Sophia Dobson Collet (1 February 1822 – 27 March 1894) was a 19th-century English

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

freethinker. She wrote under the pen name ''Panthea'' in

George Holyoake George Jacob Holyoake (13 April 1817 – 22 January 1906) was an English secularist, British co-operative movement, co-operator and newspaper editor. He coined the terms secularism in 1851 and "jingoism" in 1878. He edited a secularist paper, '' ...

's ''Reasoner'', wrote for ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'' and was a friend of the leading feminist Frances Power Cobbe.

Family background

Sophia Dobson Collet was born Sophia Dobson in the parish of St. Pancras, London, the fifth of seven children of John Dobson (1778–1827), and his wife ( and first cousin), Elizabeth Barker (1787–1875). She was described by Richard Garnett in the biography of William Johnson Fox as having attacks of a "disabling illness". Her elder brother was the Chartist radical Collet Dobson Collet (1812–1898). Another of her brothers was the engineer Edward Dobson (1816/17?–1908). She was the aunt of social reformer Clara Collet (1860–1948), who worked with Charles Booth on his great investigative work '' Life and Labour of the People of London''; and of Sir Wilfred Collet, governor of

British Honduras British Honduras was a Crown colony on the east coast of Central America — specifically located on the southern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony — renamed Belize from June 1973

and

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies. It was located on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first known Europeans to encounter Guia ...

South Place Ethical Chapel

Collet was a supporter of the South Place Ethical Chapel (now Conway Hall Ethical Society) and wrote several hymns for the organisation. Her brother Charles was its musical director. She was friends with the South Place composer Eliza Flower and Sarah Fuller Flower Adams. It is at South Place that she came into contact with

. She would contribute to both ''The Reasoner'' and ''The Movement'' from the 1840s to 1850s as well as have continued correspondence with Holyoake long after. She is also credited with preserving many of Fox's writings. She wrote an appraisal of George Holyoake and his work in ''George Jacob Holyoake and modern atheism: a biographical and critical essay'' in 1855 which was well received. The book was an expanded version of what she had written as Panthea in the ''Free Inquirer''. It echoed the same conciliatory tone between religion and non-religion that Holyoake had long espoused.

Feminism

Collet remained a Unitarian even as South Place moved into a non-religious direction. However, she "condemned the oppression of women in Scripture and the subordinate position assigned to them by Christianity." She joined the Moral Reform Union, wrote articles on

women's education Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education (primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It is frequently called girls ...

and supported

William Thomas Stead William Thomas Stead (5 July 184915 April 1912) was an English newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst e ...

during his imprisonment in 1885. Stead would occasionally attend lectures at South Place. Her efforts to help Josephine Butler repeal the

Contagious Diseases Acts The Contagious Diseases Acts (CD Acts) were passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864, with alterations and additions made by the (29 & 30 Vict. c. 35) and the (32 & 33 Vict. c. 96). In 1862, a committee had been established ...

in India put a strain on her relationship with

Richard Holt Hutton Richard Holt Hutton (2 June 1826 – 9 September 1897) was an English journalist of literature and religion. Life and work The son of Joseph Hutton, a Unitarian minister, Richard Holt Hutton was born at Leeds. His family moved to Londo ...

of ''

''. Her name appears on the petition for

female suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to 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 suffrage was in effect during ...

published by '' The Fortnightly Review''.

Later life

Collet met

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...

and had a lifelong interest in

transcendentalism Transcendentalism is a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of the United States. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of ...

. Moncure D. Conway recollected in his autobiography that

had asked after her as well. She also had an interest in Brahmo Samaj and the Hindu reform movements. She published several books on this topic including ''The Brahmo Year-Book'', ''Lectures and Tracts by Keshub Chunder Sen'' (1870), ''A Historical Sketch of the Brahmo Somaj'' (1873), ''Outlines and Episodes of Brahmic History'' (1884). F. H Stead published the ''Life and Letters of Raja Rammohun Roy'' after her death in 1900. She is buried in the dissenters section on the west side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in North London, England, designed by architect Stephen Geary. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East sides. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for so ...

Publications

* ''George Jacob Holyoake and modern atheism: a biographical and critical essay'' (1855) * ''The Brahmo Year-Book'' * ''Lectures and Tracts by Keshub Chunder Sen'' (1870) * ''A Historical Sketch of the Brahmo Somaj'' (1873) * ''Outlines and Episodes of Brahmic History'' (1884)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collet, Sophia Dobson 1822 births 1894 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery English Unitarians English suffragists English feminists English non-fiction writers People associated with Conway Hall Ethical Society