Anna Wheeler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | c. 1780 |
| Died | 7 May 1848(1848-05-07) (aged 67–68) Camden, London, England |
| Occupations | Writer and supporter ofwomen's rights |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Rosina Bulwer Lytton |
Anna Wheeler (c. 1780 – 1848), also known by her maiden name ofAnna Doyle, was an Irish-born British writer and advocate ofpolitical rights for women and the benefits of contraception. She married Francis Massey Wheeler when she was "about 16" and he was "about 19", although the year is not known. They separated twelve years later. After his death she supplemented her income by translating the works of French philosophers.[1]
She was an acquaintance ofRobert Owen,Jeremy Bentham, andFrances Wright. The philosopherWilliam Thompson described his bookAppeal of One Half of the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain them in Political, and Hence in Civil and Domestic, Slavery as the "joint property" of himself and her.
A staunch advocate of political rights for women and equal opportunities in education, she was friendly with French feminists and socialists.
Anna Doyle was the daughter of the Rev. Nicholas Milley Doyle, aChurch of Ireland clergyman,[2] Rector ofNewcastle, County Tipperary. She had no formal education, but learned French, geography, reading and writing at home. In 1795, at about the age of fifteen, she married Francis Massey Wheeler, of Lizard Connell,[2] heir to an estate at Ballywire, who proposed to her at a ball. Born in 1776, and a grandson ofHugh Massy, 1st Baron Massy (1700–1788)[3] he was himself only nineteen,[4] and they set up home inCounty Limerick. According to the autobiography of her daughter Rosina, Wheeler had five daughters,[5] although a more general source says two.[6] Her daughter Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who later wrote that she had been born in 1802,[5] became the novelistRosina Bulwer Lytton.
Wheeler read widely, taking in both the FrenchAge of Enlightenment thinkers andMary Wollstonecraft. Her husband was an abusive alcoholic, so she separated from him after twelve years by moving toGuernsey to live with her uncle,General Sir John Doyle then in post asLieutenant Governor of Guernsey. In 1815 she moved to London, to benefit the education of her daughters. By 1816 she had started journeying through France.[1]
One of her brothers,Sir John Milley Doyle (1781–1856) was a commander of British and Portuguese forces in thePeninsular War and theWar of the Two Brothers.[7]
Wheeler's husband died in 1820 and left her penniless, so she supplemented her income by translating into English the works ofCharles Fourier and other FrenchOwenite philosophers. She managed to spend her life travelling, staying with friends and promoting the news and ideas of the feminist movement. She lived principally in London, Dublin,Caen, and Paris.[1]
In London, she metRobert Owen,Jeremy Bentham andFrances Wright, and became close friends withWilliam Thompson. In 1825, provoked byJames Mill's dismissal of political representation for women, Thompson wroteAppeal of One Half of the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain them in Political, and Hence in Civil and Domestic, Slavery.[1][8] Thompson described the book as the "joint property" of himself and Anna Wheeler. They were both advocates of the benefits of contraception.[1]
Wheeler was one of the first women to campaign for women's rights at public meetings in England. She sometimes spoke at theSouth Place Chapel, "a radical gathering-place"[9] then under the leadership of the ReverendWilliam Johnson Fox[10] and now better known asConway Hall.Unitarians, like Quakers, supported female equality,[11] and this chapel, situated onFinsbury Square in central London,[12] gave her the pulpit to speak on "The Rights of Women". In this address of 1829, Wheeler forensically refuted arguments for male superiority and encouraged women to work together to create an organisation "to obtain... the removal of the disabilities of women and the introduction of a national system of equal education for the Infants of both sexes."
A staunch advocate of political rights for women and of equal opportunities in education, Wheeler was a friend of the French feminists and socialistsFlora Tristan andDesirée Veret.[13] In the early 1830s. she helped to establish the journalLa Tribune des femmes [fr]. Her other friends and associates includedHenri Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier,Suzanne Voilquin (editor ofTribune des femmes),Marie-Reine Guindorf, andJeanne Deroin.[1]
In 1833 William Thompson died, leaving Wheeler anannuity of £100, which was then enough to maintain a modest household.
Wheeler was forced to withdraw from public life in the 1840s due to ill health, and she died on 7 May 1848 in Camden, London, having refused invitations to take part in therevolution in France of that year.[1]
Wheeler's daughterRosina Bulwer Lytton was a novelist and outspoken public speaker. Her grandsonRobert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, served asViceroy of India from 1876 to 1880, and two of her great grandsons became thesecond andthird Earls of Lytton.
One of Wheeler's great-granddaughters was the sister-in-law of the Prime MinisterGerald Balfour, while another,Lady Constance Lytton, followed Anna's role model and became a leadingsuffragette protester, hunger striker and writer, and a third, Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton, dismayed her parents by successfully proposing to the architectEdwin Landseer Lutyens and later became aTheosophist. The biographersMary Lutyens andJane Ridley (born 1953) are descendants of that marriage.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
