Sophia Dobson Collet (1 February 1822 – 27 March 1894) was a 19th-century English feminist freethinker. She wrote under the pen name ''Panthea'' in

George Holyoake George Jacob Holyoake (13 April 1817 – 22 January 1906) was an English secularist, co-operator and newspaper editor. He coined the terms secularism in 1851 and " jingoism" in 1878. He edited a secularist paper, the ''Reasoner'', from 1846 to ...

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

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...

'' and was a friend of the leading feminist

Frances Power Cobbe Frances Power Cobbe (4 December 1822 – 5 April 1904) was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, religious thinker, social reformer, anti- vivisection activist and leading women's suffrage campaigner. She founded a number of animal advocacy gro ...

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 Collet Dobson Collet (31 December 1812 – 28 December 1898) was an English radical freethinker, Chartist and campaigner against newspaper taxation. Background and work Collet was born in London on 31 December 1812, the son of John Dobso ...

(1812–1898). Another of her brothers was the engineer

Edward Dobson Edward Dobson (1816/17? – 19 September 1908) was Provincial Engineer for Canterbury Province, New Zealand from 1854 to 1868. Early life Edward Dobson was born in London, probably in 1816 or 1817. His parents were John Dobson, a merchant, and ...

(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 Sir Wilfred Collet (23 November 1856 – 1929) was a British colonial administrator who was governor of British Honduras and then of British Guiana. Background Wilfred Collet was born in Islington, London in 1856, the son of noted radical ref ...

, governor of

British Honduras British Honduras was a British Crown colony on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony, renamed Belize in June 1973,

and British Guiana.

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 Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (or Sally Adams) (22 February 1805 – 14 August 1848) was an English poet and hymnwriter. A selection of hymns she wrote, published by William Johnson Fox, included her best-known one, " Nearer, My God, to Thee", rep ...

. 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 Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to: Christian and Christian-derived theologies A Unitarian is a follower of, or a member of an organisation that follows, any of several theologies referred to as Unitarianism: * Unitarianism (1565–present ...

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 and supported William Thomas Stead during his imprisonment in 1885. Stead would occasionally attend lectures at South Place. Her efforts to help

Josephine Butler Josephine Elizabeth Butler (' Grey; 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 covertu ...

repeal the

Contagious Diseases Acts The Contagious Diseases Acts (CD Acts) were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. 85), with alterations and additions made in 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 35) and 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 96). In 1862, a com ...

in India put a strain on her relationship with Richard Holt Hutton of ''

''. Her name appears on the petition for

female suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

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, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a cham ...

and had a lifelong interest in

transcendentalism Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...

Moncure D. Conway Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, 1832 – November 15, 1907) was an American abolitionist minister and radical writer. At various times Methodist, Unitarian, and a Freethinker, he descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia ...

recollected in his autobiography that

had asked after her as well. She also had an interest in

Brahmo Samaj Brahmo Samaj ( bn, ব্রহ্ম সমাজ, Brahmô Sômaj, ) is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement of the Hindu religion that appeared during the Bengal Renaissance. It was one o ...

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 Histor'' (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. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

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