Mary Bateson (12 September 1865, Robin Hood's Bay – 30 November 1906,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

) was a British historian and

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

activist.

Life

Bateson was the daughter of

William Henry Bateson William Henry Bateson (3 June 1812, Liverpool – 27 March 1881, Cambridge) was a British academic, who served as Master of St John's College, Cambridge. The son of Richard Bateson, a Liverpool merchant, Bateson was educated at Shrewsbury Scho ...

, Master of

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...

, and Anna Aikin.Mary Bateson
at the Venn Project database The geneticist

William Bateson William Bateson (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscove ...

was her older brother, Margaret Heitland was her sister. She was educated at the

Perse School for Girls The Stephen Perse Foundation is a family of independent schools in Cambridge and Saffron Walden for students aged 1 to 18. The Foundation is made up of 3 nurseries (2 in Cambridge and 1 in Saffron Walden, Essex) for ages 1–5, 2 Junior Schoo ...

and

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millic ...

. She spent her entire professional life at Newnham, teaching there from 1888 and becoming a Fellow in 1903. Known for her writings in

medieval history In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

, she was supported professionally by historians

Mandell Creighton Mandell Creighton (; 5 July 1843 – 14 January 1901) was a British historian and a bishop of the Church of England. A scholar of the Renaissance papacy, Creighton was the first occupant of the Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Di ...

and F. W. Maitland. She died of a brain haemorrhage and is buried in

Histon Road Cemetery, Cambridge Histon Road Cemetery, formerly Cambridge General Cemetery, is a cemetery in north Cambridge, England, lying off Histon Road, opened in 1842.Nikolaus Pevsner, ''The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire'' (1970), p. 232. It is notable as one of on ...

Activism

As part of her suffrage activities, Bateson became the Cambridge organiser for the Central Society for Women's Suffrage in 1888. The following year she was elected to the executive committee Cambridge Women's Suffrage Association. In 1906 she participated in a deputation to Parliament where she presented

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Henry Campbell-Bannerman Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (né Campbell; 7 September 183622 April 1908) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. He served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1 ...

with a petition on behalf of ‘women who are doctors of letters, science and law in the universities of the United Kingdom and of the British colonies, in the universities also of Europe and the United States’. The petition declared that the signatories ‘believe the disenfranchisement of one sex to be injurious to both, and a national wrong in a country which pretends to be governed on a representative system’.

Works

*''Register of Crabhouse Nunnery'', 1889
''Origin and History of Double Monasteries''
1899 *''Records of the borough of Leicester; being a series of extracts from the archives of the Corporation of Leicester'', 3 vols, 1899–1901
''Mediaeval England, 1066–1350''
1903 *'The French in America (1608—1744)', chapter 3 of ''

Cambridge Modern History ''The Cambridge Modern History'' is a comprehensive modern history of the world, beginning with the 15th century Age of Discovery, published by the Cambridge University Press in England and also in the United States. The first series, planned by ...

'', vol. 7 (1903)

References

External links

Mary Bateson Papers
at the

University of Manchester Library The University of Manchester Library is the library system and information service of the University of Manchester. The main library is on the Oxford Road campus of the university, with its entrance on Burlington Street. There are also ten other ...

. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bateson, Mary 19th-century English historians 1865 births 1906 deaths People educated at the Perse School for Girls Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge Bateson family 20th-century English historians English suffragists Contributors to the Victoria County History