Henrietta Muir Edwards
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Henrietta Muir Edwards (18 December 184910 November 1931) was a Canadian women's rights activist, author and reformer. She was the eldest of "
The Famous Five ''The Famous Five'' is a series of children's Adventure fiction, adventure novels and short stories written by English author Enid Blyton. The first book, ''Five on a Treasure Island'', was published in 1942. The novels feature the adventure ...
", along with
Emily Murphy Emily Murphy (born Emily Gowan Ferguson; 14 March 186826 October 1933) was a Canadian women's rights activist and author. In 1916, she became the first female magistrate in Canada and the fifth in the British Empire after Elizabeth Webb Nichol ...
,
Nellie McClung Nellie Letitia McClung (; 20 October 18731 September 1951) was a Canadian author, politician, and social activist, who is regarded as one of Canada's most prominent suffragists. She began her career in writing with the 1908 book ''Sowing Seed ...
,
Louise McKinney Louise McKinney (; 22 September 186810 July 1931) was a Canadian politician, Temperance movement, temperance advocate, and women's rights activist. She was the first woman elected into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the first woman to ...
and
Irene Parlby Mary Irene Parlby ( Marryat; 9 January 186812 July 1965) was a Canadian women's farm leader, activist and politician. She served as MLA in the United Farmers of Alberta government from 1921 to 1935, serving as Minister without portfolio in the ...
, who fought to have women recognized as "persons" under the law, and for the woman's right to vote in elections. She was born Henrietta Louise Muir in
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
as well as lived in Montreal. She grew up in an upper-middle-class family that valued culture and religion. Edwards became active in many religious organisations, where she grew disenchanted with old traditions where the exclusion of women was acceptable.


Biography

Edwards was born on 18 December 1849. As a young woman, Edwards and her sister Amélia founded a Working Girls’ Association in Montreal in 1875 to provide meals, reading rooms and study classes. This would become one of Canada's first YWCAs. They also published a periodical, The Working Women of Canada, which helped to bring working conditions into the public eye. This project was undertaken at their own expense, and was funded from their earnings as artists. She married Dr. Oliver C. Edwards in 1876 and they had three children: Alice, William, and Margaret. They moved to Indian Head,
Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...
(now
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...
), in 1883. Oliver was the government doctor for the Indigenous reserves there, and she continued to pursue women's rights and feminist organizations on the prairies. In 1890, Edwards's husband fell ill, so the family moved to the nation's capital,
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. There, Edwards "took up the cause of female prisoners", while also working with Lady Aberdeen, wife of the then
Governor General of Canada The governor general of Canada () is the federal representative of the . The monarch of Canada is also sovereign and head of state of 14 other Commonwealth realms and resides in the United Kingdom. The monarch, on the Advice (constitutional la ...
, to create the
National Council of Women of Canada National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ...
(NCWC). The NCWC was founded in 1893, the same year the Canadian government commissioned Edwards, who was also an artist, to paint a set of dishes for the Canadian exhibit at the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...
. Edwards served for 35 years as their chair for Laws Governing Women and Children, and because of her expertise in this area of the law was appointed chair of the organization's Provincial Council of Alberta. With Lady Aberdeen she also helped establish the
Victorian Order of Nurses The Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) is a non-profit charitable organization founded on January 29, 1897, and based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was created as a gift for Queen Victoria for the purposes of home care and social services. It is regi ...
(VON) in 1897. Edwards and her family returned to the Northwest Territories around 1903, where her husband was posted to
Fort Macleod Fort Macleod ( ) is a town in southern Alberta, Canada. It was originally named Macleod to distinguish it from the North-West Mounted Police barracks (Fort Macleod, built 1874) it had grown around. The fort was named in honour of the then List o ...
as a medical officer to the
Blood tribe The Kainai Nation () (, or , romanized: ''Káínawa'', Blood Tribe) is a First Nations band government in southern Alberta, Canada, with a population of 12,965 members in 2024, up from 11,791 in December 2013. translates directly to 'many ...
. During the latter period of the First World War, when supplies and morale were at a low, the Government of Canada selected individuals to assist in an advisory capacity about how to invoke stricter conservation measures. Mrs. Edwards was part of the selected committee, and it was the first time in Canadian history that a woman had been called upon for a review of public policy with the Government. Edwards wrote two books about women and the legal problems she was trying to overcome: ''Legal Status of Canadian Women'' (1908) and ''Legal Status of Women in Alberta'' (1921). She worked with
Louise McKinney Louise McKinney (; 22 September 186810 July 1931) was a Canadian politician, Temperance movement, temperance advocate, and women's rights activist. She was the first woman elected into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the first woman to ...
,
Irene Parlby Mary Irene Parlby ( Marryat; 9 January 186812 July 1965) was a Canadian women's farm leader, activist and politician. She served as MLA in the United Farmers of Alberta government from 1921 to 1935, serving as Minister without portfolio in the ...
and
Emily Murphy Emily Murphy (born Emily Gowan Ferguson; 14 March 186826 October 1933) was a Canadian women's rights activist and author. In 1916, she became the first female magistrate in Canada and the fifth in the British Empire after Elizabeth Webb Nichol ...
to "lobby the Alberta government for recognition of dower and matrimonial property rights." This friendship and collaboration would be called upon again to fight for the
Persons Case ''Edwards v Canada (AG)'', also known as the ''Persons Case'' (), is a Canadian constitutional case that decided in 1929 that women were eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada. The legal case was put forward by the Government of Canada on the ...
in the late 1920s, which established that Canadian women were eligible to be appointed senators and more generally, that Canadian women had the same rights as Canadian men with respect to positions of political power. Edwards was buried in Mount Pleasant Municipal Cemetery, Edmonton. The memorial erected to her memory reads "Let her own works praise her. Her delight was in the law of the Lord" Her date of death on the memorial is given as 9 November 1931. Her date of death is listed as 10 November 1931 in the Canadian Encyclopedia.


Legacy

In 1962, Edwards was recognized as
Person of National Historic Significance Persons of National Historic Significance (National Historic People) () are people designated by the Canadian government as being nationally significant in the history of the country. Designations are made by the Minister of the Environment on the ...
by the government of Canada. A plaque commemorating this is placed at the entrance to Fort Macleod Post Office, Haultain Ave & 22 St., Fort Macleod, Alberta. The "Persons case" was recognized as an Historic Event in 1997. In addition, in October 2009, the Senate voted to name Edwards and the rest of the Five, Canada's first "honorary senators."


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Henrietta 1849 births 1931 deaths Canadian feminists Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada) Women in Alberta politics Pre-Confederation Alberta people 20th-century Canadian politicians 20th-century Canadian women politicians