Emily Davies

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Standard Name: Davies, Emily
Birth Name: Sarah Emily Davies
ED 's literary work arose from her deep-seated belief in equal treatment for women. Most of her articles and essays were pragmatic contributions to the late nineteenth-century campaign, of which she was a leader, to improve female education. She positioned herself not as a radical seeking to overthrow the structures of society, but as a member of the establishment seeking reasonable reform.
Photograph of a painting of Emily Davies by Rudolph Lehmann, 1880, seated with her hands clasped in her lap. She is wearing a dark green dress, with white ruffles at the sleeves and neckline, and a white cap on her head.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
politics Robert Browning
RB demonstrated his own progressive commitment to higher education for women by signing Emily Davies 's 1867 Memorial Respecting the Need of a Place of Higher Education for Girls. He also publicly supported anti-vivisection...
politics Isa Craig
Together with feminist colleagues Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Emily Davies , IC helped publicise John Stuart Mill's parliamentary nomination.
Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon 1827-1891: Feminist, Artist and Rebel. Chatto and Windus, 1998.
216
politics Henrietta Müller
HM was elected to the London School Board in a landslide, topping the poll with 19,000 votes. She was the third woman on the board; this was the month after Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett
politics Millicent Garrett Fawcett
MGF 's name became in time so identified with the suffrage struggle that a story arose depicting her sister Elizabeth and Emily Davies entrusting the issue of suffrage to her when she was a little...
politics Helen Taylor
HT 's radical socialist principles were evident in her work for educational and land reform, as well as in her effort in 1885 to stand for parliament.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
As Philippa Levine puts it in the Oxford...
politics Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
Among the women present at the meeting was Emily Davies , who had presented her arguments for female suffrage to John Stuart Mill when he took the first petition advocating female enfranchisement before Parliament on...
politics Bessie Rayner Parkes
Although BRP fought ardently for female empowerment, she was not as vocal in her opinions as many of her contemporaries, including Barbara Leigh Smith, Emily Davies , and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson . She was firm...
politics Lydia Becker
Other women who served in this position were Elizabeth Garrett and Emily Davies in London, and Flora Stevenson in Edinburgh. LB was re-elected seven consecutive times. The passage of the 1870 Education Act had created...
politics Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
BLSB and other Langham feminists such as Jessie Boucherett and Emily Davies formed the society for the discussion of political and social issues. The first meeting was held at the home of Charlotte Manning ...
Textual Production Matilda Hays
Emily Davies took over in 1862.
Textual Production Bessie Rayner Parkes
As editor of the new English Woman's Journal from April 1857, BRP saw the paper as representing the Working Woman, a term that she defined as intended to include all women who are actively...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Una Marson
Through her editorship of the magazine, UM drew attention to issues such as single motherhood, women struggling on meagre incomes, and unemployment among domestic workers. This is the age of woman: what man has done...

Timeline

9 August 1870: The Education Act established a national...

National or international item

9 August 1870

The Education Act established a national elementary education system governed by local school boards, to which women could be elected.
Simon, Brian. Studies in the History of Education, 1780-1870. Lawrence and Wishart, 1960.
364-5
Purvis, June. A History of Women’s Education in England. Open University Press, 1991.
25-6
Levine, Philippa. Victorian Feminism 1850-1900. Hutchinson, 1987.
40
Norman, Edward R. The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century. Clarendon, 1984.
159
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers, 1918.
4, 35

October 1873: Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett, the first...

National or international item

October 1873

Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett , the first women elected to the London School Board , resigned.
Levine, Philippa. Victorian Feminism 1850-1900. Hutchinson, 1987.
40-1

26 June to 5 July 1899: The International Council of Women sponsored...

Building item

26 June to 5 July 1899

The International Council of Women sponsored the International Congress of Women , a ten-day conference held at Westminster Town Hall in London. Those attending included Susan B. Anthony , Sidney Webb , Josephine Butler

19 May 1906: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, newly-elected...

National or international item

19 May 1906

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman , newly-elected Prime Minister, received a deputation of suffragists.
Hume, Leslie Parker. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1897-1914. Garland, 1982.
25n85
Holton, Sandra Stanley. Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Routledge, 1996.
121

14 December 1918: The post-war general election (sometimes...

National or international item

14 December 1918

The post-war general election (sometimes called the coupon election) was the first in which some British women (those over thirty with a property qualification of their own or their husband's) voted.
Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst. Kraus Reprint, 1969.
166
Palmer, Alan, and Veronica Palmer. The Chronology of British History. Century, 1992.
356
Davies, Emily. “Chronology, Introduction”. Collected Letters, 1861-1875, edited by Ann E. Murphy and Deirdre Raftery, University of Virginia Press, 2004, p. ix - xii, xix-lv.
xlviii
“The 1918 coupon general election”. Liberal Democrat History Group.
Hamilton, Mary Agnes. Remembering My Good Friends. Jonathan Cape, 1944.
92
“Houses of the Oireachtas—Where it began!”. Houses of the Oireachtas / Tithe an Oireachtas.

1926: New statutes at Cambridge University first...

Building item

1926

New statutes at Cambridge University first permitted women to hold university (as opposed to merely college) teaching posts, to belong to university faculties and sit on faculty boards.
Greenspan, Karen. The Timetables of Women’s History. Simon and Shuster, 1994.
328
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
“Girton College”. British History Online, 2012.

6 July 1928: Four days after the Representation of the...

Building item

6 July 1928

Four days after the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act received the royal assent, a celebratory breakfast was held at the Hotel Cecil in London.
“July 6, 1928, Celebrating full women’s suffrage”. Guardian Weekly, 6 July 2007, p. 20.
20

15, 17 June 2011: The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) released...

Building item

15, 17 June 2011

The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) released a digitized version of documents, photos, banners, and personal mementoes from the struggle of British women for suffrage, housed at the Women's Library and the British parliamentary archives.
Doherty, Teresa. Emails to the Women’s History Network. 15 June 2011.

Texts

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