Ellice Hopkins (30 October 1836 – 21 August 1904) was a

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

social campaigner and author. Hopkins co-founded the White Cross Army in 1883, and vigorously advocated moral purity while criticising contemporary sexual

double standard A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double standard arises when two ...

Early life

Jane Ellice Hopkins was born in

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 beca ...

, the daughter of William Hopkins, a mathematics tutor at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, and his second wife, Caroline Frances Boys Hopkins. As a girl, Hopkins knew the photographer

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian m ...

. At age 30, after her father's death, Hopkins moved to Brighton with her mother.

Activism

In 1874 Hopkins and rescue worker Sarah Robinson established the Soldier's Institute at

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, and in 1876 toured several British towns, recruiting thousands of women to the Ladies' Association for the Care of Friendless Girls. Her biographer describes her as "instrumental" in the passing of the Industrial Schools Amendment Act of 1880, which allowed children to be removed from hazardous homes (including brothels) and placed in

industrial schools Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city domin ...

. She also lobbied for the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the female

age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is unable to legally cla ...

from 13 to 16, and criminalised male homosexuality. Hopkins co-founded the White Cross Army, a men's Christian organization, in 1883 with Bishop

J. B. Lightfoot Joseph Barber Lightfoot (13 April 1828 – 21 December 1889), known as J. B. Lightfoot, was an English theologian and Bishop of Durham. Life Lightfoot was born in Liverpool, where his father John Jackson Lightfoot was an accountant. Hi ...

of Durham. "It was hard that the power which would have been a glory to me if I were a man, should be held a shame and a disgrace to me because I was a woman," she recalled of her work.

Writing

Hopkins wrote in a wide variety of genres, including two volumes of poetry, ''English Idylls'' (1865) and ''Autumn Swallows'' (1883), and a sensational gothic novel, ''Rose Turquand'' (1874). ''An Englishwoman's Work Among Workingmen'' (1875) was a memoir of her activism. She wrote pamphlets, most notably ''True Manliness'' (1883), and Christian devotional works, including ''Christ the Consoler, A Book of Comfort for the Sick'' (1879), and ''A plea for the wider action of the Church of England in the prevention of the degradation of women'', an essay in which she criticised the contemporary double standard by which women were disproportionately blamed for sexual immorality. Her last books were ''The Power of Womanhood'' (1899), on the role of mothers in "moral evolution", and ''The Story of Life'' (1902), a guide intended to help parents teach

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduct ...

to their adolescent children.

Personal life

Multiple chronic health issues led Hopkins to withdraw from public life in 1888. She died in 1904, aged 67 years, in Brighton. Fellow activist Rosa Mary Barrett wrote a short biography of Hopkins, published in 1907.

References

External links

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Archival Sources
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