Millicent Garrett Fawcett

English social reformer

• Born: June 11, 1847
• Birthplace: Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England
• Died: August 5, 1929
• Place of death: London, England

A leader in advancing the causes of woman suffrage, education, and social reform. Fawcett also worked to end the double standard in the grounds for divorce, to improve women’s rights of guardianship over their children, and to open the legal profession to women.

Early Life

Millicent Garrett Fawcett (FAH-set) was the fifth daughter among the ten children of Newson Garrett, a self-made wealthy corn and coal merchant and shipowner, and Louisa Dunnell. Her mother was deeply religious and had less influence on her than her father. Millicent attended a school run by the aunt of the poet Robert Browning at Blackheath until she was fifteen. An apocryphal story recounted by Ray Strachey in her history of woman suffrage, The Cause (1928), tells how one night, after Millicent, her sister Elizabeth, and their friend Emily Davis had discussed what each might accomplish, Emily responded,

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.… You are younger than we are Milli, so you must attend to that.

They all succeeded.

In 1864, Elizabeth met Henry Fawcett, a blind professor of political economy at Cambridge. He proposed to her but was spurned. In the meantime, Millicent frequently visited Louise, the oldest of the Garrett sisters, in London. Louise, like Elizabeth, was a feminist. In 1865 she took Millicent to hear a speech on women’s rights by John Stuart Mill. There Millicent, who was eighteen, also met Fawcett, a disciple of John Stuart Mill. Eighteen months later, in April, 1867, over the objections of Elizabeth, who saw his modest income and his blindness as obstacles, they were married. A year later, Philippa, their only child, was born.

Life’s Work

In 1865, Henry Fawcett entered Parliament as the member from Brighton. A Liberal free-trader, his feminism was derived from his opposition to government regulation. Mrs. Fawcett acted as his secretary and soon added to her education. He encouraged her to submit articles to journals such as Macmillan’s Magazine in 1868 and to write Political Economy for Beginners in 1870. It provided, in simplified form, the economic gospel of Mill, heavily salted with self-help and individualism. It was an immediate success and went to ten editions. Together, the Fawcetts wrote Essays and Lectures in Political Subjects in 1872. At that time, Mrs. Fawcett’s views on self-help were extreme. She even opposed free education because, as a result, a father otherwise prone to alcoholism might instead strive to provide an education for his children.

Henry Fawcett supported Mill’s effort to give women the vote in 1867, favoring a bill that included not only widows and spinsters (who had become heads of households) but also married women. In 1884, as postmaster general in Gladstone’s cabinet, he clashed with the prime minister’s opposition to including women in the 1884 Franchise Reform Act. He also opposed legislation in 1874 regulating the labor of women in the textile industry. Unfortunately, Henry Fawcett died in 1884 from pleurisy.

Before his death, Mrs. Fawcett published a successful novel, Janet Doncaster (1875). It was slow-moving, with little action, and was mainly a temperance tract. Her second novel, published under a pseudonym so that she could see if it could stand on its own merits, was not as successful.

A widow at the age of thirty-seven, Mrs. Fawcett intensified her interest in the cause of women’s rights. Even while she had written about economic topics during the 1870’s, she had continued her interest in the cause of woman suffrage. In July, 1867, she had become a member of the first regular Women’s Suffrage Committee in London and had made her first speech in Manchester in 1868. Now, during the 1880’s and 1890’s, she became active in two related causes of interest to women: the Contagious Diseases Acts controversy and the Henry Cust case.

When the Contagious Diseases Acts controversy had first emerged as an issue during the 1860’s, Mrs. Fawcett had refused to become involved for fear that it might split the suffrage movement. The acts aimed to protect members of the armed forces from venereal diseases by requiring the compulsory examination of suspected prostitutes. Both feminists and moralists opposed the acts for seeming to accept prostitution while discriminating against women by forcing them to submit to involuntary medical examination. The appearance of William Thomas Stead’s articles on white slavery in the Pall Mall Gazette came in 1885, shortly after Mrs. Fawcett’s husband’s death. It provided her with a cause she could support in her husband’s memory and on behalf of women’s rights. She became a leader in the Vigilance Society, which was formed to repeal the acts and protect the virtue of young women. Later, in 1927, she wrote a biography of Josephine Butler, its leader.

Mrs. Fawcett waged another moral crusade in 1894, over Henry Cust, a Conservative M.P. from Manchester. Cust had seduced and made pregnant a young girl whom he subsequently abandoned; he then proposed marriage to another woman. When the girl wrote Cust a letter begging him to marry her, he flaunted its contents to some friends. As a Vigilance Society member, Mrs. Fawcett launched a campaign that finally succeeded in forcing Cust to abandon his candidacy and marry the girl whom he had seduced. Unfortunately, Mrs. Fawcett continued attacks on Cust until her friends had to restrain her zeal because of the damage it was doing to the cause of woman suffrage.

As a women’s rights advocate, Mrs. Fawcett argued for equal grounds for divorce and improvement in the rights of women as guardians of children. She was a staunch defender of the family; her championing of the rights of women did not extend to supporting sexual freedom. Even her daughter Philippa contributed to the cause of women’s equality when, in 1890, she proved superior to the senior wrangler (the Cambridge honors graduate in mathematics) on the mathematical tripos list.

Throughout the 1880’s, Mrs. Fawcett tried to remain aloof from party commitment. The 1867 Reform Act had given the right to vote to all male borough householders who personally paid rates or rented lodgings at more than ten pounds a year. The 1884 Reform Act extended these provisions to the rural areas of Great Britain. The strenuous efforts by Liberal Party managers to exclude women householders from the Reform Bill of 1884 made Mrs. Fawcett reject an invitation to join the Council of the Women’s Liberal Federation, and finally in 1887, as a nationalist, she abandoned her husband’s party to join the Liberal Unionists over the issue of home rule. She broke with it in 1903 because of her commitment to free trade. Throughout her life, she remained committed to liberal principles and evolutionary politics but not economic reform. She championed the right of women to work in the mining industry. In 1898, she opposed attempts to prohibit women working with phosphorus. Her opposition was based on feminist and libertarian grounds.

The 1890’s witnessed some gains and some reversals in the woman suffrage movement. In order to understand the irregular progress of the woman suffrage movement in Great Britain and the obstacles facing Mrs. Fawcett, it must be realized that even opponents of woman suffrage believed that all rate payers ought to vote in local municipal elections, if not for members of Parliament. In 1869, the Municipal Franchise Act had enfranchised women taxpayers, although the courts later ruled that this included only single women. Married women who were taxpayers, however, could vote for school boards in 1870, poor law boards in 1875, county councils in 1888, and parish and district councils in 1894. Moderate women suffragists could look to the past with some satisfaction as a precedent for a gradual strategy.

In 1887, Lydia Becker, the leader of the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Society and editor of the Women’s Suffrage Journal, died. In April, 1892, Sir Arthur Rollitt’s private member’s bill to enfranchise widows and spinsters who already had the right to vote failed by a mere twenty-three votes. Between 1890 and 1897, the number of woman suffrage societies dwindled from one thousand to fewer than two hundred. Finally, in 1897, a committee met in Westminster Town Hall and elected Mrs. Fawcett president of a new umbrella organization, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

The union was made up of independent societies in all parts of the nation and proposed to gain the same terms for suffrage as were currently or might eventually be granted to men. A petition drive netted more than a quarter million signatures, and more than 140 meetings were held. Mrs. Fawcett was busy speaking, lobbying individual members of Parliament, and organizing parades in all parts of the country. By 1906, the majority of NUWSS members were supporters of the Liberal Party, and the majority of Liberal M.P.’s elected in the 1906 landslide had individually pledged themselves to the women’s cause.

Before 1906, however, the center stage of political concern was occupied by the South African (Boer) War, which had begun in 1899, and Mrs. Fawcett was sent in July, 1901, to South Africa as a leader of an all-woman commission to investigate the conditions in British concentration camps exposed by Emily Hobhouse.

Throughout her life, Mrs. Fawcett was a nationalist and imperialist, and while her report was on the whole sympathetic to government goals, her criticisms entitle her to be considered the “Florence Nightingale” of the South African War. Her recommendations were implemented by Viscount Milner, and within a year the camp mortality rate fell below that of Glasgow, although not before more than twenty-five thousand had died from measles and typhoid epidemics.

The suffrage cause therefore languished between 1899 and 1905, when the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded. At first its militancy was welcomed by Mrs. Fawcett for the discussion it drew to the issue, but as eccentricity turned to violence she strongly condemned the use of physical violence in propaganda in 1908. She had earlier supported Ann Cobden Sanderson, who had been imprisoned, and her sister Elizabeth, who was a WSPU member for three years. In 1910, a temporary truce between the WSPU and NUWSS was reached and a joint parade and demonstration were staged.

The NUWSS during this period received heavy financial support from Mrs. Fawcett. She donated more than one hundred pounds to it, and by 1900 organizers received salaries totaling one thousand pounds and included six workingwomen. Until May, 1912, Mrs. Fawcett supported a policy that endorsed individual M.P.’s rather than parties to secure suffrage, but at that time she accepted the decision of the NUWSS to support Labour Party candidates because it had become the only party to support woman suffrage. It was in essence a declaration of war on the Liberal Party, given her opposition to socialism and support of self-help.

When the outbreak of World War I was imminent, the NUWSS held a large peace meeting in London, on August 4, but after the declaration of war, Mrs. Fawcett and most of the membership of the NUWSS called upon women to sustain the vital forces of the nation. In 1915, she defeated an attempt by pacifists to alter NUWSS policy. When the problem of adjusting the franchise to accommodate servicemen arose near the end of 1915 and the question of woman suffrage was raised, she reinitiated private lobbying efforts.

Later, as compulsory service legislation in February, 1917, rekindled interest in change of suffrage, Mrs. Fawcett supported a limited measure of woman suffrage and was encouraged when David Lloyd George replaced H. H. Asquith, whom she no longer trusted. In June, 1917, the measure passed the House of Commons, and in January, the House of Lords. In gratitude, Mrs. Fawcett broke her former attitude of nonpartisanship and became an outspoken supporter of Lloyd George and the coalition government. It was at the celebration of the suffrage victory in 1918 that the suffrage hymn utilizing William Blake’s poem Jerusalem was set to music by Sir Hubert Parry.

After World War I, the granting of family allowances, which was supported by Eleanor Rathbone, caused a split in the NUWSS. Mrs. Fawcett was convinced that allowances would destroy family life and were still another example of creeping socialism. As a consequence, she resigned from the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship(the new name for the NUWSS). Even so, she continued to support efforts to open the legal profession to women and to grant equal franchise to women under thirty years of age. The latter was achieved in 1928 while she was in Palestine. In 1929, she died of pneumonia.

Significance

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett was not flashy or charismatic. She epitomized the type of woman voter who supporters of woman suffrage believed would exercise the privilege responsibly: She was dignified and reliable, conciliatory yet determined. Though she disliked making speeches, her efforts were well prepared and logical; her delivery was clear and spiced with her keen sense of humor. Though lacking the beauty of the Pankhurst family, Mrs. Fawcett was an attractive woman, with a serene face, radiant complexion, and shiny brown hair. She was a hard worker and never employed a secretary. Her hobby was listening to music. While she championed women’s rights, she never believed in war between the sexes. As the Daily Telegraph’s obituary read,

The name of militants… are sometimes quoted as the leaders to victory, but in reality it was the woman of sweet reasonableness, womanly manner, quiet dress and cultured style who did more than any other in the cause of emancipation.

Bibliography

Banks, Olive. Faces of Feminism: A Study of a Social Movement. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. Best balanced, overall treatment of the subject. It covers more than suffrage, treating family, legal, and economic subjects.

Fawcett, Henry, and Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects. London: Macmillan, 1872. Contains four essays by Henry Fawcett and eight by Millicent Garrett Fawcett that show the influence of John Stuart Mill and opposition to overprotective legislation that might retard women’s independence and their ability to compete in society.

Fawcett, Millicent Garrett. What I Remember. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1924. Typically understates Mrs. Fawcett’s role but demonstrates the methodical planning and organization that characterized her leadership.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Women’s Victory and After: Personal Reminiscences. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1920. Interesting on the war years and the role of Lloyd George in achieving the partial attainment of woman suffrage.

Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, T. C. Jack, and E. C. Jack. Women’s Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement. London: People’s Books, 1912. Written during the period of WSPU militancy, this book shows Mrs. Fawcett’s faith in democracy within the ranks of the movement.

Goldman, Lawrence, ed. The Blind Victorian: Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Collection of essays analyzing Fawcett’s personal life, her friendship with John Stuart Mill, and his views on economics and politics. Includes an essay by David Rubinstein (see below), “Victorian Feminism: Henry and Millicent Garrett Fawcett.”

Oakley, Ann. “Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Duty and Determination.” In Feminist Theorists, edited by Dale Spender. New York: Random House, 1983. At times this book fails to allow for historical perspective and to understand the ideological stance of mid-Victorian liberalism. Interestingly, Oakley is one of few modern feminists to have studied Mrs. Fawcett.

Pugh, Martin. Women’s Suffrage in Britain, 1867-1929. London: Historical Association, 1980. A good historiographic survey that analyzes succinctly the relationship between the Edwardian period and wartime suffrage for franchise reform.

Rover, Constance. Women’s Suffrage and Party Politics in Britain, 1866-1914. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967. A lively account of the political aspects of woman suffrage and narratives of the cabinet-WSPU battle.

Rubinstein, David. A Different World for Women: The Life of Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991. Comprehensive biography, describing Fawcett’s life, career, and personality.

Stephen, Leslie. The Life of Henry Fawcett. London: Smith, Elder, 1886. Details Fawcett’s views on woman suffrage and feminism and is valuable for understanding why his wife did not become an antimale crusader.

Strachey, Ray. Millicent Garrett Fawcett. London: John Murray, 1931. Written by her close friend of many years, this work is bland and uncontroversial. It views Mrs. Fawcett and NUWSS as part of a development broader even than the women’s movement.