Biographies

Louisa Martindale

Louisa, the eldest daughter of James Spicer and Louisa Edwards, was born in 1839. James Spicer, the owner a large wholesale paper business, and Louisa, were committed Congregationalists, and brought up their ten children to believe in religious and moral reform.

After leaving school Louisa involved herself in charity work and helped form a Mutual Improvement Society and a Congregationalist Sunday School. She also began to take an interest in the newly emerging women's movement.

In 1871 Louisa married William Martindale, a widower with four young children. In the next four years Louisa had two children of her own, Louisa (born 1873) and Hilda (born 1875). After the death of her husband Louisa moved to Lewes in Sussex.

Louisa had recently read a book by Mary Wollstonecraft called A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Louisa agreed with Wollstonecraft that girls should have the same educational opportunities as boys. However, this was very difficult, as there were few schools in the country that provided a good academic education for girls. At first she tried to start her own school for girls in Lewes, but she experienced so much opposition from the people in the town she decided to abandon the project. In 1885 she moved to Brighton so that her two daughters might attend the Brighton High School for Girls.

Once she had settled in Brighton, Louisa began to play an active role in local politics. She was a prominent member of the Brighton Women's Co-operative Guild and wrote several pamphlets on the movement.

Louisa also helped start a Brighton branch of the Suffrage Society and with the assistance of Marie Corbett helped form a woman's suffrage group within the Liberal Federation. Louisa's home in Brighton became an important centre of the women's movement in Sussex and it was here that Margaret Bondfield, then a young shop girl, had her first chance to develop her political ideas. Although Louisa had many friends in the Women's Political Social Union (WPSU) she remained a loyal supporter of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

Louisa set up a dispensary for women in Brighton and with the help of her two daughters, Louisa and Hilda and two other feminists in Brighton, Elizabeth Robins and Octavia Wilberforce she was able raise the funds for the building of the New Sussex Hospital for Women. Louisa died in 1914.

Louisa's two daughters both played important roles in feminist campaigns. Louisa Martindale (1873-1966) was a member of the national executive of the NUWSS and although not a militant, she did help to hide members of the WPSU from the police. Louisa wrote a pamphlet on prostitution for the NUWSS but when it was published members of the House of Commons described it as obscene and called for it to be withdrawn. In 1906 she became the first woman GP in Brighton and later became the senior surgeon of New Sussex Hospital for Women. By the 1930s Louisa Martindale was considered one of the world's leading experts on Obstetrics and Gynaecology and toured the world giving lectures on the subject. Louisa Martindale wrote two books on her medical career: The Woman Doctor and Her Future and The Woman Surgeon.

Hilda Martindale (1875-1952) became one of Britain's first women factory inspectors. In 1903 she wrote an influential report on lead poisoning in brickworks. This was followed by an investigation into women outworkers in Ireland. By 1914 she was a Senior Lady Inspector and played an important role in dealing with the difficulties involved in the substitution of women for men in industry.

In 1933 Hilda Martindale joined the Treasury and became one of the first women to reach the higher levels of the Civil Service. As a member of the Whitley Council Committee on Women's Question she argued strongly for equal pay and the right of women to choose whether or not to leave their occupation when they got married. After retiring in 1937, Hilda wrote several books including Women Servants of the State: 1870-1938, A History of Women in the Civil Service, Some Victorian Portraits and a book on her family, One Generation to Another.

Biographical Links

Marie Corbett
Elizabeth Robbins
Octavia Wilberforce
Margaret Bondfield

Source Database

6.1
6.2
7.12
7.15
9.9
11.2

Internet Link

Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft
gopher://gopher.vt.edu:10010/02/161/1

Further Reading

Louisa Martindale, The Woman Doctor and the Future, Mills & Boon (1922)
Louisa Martindale, A Woman Surgeon, Gollancz (1951)
Hilda Martindale, From One Generation to Another: 1839-1944, Allen & Unwin (1944)
Hilda Martindale, A History of Women in the Civil Service, Allen & Unwin (1938)

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