Biographies

Elizabeth Wolstenholme

Elizabeth Wolstenholme, the daughter of a Methodist minister from Eccles, was born in 1834. Elizabeth's brother Joseph received an expensive private education and eventually became professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. The Rev. Wolstenholme held traditional views on girls schooling and Elizabeth only received two years of formal education.

After the death of both her parents, her guardians refused permission for Elizabeth to attend the newly opened, Bedford College for Women. Elizabeth decided to educate herself at home until she gained her inheritance at the age of nineteen. In 1853 Elizabeth purchased her own boarding school in Manchester.

Elizabeth believed that teaching was a highly skilled occupation that needed special training. In 1865 Elizabeth Wolstenholme joined with other women schoolteachers in her area to form the Manchester Schoolmistresses' Association. Two years later Elizabeth and Josephine Butler helped establish the North of England Council for the Higher Education of Women. This organisation provided lectures and examinations for women who wanted to become schoolteachers.

Elizabeth felt passionate about improving the quality of women's education. In 1869 Josephine Butler asked Elizabeth to contribute an article on education for her book Women's Work and Women's Culture. The article criticised middle class parents for their lack of interest in their daughter's education and set out her plans for a system of high schools for girls in every town in Britain.

In 1864 Parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Act. This act required women suspected of being prostitutes to undergo compulsory medical examination. If the women were suffering from venereal disease they were placed in a locked hospital until cured. Elizabeth Wolstenholme considered this law discriminated against women, as the legislation contained no similar sanctions against men. Elizabeth and her friend, Josephine Butler decided to form the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Elizabeth Wolstenholme took the view that it would be impossible to have legislation like this reformed until after women had the vote. In 1865 she joined with Lydia Becker to form the Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage.

In the early 1870s Elizabeth became friendly with Benjamin Elmy, a poet from Congleton. Elmy supported Elizabeth in her many campaigns and in 1874 the couple were married. However Elizabeth was an atheist and refused to get married in church. Elizabeth was also hostile to the marriage laws that discriminated against women. The wedding was a civil ceremony and true to her principals, Elizabeth refused to make a promise of obedience to her husband. She also refused to wear a wedding ring or to give up her surname. Three months after their marriage, Elizabeth gave birth to a son.

Elizabeth worked closely with Richard Pankhurst on several campaigns. She was a member of the Married Women's Property Committee which eventually led to the Married Women's Property Act (1882) and later she joined with Pankhurst to campaign for the Custody of Infants Act (1886), which improved the custody rights of mothers.

In 1889 Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy joined Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst to form the Women's Franchise League. Elizabeth, like Richard and Emmeline, was also a member of the Manchester branch of the Independent Labour Party. By the early 1900s Elizabeth had become very critical of what she called the "fiddle-faddling" of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and was one of the first people to join the Women's Social and Political Union. However, Elizabeth was now in her seventies and was not able to take any actions that would result in her going to prison. Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Ely died in 1913.

Biographical Links

Josephine Butler
Emmeline Pankhurst

Sources

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5.3
8.6
9.10

Further Reading

Sandra Holton, Suffrage Days, Routledge (1996)
Lee Holcolme, Wives and Property, Martin Robertson (1983)
Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, Longmans (1931)

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