Barbara Bodichon | |
|---|---|
 Barbara Bodichon portrait bySamuel Laurence | |
| Born | Barbara Leigh Smith (1827-04-08)8 April 1827 Whatlington, Sussex, England,United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Died | 11 June 1891(1891-06-11) (aged 64) Robertsbridge, Sussex, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Other names | Barbara Leigh Smith |
| Occupation(s) | Educationalist Artist |
| Known for | Co-founder,Girton College, Cambridge |
| Spouse | Eugène Bodichon |
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (bornBarbara Leigh Smith; 8 April 1827 – 11 June 1891) was an Englisheducationalist andartist, a philanthropist and her greatest skill was as a facilitator.[1] She was a leading mid-19th-centuryfeminist andwomen's rights activist.[2][3] She published her influentialA Brief Summary of the Laws of England Concerning Women in 1854 and theEnglish Woman's Journal in 1858. Bodichon co-foundedGirton College, Cambridge (1869). Her brother was the Arctic explorerBenjamin Leigh Smith.
Barbara Leigh Smith was born on 8 April 1827, to Anne Longden, a milliner fromAlfreton,Derbyshire and a Whig politician,Benjamin "Ben" Leigh Smith (1783–1860), the eldest son of theRadicalabolitionistWilliam Smith.[4][5] Her parents did not marry as her father's radical views included the belief that marriage laws were injurious to the legal rights of women. Barbara was the eldest of five children born to the couple.[6][5] Her father had four sisters including Frances "Fanny" Smith, who marriedWilliam Nightingale (né Shore), their daughters wereFlorence Nightingale (the nurse and statistician); and Joanna Maria, who marriedJohn Bonham-Carter (1788–1838) MP and founded theBonham Carter family.[7] The Nightingale family refused to acknowledge the five Smith children due to what they perceived as illegitimacy.[8]
Benjamin Leigh Smith's home was inMarylebone, London, but from 1816 he inherited and bought property nearHastings: Brown's Farm nearRobertsbridge, with an extant house built about 1700, and Crowham Manor,Westfield, which included 200 acres (0.81 km2). Although a member of thelanded gentry, Smith held radical views. He was aDissenter, aUnitarian, a supporter offree trade, and a benefactor to the poor. In 1826 he bore the cost of building a school for the inner city poor atVincent Square,Westminster, and paid a penny a week towards the fees for each child, the same amount paid by their parents.[9]
Smith met Anne Longden while on a visit to his sister in Derbyshire. She became pregnant by him and he took her to the south of England, housing her in a rented lodge atWhatlington, nearBattle, East Sussex, as "Mrs Leigh", the surname of Ben Smith's relations on theIsle of Wight. Barbara's birth caused scandal, as the couple did not marry.[1] Smith rode from Brown's Farm to visit them daily, and in eight weeks Anne was pregnant again. When their sonBen was born, the four went to America for two years, during which another child was conceived.[6]
On their return to Sussex, they lived openly together at Brown's and had two more children. After the last was born in 1833, Anne fell ill with tuberculosis. Smith leased 9 Pelham Crescent, Hastings, which faced the sea, whose healthy properties were highly regarded at the time. A local woman, Hannah Walker, was employed to look after the children. Anne did not recover and so Smith took her toRyde, Isle of Wight, where she died in 1834.[10]
Smith, unusually for the time, sent all his children to the local school to learn alongside working-class children,[11] rather than sending the older boys to a boarding or an elite day school. He later shared financial endowments equally with all the children, male and female, giving each an income of £300 per annum from the age of majority (21).[12]
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Early in her life, Barbara showed a force of character and breadth of sympathies that would win her prominence among philanthropists and social workers. Independent income gave her a freedom not normally possessed by many women[12] and Bodichon and a group of London friends began to meet regularly in the 1850s to discuss women's rights which later became known as "The Ladies of Langham Place". It resolved in the first organised women's rights movement in Britain. They pursued many causes vigorously, including Married Women's Property. In 1854, she publisheda Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women.[13] The next year she formed a Married Women's Property Committee (MWPC). This committee included other eminent and established professional women writers and friends of her own generation, such asAnna Mary Howitt,Bessie Rayner Parkes andEliza Bridell Fox. Leigh Smith drafted a petition which was circulated nationally with a request for signatures to support a Married Women's Property Bill. Seventy petitions with over 26.000 signatures were gathered in only a few months. At the head of the petition some respectable married women were placed such asMary Howitt,Elizabeth Barrett Browning andElizabeth Gaskell.[14] This petition which was presented in parliament in March 1856 would pave the way for theMarried Women's Property Act 1870.
Bodichon's first romantic relationship was withJohn Chapman, editor of theWestminster Review, but she refused to marry him and lose her legal rights.[12] On 2 July 1857, she married an eminent French physician, Dr Eugène Bodichon, at Little Portland Street Chapel.[15][16] Incidentally this was in the year that theMatrimonial Causes Act 1857, for which Bodichon had campaigned, allowed women access to divorce courts.[12] Although wintering for many years inAlgiers, Bodichon continued to lead the movements she had initiated on behalf of Englishwomen.[17]
In 1858, Bodichon set up theEnglish Women's Journal, a periodical which emphasised direct employment and equality issues for women, in particular manual or intellectual industrial employment, expansion of employment opportunities, and reform of laws pertaining to the sexes.
In 1866, cooperating withEmily Davies, Bodichon produced a scheme to extend university education to women. The first small experiment in this, atHitchin, developed intoGirton College, Cambridge, to which Bodichon gave liberally of her time and money.[17]
Bodichon was aUnitarian, who wrote ofTheodore Parker: "He prayed to the Creator, the infinite Mother of us all (always using Mother instead of Father in this prayer). It was the prayer of all I ever heard in my life which was the truest to my individual soul."[18]
On 21 November 1865 Barbara Bodichon, helped byJessie Boucherett andHelen Taylor, brought up the idea of a parliamentary reform aimed at achieving the right to vote for women.[19]
Despite all her public interests, Bodichon found time for society and her favourite art of painting. Bodichon studied underWilliam Holman Hunt. Her water colours, exhibited at the Salon, theRoyal Academy and elsewhere, showed originality and talent, and were admired byCorot andDaubigny. Bodichon's Londonsalon included many literary and artistic celebrities of her day. She was an early member of theSociety of Female Artists (SFA) and showed 59 art works with them between 1858 and 1886.[20] She wasGeorge Eliot'sintimate friend and the first to recognise the authorship ofAdam Bede. Her personal appearance is said to have inspired "the tall, red-haired heroine of Eliot'sRomola with her 'expression of proud tenacity and latent impetuousness'".[21]
Bodichon died atRobertsbridge, Sussex, on 11 June 1891.[17]
She was an English leader in the movements of education and political rights for women during the 1800s. Her marriage did not deter her from continuing her campaigns for women's rights to education.[22][23]
Bodichon studied at theLadies' College in Bedford Square founded in London, England in 1849. Here she was given instruction for work as a professional artist rather than an art instructor. Bodichon came from a liberal Unitarian family with a private income. Their independent wealth gave Bodichon more freedom to grow as an artist.[24]
In 1852, after she had enrolled in Bedford College, she developed and opened Portman Hall School in Paddington, having researched practices at other primary schools,[11] in conjunction with its first head teacher, Elizabeth Whitehead.[4]
In 1854, Bodichon publishedA Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women, which was crucial in the passage of the Married Women's Property Act. In 1866, in collaboration with Emily Davies, she presented the idea of university education for women, being able to conduct the first experiment at a college in Hitchin, which developed into Girton College and of which Bodichon became a dedicated patron. She studied under the English artist William Henry Hunt to develop her skill in watercolours.[22][23]
Bodichon belonged to theLangham Place Circle, a group of forward-thinking women artists who developed theEnglish Woman's Journal. During the 1850s, this group fought for women's education, employment, property rights, and suffrage. In 1859, Bodichon, along with many female artists including Eliza Fox, Margaret Gillies, and Emily Mary Osborn all signed a petition demanding access for women to the Royal Academy School. Their request was denied, stating that it would require the Royal Academy to develop "separate" life classes. In 1860, Laura Herford, one of the women artists fighting for access, submitted an application to the Royal Academy School using only her initials. She was accepted, much to the embarrassment of the Academy. Herford's enrolment was permitted, and gradually more women artists were accepted in subsequent years.[24]
In 2007 Irene Baker andLesley Abdela helped to restore Barbara Bodichon's grave in the churchyard ofBrightling, East Sussex, about 50 miles (80 km) from London. It was in a state of disrepair, with railings rusted and breaking away and the tomb inscription scarcely legible.[25] The historian Dr Judith Rowbotham atNottingham Trent University issued an appeal for funds to restore the grave and its surroundings, which raised about £1,000.[citation needed] The railings were sand-blasted and repainted and the granite tomb was cleaned.
On 30 June 2019, aBlue Plaque jointly commemorating the founders, Barbara Bodichon and Emily Davies, was unveiled at Girton College byBaroness Hale,President of the Supreme Court, as part of the college's 150th anniversary celebrations. The plaque is sited on the main tower at the entrance to Girton, off Huntingdon Road, Cambridge.[26]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bodichon, Barbara Leigh Smith".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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