(Emilia) Jessie Boucherett (November 1825 – 18 October 1905) was an English campaigner for

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

Life

She was born in November 1825 at

North Willingham North Willingham is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey Non-metropolitan district, district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish (including Sixhills) was at 181 during the 2011 census. It is situated east fr ...

, near Market Rasen,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

. She was the grandchild of Lt. Colonel Ayscoghe Boucherett and the youngest child of his son Ayscoghe and Louisa, daughter of Frederick John Pigou of Dartford, Kent. She was educated at the school of the four Miss Byerleys (daughters of

Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the indu ...

's relative and partner, Thomas Byerley) at Avonbank,

Stratford-on-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon ( ), commonly known as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-west of ...

, where Mrs. Gaskell had been a pupil. Boucherett's activities for women's causes were inspired by reading the ''

English Woman's Journal The ''English Woman's Journal'' was a periodical dealing primarily with female employment and equality issues. It was established in 1858 by Barbara Bodichon, Matilda Mary Hays and Bessie Rayner Parkes. Published monthly between March 1858 ...

'', which reflected her own aims, and by an article in the ''

Edinburgh Review The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929. ''Edinburgh Review'', ...

'' about the problems of the many 'superfluous' women in England during the middle years of the nineteenth century, a time when there were far more women than men in the population. On 21 November 1865, Jessie Boucherett with the help of Barbara Bodichon and Helen Taylor brought up the idea of a parliamentary reform.. They started a campaign to achieve the right to vote for women. With

Barbara Bodichon Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (born Barbara Leigh Smith; 8 April 1827 – 11 June 1891) was an English educationalist and artist, a philanthropist and her greatest skill was as a facilitator. She was a leading mid-19th-century feminist and women ...

and

Adelaide Anne Procter Adelaide Anne Procter (30 October 1825 – 2 February 1864) was an English poet and philanthropist. Her literary career began when she was a teenager, her poems appearing in Charles Dickens's periodicals ''Household Words'' and ''All the Y ...

, Boucherett helped found the

Society for Promoting the Employment of Women The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW) was one of the earliest British women's organisations. The society was established in 1859 by Jessie Boucherett, Barbara Bodichon, Adelaide Anne Proctor and Lydia Becker to promote the ...

in 1859. This became in 1926 the ''Society for Promoting the Training of Women'' which today operates as the registered charity ''Futures for Women''. Also in 1859, Boucherett and Procter joined the Langham Place Group. A small but determined group which campaigned for the improvement of the situation of women, it was active between 1857 and 1866. Boucherett was a promoter of the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

movement and a strong supporter of the Married Women's Property Act. She founded the ''

Englishwoman's Review ''The Englishwoman's Review'' was a feminist periodical published in England between 1866 and 1910. Until 1869 called in full ''The Englishwoman's Review: a journal of woman's work'', in 1870 (after a break in publication) it was renamed ''The ...

'' in 1866, and edited it until 1870, when she founded with

Lydia Becker Lydia Ernestine Becker (24 February 1827 – 18 July 1890) was a leader in the early British suffrage movement, as well as an amateur scientist with interests in biology and astronomy. She established Manchester as a centre for the suffrage mov ...

the ''

Women's Suffrage Journal The ''Women's Suffrage Journal'' was a magazine founded in England by Lydia Becker and Jessie Boucherett in 1870. It carried news of events affecting all areas of women's lives, and particularly focused on features that demonstrated the breadth ...

''.

Works

*''Hints on Self-Help for Young Women'', 1863 *''The Condition of Women in France'', 1868 *'How to Provide for Superfluous Women', in

Josephine Butler Josephine Elizabeth Butler (; 13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in B ...

, ed., ''Women's Work and Women's Culture'', 1869 *'The industrial position of women', in

Theodore Stanton Theodore Weld Stanton (10 February 1851 in Seneca Falls, New York – 1925) was an American journalist. Biography He was the son of journalist and abolitionist Henry Brewster Stanton a descendant of Thomas Stanton and reformer Elizabeth Cady St ...

, ed., ''The Woman Question in Europe'', 1884 *''The Condition of Working Women and the Factory Acts'', with

Helen Blackburn Helen Blackburn (25 May 1842 – 11 January 1903) was a feminist, writer and campaigner for women's rights, especially in the field of employment. Blackburn was an editor of the '' Englishwoman's Review'' magazine. She wrote books about women wo ...

, 1896

References

Sources

*F. Hays, ''Women of the Day'', 1885. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boucherett, Emilia Jane 1825 births 1905 deaths English feminists English activists English women activists