Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765?965 ": Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Taylor & Francis. pp. 198–. ISBN 978-1-351-57612-3.
  32. ^ "Millicent Fawcett: Courage calls to courage everywhere". politics.co.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  33. ^ "What We've Achieved".
  34. ^ "FAWCETT, Dame Millicent Garrett (1847-1929)". English Heritage. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  35. ^ "Today's 'most influential woman' vote". BBC Radio 4.
  36. ^ a b Jones, Sophie (18 April 2018). "Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square". Epsom Guardian. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  37. ^ a b "Millicent Fawcett statue gets Parliament Square go ahead". BBC News Online. BBC. 20 September 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  38. ^ a b Katz, Brigit (4 April 2017). "London's Parliament Square Will Get Its First Statue". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  39. ^ Gordon, Lyndall. Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. Great Britain: Virago, 2005, p. 521. ISBN 1-84408-141-9.

Archives

The archives of Millicent Fawcett are held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics ref 7MGF

External links

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