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1811 to 1820

1811

England

..... in 1773 and 1792 conditions of employment of the journeymen ( silk workers who settled in Spitalfields in London late in the 17th century) were regulated by an Act of Parliament but reference was only made to 'journeymen'. Women weavers were paid the same rates as men but in 1811 a master refused to pay a journeywoman her price and this caused a trial during which the question of whether the term 'journeymen' included women. It eventually led to the third Spitalfields Act and extended the earlier two Acts to women. They were taken on as apprentices and learners in the lace and woollen trades and in goldsmithying and gilding

Scotland

..... the first recorded golf tournament for women took place at Mussleburgh. The local club put up a prize of a fishing basket to be contested by the fishwives of the area

..... twelve year old Mary Anning discovered the 33' long fossil of an ichthyosaur, the first known of its kind

1812

born

..... Marie Francoise Catherine Doetter..... Miss Fanny Corbaux, a miniature portrait painter and biblical critic. She was forced to earn her own living from the age of 15 and at first won success in 1827 at the Society of Arts where she was awarded the large Silver Medal for a miniature. A year later she was awarded the Silver Isis Medal and in 1830 the Gold Medal. She was made an honorary member of the Society of British Artists and for a few years contributed oil pictures to its gallery but she later turned entirely to painting miniatures. She was also elected a member of the new Watercolour Society and contributed annually to its exhibitions and also exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1829 to 1854. She died in 1883

1813

England

..... during the food riots in Manchester most of those arrested were women. Among eight people condemned to hang was Hannah Smith aged 55 years. Two young girls, Mary and Lydia Molyneux, aged 15 years and 19 years, were spared the death penalty because of their youth. Six other women and girls in Lancashire were sentenced to six months in prison

..... Lavinia Robinson became known as the 'Ophelia of the Irwell' when her body was found in the river. She disappeared after meeting her lover on Bridge Street, Manchester, in December in freezing temperatures. She was found encased in ice two months later

born 

..... Mary de Rosa ..... foundress who was born at Brescia. From the age of 17 she did social work for girls, factory workers, the deaf and dumb and in hospitals. Physically she was weak but was very strong mentally and in 1840 began to organise the Handmaids of Charity of Brescia with the object of ministering to the sick and afflicted. She finally wore herself out and died at the early age of 42 years in 1855

1814

born

..... Jenny Von Westphalen .....  German and wife of Karl Marx to whom she became engaged in 1836 and despite opposition from her wealthy family married him in 1843.  She went into exile with him first in Paris, then Brussels and London and after her dowry had been spent their life was one of extreme poverty. She had six children, three of whom died young. Her daughter Laura married Paul Lafargue, the French socialist  but died with him in a mutual suicide pact in 1911. Another daughter Eleanor, became a prominent British trade unionist and her daughter Jenny helped her husband as secretary and with the administration work of the Socialist International. She died in 1881

born

..... Mary Thornycroft ..... daughter of the sculptor John Francis. She was born in Norfolk and trained in her father’s studio and first exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of 21 years. In 1840 she married the sculptor Thomas Thornycroft and they went to live and work in Rome. She was engaged by Queen Victoria to do life size statues of the Royal children, the four eldest representing the ‘Four Seasons’ and they were a great success. In 1863 she made the first bust of Alexandra, Princess of Wales. Some of her other works are – Busts of Queen Victoria, Princess Helena, Princess Alice and the Duchess of Edinburgh and they are all in the Royal collection. Her statue The Skipping Rope is at Osborne

1815

..... on 1st September the first vows of the Irish Sisters of Charity were taken and Mary Aikenhead (1787-1858) was appointed superior general. The order was inspired by the original French sisters founded by St Vincent de Paul in Paris. In 1834 Mary opened St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, the First Catholic hospital in Ireland. In 1838 the Irish sisters of Charity became the first nuns to go to work in Australia. They are now called the Daughters of Mary Aikenhead

born 

..... Grace Horsley Darling .....  in the village of Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast where her grandfather was gardener to the Crewe Trustees who owned Bamburgh Castle.  Her family’s real home was on the Brownsmen, one of the largest in the outer group of the Farne Islands  and her father, William Darling, became keeper of the Outer Fern Lighthouse, which is where she spent her childhood. She grew up a sickly child but with one deep interest in life – the sea – and she asked her father many questions about the tides, the gales and the cross currents that made this particular coast so hazardous. Sometime later they moved to the new Longstone Lighthouse and by the time she was 17 years old she had talked her father into letting her do small tasks which helped in the running of the lighthouse. In 1838 during the worst gale in living memory she and her father rescued nine survivors from a total of sixty five passengers who had been on board the Forfarshire which broke up on the Big Harcar rock. Although they tried to hide their heroism, the survivors made sure that everyone knew what they had done. A fund was opened to which Queen Victoria gave £50, medals were presented to them by the Royal Humane Society and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and visitors and reporters flocked to the lighthouse to see them, especially Grace. People from all over the world wrote to her and even asked for a lock of her hair. The events of that night however, proved too much for her and she became ill with consumption. She died on October 20th 1842 at the age of 26 years. A tree was planted in her honour in London’s Battersea Park and the Grace Darling Museum was opened in Bamburgh in 1938. Some years later an advert appeared in The Times saying ‘ Lock of Grace Darling’s hair in gold case, for sale’

1816

born

..... Charlotte Bronte .....  eldest of the three Bronte sisters, daughters of an Anglican curate in Haworth in Yorkshire. She wrote under the pseudonym ‘Currer Bell ‘ and her most famous novels were Jane Eyre (1847) Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853). They were said to contain an autobiographical element. In 1846 she also had some poetry published. " I can be on my guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends ". The Bronte Society protects the literary legacy of the famous sisters and Haworth Parsonage, where they all lived, is now a museum. She was the last of the three Bronte sisters when she died  on March 31st 1855 during pregnancy and left behind part of another novel Emma. In 1978 two of her stories The Secret and Lily Hart were published for the first time

born

..... Charlotte Saunders Cushman .....  actress  who made her debut in 1835 as an operatic singer but whilst performing in New York that same year decided to abandon opera for the dramatic stage and appeared as Lady Macbeth. One of her best known roles was as Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering and she also won acclaim as Nancy Sykes in Oliver Twist. From 1842 to 1844 she was stage manager of the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and in 1845 made her London debut as Bianco in Fazio. Emerging in England as a Shakespearean actress of the first rank she toured the USA from 1849 to 1852 playing male as well as female roles and was received as the leading actress of the American stage. She died in 1876

born June 2nd

..... Grace Aguilar .....  English author whose parents were Spanish-Jewish and who was educated at home and began writing in her childhood. A semi-invalid, her first poems were collected in Magic Wreath (1835). When her father died she wrote professionally and her sentimental novels were edited and published by her mother after her death in 1847, exhausted by work at the age of 31. Her work was significant for its education of the general public about her faith and for its concern for the position of women within Judaism. Works include – 1842…The Spirit of Judaism ..... 1845… The Jewish Faith Women of Israel ..... 1850… A Mother’s Recompense (novel) ..... 1851… Woman’s Friendship ( novel)

1817

England

 ..... as late as 1817 the magistrates at Leominster tried to have a woman ducked. The water in the pond however, was too low and so the victim was simply wheeled around the town in the ducking-chair. The ducking stool, once a feature of many village ponds, was the favoured punishment for what used to be known as ‘scolds’ which were women, who, by brawling and wrangling with their neighbours, became a public nuisance. When brought before the courts they were generally sentenced to be ducked a number of times in the local pond. There are two other examples of women sentenced to ducking in the 19th century – in 1808 at Plymouth and in 1809 at Leominster

died in November

..... Pola Salavarrietta ..... a Columbia spy who was one of the fifty women agents executed during the rebellion but her execution  aroused a wave of public sympathy and she became a legendary heroine of the patriotic resistance. She had first trained as a seamstress and then found work in the houses of the Spanish royalist women in Bogota. Any information she heard she passed on to the rebels and when discovered was shot in the public square as a republican agent

1818

England

..... the first Female Reform Societies were formed as part of the Peterloo agitation for political reform

born July 30th

..... Emily Jane Bronte .....  second daughter of the Rev. Patrick Bronte. She wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Ellis Bell’ and the settings and characters for her novel Wuthering Heights (1848) were all taken from Yorkshire where she was born. In 1942 she and her sister Charlotte left Haworth to go to Brussels to study French, German and music. She died on December 19th 1848, two months after the death of her brother Bramwell

born

..... Lola Montez neé Marie Gilbert ..... in Limerick barracks, daughter of a serving British officer. She was educated in England and France and at the age of eighteen eloped with an infantry lieutenant called James.  Separation and divorce soon followed, she had a number of affairs and in 1843 found herself in London and alone. She decided to become a ballet teacher and also to pass herself off as Spanish and took the name Lola Montez and also the identity of a poor widow, whose brave, aristocratic husband had recently been shot by revolutionaries. She made her debut at Her Majesty's Theatre where she danced in the intervals at the opera and by fluttering her eyelashes at an impresario and some gentlemen of the press was assured of some rave reviews and further engagements. All went well, although she had no training, and her beauty and dazzling costumes brought wild applause and showers of flowers. However she was recognised by a discarded lover and the following day the newspapers were full of the scandal. But she stuck to her story and what might have been a storm in a teacup became a long-running cause célèbre. A month later she performed at the Theatre Royal to a packed house and thunderous applause and then went on a continental tour but got mixed reactions from the press. after several liaisons she became the mistress of King Ludwig 1 of Bavaria who was aged sixty, she was twenty eight, and he set her up in great luxury. The high point of her power was reached in 1847 with the dismissal of several cabinet ministers but it was more than the people of Bavaria could stand and the palace was besieged. She fled to London and married a twenty year old officer, a union which cost the young man his commission. She continued to travel and have further affairs and in 1856 her second husband died, alone. She had turned from dancing to lecturing and appeared in Australia and then America where she was in demand as an entertaining speaker on fashion, gallantry, love, beauty, marriage and Roman Catholicism. But in 1859 she once again changed the course of her life and devoted herself to preaching and charitable works among the poor of New York and especially the prostitutes. It was her last role and a sudden illness brought her to an early death at the age of 43 years  

1819

America

..... American women, including Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren, were as early as Mary Wollstonecroft (1792) in agitating that the Constitution specifically state the rights of women. In 1819 Emma Willard wrote a “Plan for Improving Female Education” - see also 1792, 1837, 1845, 1848

born

..... Luise Otto Peter.....  founder and leader of the German women’s movement.  In the revolution of 1848 she began working and advocating for women’s emancipation and founded a newspaper which was suppressed by the government for supporting the cause. She used her writing and administration skills in the struggle for equality and in 1865 the Association for Women’s Education was formed with her as president. It became the basis for the National Association of German Women which supported the goals of civil equality and women’s rights to work. She died in 1895

born November 22nd

..... Mary Ann Evans ..... on the Arbury Estate, Warwickshire, where her father was the agent and by whom she was dominated in her early years with his narrow, religious views. In 1841 when the family moved to Coventry she met Charles Bray and with his influence and books broke away from her father’s ideas. For a time she was assistant editor of the Westminster Review which had published some of her articles. In 1854 she met George Henry Lewes and they lived together until his death in 1878. He gave her security and reassurance and by 1858 she had started to write novels using the nom-de-plume George Eliot. They held many receptions in their various residences but after his death she became a virtual recluse, stopped writing and devoted her time to compiling his unfinished work. Her chief companion was John Walter Cross and in 1880 they married but she died nine months later on the 22nd December. Her novels include – Adam Bede (1895) The Mill on the Floss (1860) Silas Marner (1861) ….. I’m not denying that women are foolish, God Almighty made them to match the men

1820

England

..... the Church Missionary Service sent its first woman missionary abroad

born March 30th

..... Anna Sewell .....  author of Black Beauty. Her novel about the trials and tribulations of a horse ranks among the top ten best-sellers in the English language, yet it was the only book she wrote and she sold the manuscript for just £20.00. She just wanted to tell the story of two horses and some of the dreadful things that happened to them, as a plea for greater kindness to animals. As a result much of the cruel treatment meted out to horses at that time was stamped out.  When she was 16 she was crippled by an accident and remained an invalid for the rest of her life. She dictated Black Beauty to her mother and died just after the book was published. In 1955 South African customs officers were so suspicious about the novel that they sent copies to the sensor

born

..... Anne Bronte ..... the third of the Bronte sisters , she worked as a governess until 1845 and then began to write using the pseudonym ‘ Acton Bell’. She hardly ever left home apart from a visit to York with her sister Emily and a trip to London with sister Charlotte. She published Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) but died tragically of tuberculosis on May 28th 1849 several months after her sister Emily had died

born

..... Caroline Severance ..... American who was instrumental in getting Californian women the vote in 1911, nine years before the 19th Amendment guaranteed suffrage to women nationwide. She died in 1914

born

..... Susan Anthony Brownell .....  American suffragette, who, during the 1850s and 1860s was a vigorous campaigner against slavery, in favour of temperance and women’s rights and in the presidential election of 1872 sought to cast a vote ignoring fear of arrest. She became the leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and in 1888 organised a Council of women. Two years before she died in 1906 she established the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. During her lifetime four American states gave the vote to women – Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and Utah and her examples were followed in England by the Pankhursts