Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (8 April 1827 – 11 June 1891) was an English educationalist, artist, and a leading early nineteenth century feminist and activist for women's rights.
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She was the extramarital child of Anne Longden, a 17-year-old milliner from Alfreton, and Benjamin (Ben) Leigh Smith (1783-1860) , an MP's only son, who was himself a Radical MP for Norwich. Benjamin had four sisters. One, Frances (Fanny) Smith, married into the Nightingale family and produced a daughter, Florence Nightingale, the nurse and statistician; another married into the Bonham Carter family. Ben's father wanted him to marry Mary Shore, the sister of William Nightingale, now a relative by marriage.
Ben Smith's home was in Marylebone, London, but from 1816 he inherited and purchased property near Hastings: Brown's Farm near Robertsbridge, with a house built around 1700 (extant), and Crowham Manor, Westfield, which included 200 acres (0.81 km2). Although a member of the landed gentry, Smith held radical views. He was a Dissenter, a Unitarian, a supporter of free trade, and a benefactor to the poor. In 1826 he bore the cost of building a school for the inner city poor at Vincent Square, Westminster, and paid a penny a week towards the fees for each child, the same amount as paid by their parents. [1]
On a visit to his sister in Derbyshire in 1826, Smith met Anne Longden, a 25-year-old milliner from Alfreton. She became pregnant and Smith took her to a rented lodge at Whatlington, a small village near Battle, East Sussex. There she lived as 'Mrs Leigh', the surname of Ben Smith's relations on the nearby Isle of Wight. Barbara's birth created a scandal because the couple did not marry. Smith rode from Brown's Farm to visit them daily, and within eight weeks Anne was pregnant again. When little Ben was born the four of them went to America for two years, during which time another child was conceived. On their return to Sussex they lived openly together at Brown's, and had two more children. After their last child was born, in 1833, Anne became ill with tuberculosis and Smith leased 9 Pelham Crescent, which faced the sea at Hastings; the healthy properties of sea air were highly regarded at the time. A local woman, Hannah Walker, was employed to look after the children. Anne did not recover so Smith took her to Ryde, Isle of Wight, where she died in 1834 when Barbara was only seven years old.
Early on, she showed a force of character and catholicity of sympathy that later won her a prominent place among philanthropists and social workers. She and a group of friends began to meet regularly during the 1850s in Langham Place in London to discuss women's rights, and became known as "The Ladies of Langham Place". This became one of the first organised women’s movements in Britain. They pursued many causes vigorously, including their Married Women’s Property Committee. In 1854 she published her Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women, which had a useful effect in helping forward the passage of the Married Women's Property Act 1882. During this period she became close friends with the artist Anna Mary Howitt, for whom she sat on several occasions.[1]
In 1857 she married an eminent French physician, Dr Eugene Bodichon, and, although wintering many years in Algiers, continued to lead the movements she had initiated in behalf of Englishwomen.
In 1858, she set up the English Women's Journal as an organ for discussing employment and equality issues directly concerning women, in particular manual or intellectual industrial employment, expansion of employment opportunities, and the reform of laws pertaining to the sexes.
In 1866, co-operating with Emily Davies, she matured a scheme for the extension of university education to women, and the first small experiment at Hitchin developed into Girton College, Cambridge, to which Mme Bodichon gave liberally of her time and money.
With all her public interests she found time for society and her favorite art of painting. She studied under William Holman Hunt, and her water-colors, exhibited at the Salon, the Royal Academy and elsewhere, showed great originality and talent, and were admired by Corot and Daubigny. Her London salon included many of the literary and artistic celebrities of her day; she was George Eliot's most intimate friend, and, according to her, the first to recognize the authorship of Adam Bede. Her personal appearance is said to be described in that of Romola. Mme Bodichon died at Robertsbridge, Sussex, on the 11th of June 1891.
She was a Unitarian who wrote of Theodore Parker: He prayed to the Creator, the infinite Mother of us all (always using Mother instead of Father in this prayer). It was the prayer of all I ever heard in my life which was the truest to my individual soul. (Lingwood, 2008)
In 2007 the British equal rights campaigner and feminist Lesley Abdela came across the grave of Barbara Bodichon. The grave lay in the tiny churchyard in Brightling, East Sussex, about 50 miles (80 km) from London, in a state of disrepair, its railings rusted and breaking away and the inscription on the tomb almost illegible.[2] The historian Dr Judith Rowbotham at Nottingham Trent University issued an appeal for funds to restore the grave and its surrounds. About £1,000 was raised and under the eye of Mrs Irene Baker, Secretary, Brightling Parochial Church Council this has now been used to sand-blast the railings and repaint them, and clean the granite tomb. The grave and its surrounds are now in very good, attractive order, as they must have been over a century ago.