Millicent Garrett Fawcett

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (née Garrett; 11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an English political activist and writer. She campaigned for women's suffrage by legal change and in 1897–1919 led Britain's largest women's rights association, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), explaining, "I cannot say I became a suffragist. I always was one, from the time I was old enough to think at all about the principles of Representative Government." She tried to broaden women's chances of higher education, as a governor of Bedford College, London (now Royal Holloway) and co-founding Newnham College, Cambridge in 1871. In 2018, a century after the Representation of the People Act, she was the first woman honoured by a statue in Parliament Square.

Biography

Early life

Fawcett was born on 11 June 1847 in Aldeburgh, to Newson Garrett (1812–1893), a businessman from nearby Leiston, and his London wife Louisa (née Dunnell, 1813–1903). She was the eighth of their ten children.

According to Ray Strachey, "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."

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 quotes Davies as saying to her mother, to 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."

Aged twelve in 1858, Millicent Garrett was sent to London with her sister Elizabeth to attend a private boarding school in Blackheath. Millicent found Louisa Browning who led the school to be a "born teacher" whereas her sister remembered the "stupidity" of the teachers. Her sister Louise took her to the sermons of Frederick Denison Maurice, a socially aware and less traditional Anglican priest, whose opinions influenced her view of religion. In 1865, she attended a lecture by John Stuart Mill. The following year, she and a friend, Emily Davies, supported the Kensington Society by collecting signatures for a petition asking Parliament to enfranchise women householders.

Marriage, family and the suffrage movement

John Stuart Mill introduced Millicent Garrett 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 married on 23 April 1867. Henry had been blinded in a shooting accident in 1858 and Millicent acted as his secretary. Their marriage was said to be based on "perfect intellectual sympathy"; Millicent pursued a writing career while caring for Henry, and ran two households, one in Cambridge, one in London. The family held strong beliefs in favour of proportional representation, individualistic and free trade principles, and advancement for women. Their only child, Philippa, born in 1868, was much encouraged by her mother in her studies. In 1890 Philippa became the first woman to obtain top score in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos exams.

In 1868 Fawcett joined the London Suffrage Committee, and in 1869 spoke at the first public pro-suffrage meeting held in London. In March 1870 she spoke in Brighton, her husband's constituency. As a speaker she was said to have a clear voice. In 1870 she published her short Political Economy for Beginners, which was "wildly successful", running to 10 editions in 41 years. In 1871 she contributed an article to Macmillan's Magazine entitled "A short explanation of Mr. Hare's scheme of representation," concerning single transferable voting. In 1872 Fawcett and her husband published Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects, containing eight of her essays. Fawcett and Anne Clough's interest in higher education for women saw the co-founding of Newnham Hall in 1871 where Millicent served on the Council of the Newnham Hall (later Newnham College) Company from 1881 to 1909. During this time, she and fellow suffragists, including Ethel Snowden, Miss Alison and Mrs Arnold Lupton, delivered speeches to crowds but were, on occasion, objected to by some of their audience.

Despite many interests and duties, Fawcett and her sister Agnes raised four of their cousins, who had been orphaned early in life: Amy Garrett Badley, Fydell Edmund Garrett, Elsie Garrett (who became a prominent botanical artist in South Africa), and Elsie's twin, John. In 1874 Fawcett had a bad fall from a horse that prevented her from attending a meeting of the National Society for Women's Suffrage in Leeds.

After Fawcett's husband died on 6 November 1884, she temporarily withdrew from public life, sold both family homes and moved with Philippa to the house of her sister, Agnes . Enid Moberly Bell's biography of social reformer Octavia Hill records that Hill had "set her heart on securing" the Fawcetts' home, The Lawn, in Lambeth "as a park for Lambeth". At this time, Fawcett, an instigator for the park's creation, gave a speech at Lambeth Palace, which had been lent by the Archbishop for the meeting, and The Lawn, renamed Vauxhall Park, was formally opened in July 1890, by the Prince of Wales; Princess Louise, who had followed Octavia's work with interest and sympathy for many years was present.

When Fawcett resumed work in 1885, she concentrated on politics and was a key member of what became the Women's Local Government Society. Originally a Liberal, she joined the Liberal Unionist Party in 1886 to oppose Irish Home Rule. She, like many English Protestants, felt that allowing home rule for Catholic Ireland would hurt England's prosperity and be disastrous for the Irish. In 1885, Fawcett also voiced her support for W. T. Stead over his term of imprisonment. What made Stead exemplary, according to Fawcett, was his commitment to ‘protect and shelter the weak which echoed Dr Clifford's eulogy at Stead's Westminster Chapel memorial service: 'No movement that gave promise of help to woman called in vain for his chivalry and devotion.' Fawcett was a founder member of the National Vigilance Association, a moral purity campaign brought to prominence by Stead's 1885 exposure of the white slave trade in London. 'Stead Hostels' were named in his honour to house and protect young working women and girls.

In 1891 Fawcett wrote the introduction to a new edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Lyndall Gordon calls this an "influential essay"; she reasserted the reputation of the early feminist philosopher and claimed her as an early figure in the struggle for the vote.

Fawcett was granted an honorary doctorate of law by the University of St Andrews in 1899.