Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Wollestonecroft, Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole – all names most of us have heard of, well documented in mainstream political and historical literature. But what if there were others, hidden from the limelight, who fought unwaveringly for social progress, and how can we learn from their work?
This is what writer, lecturer and social historian Jane Robinson attempts to tackle in her latest book on Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon – a true ‘Trailblazer’ and an underground icon of the social reform movement(s) of the nineteenth century. I was lucky enough to see Jane’s lecture on her newest project as part of the ‘Off the Shelf’ Festival of Words this October, and was introduced to Bodichon – feminist, abolitionist, socialist, radical, artist and activist – of whom I previously had no knowledge.
The right to vote, access to education and employment and financial independence are all concepts that have been seminal in the development of the feminism… and Bodichon was a key player in promoting them all. She organised the first mass petition for women’s suffrage, comprising 1500 signatures from women of various ages, educational levels, regions, and classes, to be considered in the House of Commons. She founded the first women’s university college at Cambridge. She ran a groundbreaking infants school that insisted on the education of boys and girls, middle and working class children side-by-side, to learn from each other and reduce prejudice.
She started a campaign for women to possess property and have financial autonomy in marriage, and advocated for the ability of women of all classes to work and raise a family simultaneously if they so wished. Not only this, Bodichon campaigned for compassion in the treatment of mental illness, and promoted the idea that addiction, and other social ills that were treated as diseases of the mind, were in fact symptoms of mental distress and should be treated as such.
Bodichon was in the engine room of seemingly every social change in Victorian England, which begs the question of why she is so absent from mainstream discourse… Robinson had a few answers to this bizarre situation – most interestingly that Bodichon’s position as a social outcast (due to her having been born out of wedlock) handicapped her legacy.
Certainly, Bodichon had an impressive list of eccentric acquaintances from the time, with a foot in the door of a plethora of poets, artists and radicals. Perhaps not considering herself as a respectable Victorian lady allowed her to escape the narrow life she would’ve otherwise led as a wealthy woman, and pursue controversial and ‘unseemly’ projects in order to have an impact as widespread and significant as she did. Overall, Bodichon is a very interesting and inspiring character and I would urge you all to delve further into her story.
Rating: ★★★★★
Trailblazer: The First Feminist to Change Our World was published in February 2024. Other Off the Shelf Festival events can be found here
