| Charlotte Carmichael Stopes | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 February 1841 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 6 February 1929 |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Shakespeare scholarship, and Women's Rights |
| Spouse | Henry Stopes |
| Children | Marie Stopes |
Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (1841–1929) was a British scholar, author, and campaigner for women's rights. She published several books relating to the life and work of William Shakespeare. Her most successful publication was British Freewomen: Their Historical Privilege (published 1894), a book which influenced and inspired the early twentieth century British women's suffrage movement. She married Henry Stopes, a palaeontologist, brewer and engineer. They produced two daughters, the eldest of whom was Marie Stopes, birth control advocate.
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In 1865 Sarah Mair founded the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, which published a regular writing journal, "The Attempt". Charlotte Carmichael had become a member by 1866 and published sundry pieces in The Attempt. In a meeting of the society in 1867 Mary Crudelius presented her initiative of creating classes for women at a university level under the auspices of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association. Charlotte Carmichael was present at the meeting. She pledged her willingness to attend such classes and guaranteed another twelve interested persons.[1] The first classes began in 1868, taught by Professor David Masson, Professor of English Literature at Edinburgh University,[2] ‘at a time when the University was not open to women and courses were given to them privately by the male Professors’.[3] Although women were not permitted to take a degree, she achieved the highest certificate then available to a female student, in subjects as diverse as literature, philosophy and science, achieving first class honours.[3] In fact, she "was the first woman in Scotland to gain a Certificate of Arts".[4] She used her education for the advancement of women and pursued scholarly interests in English Renaissance, particularly Shakespearean, literary history.
In 1879 she married Henry Stopes.
Her first book was The Bacon/Shakespeare Question, published in 1888: refuting the popular speculation that Francis Bacon was the actual author of Shakespeare's plays. This was the first of several works of scholarship concerning Shakespeare and literature of his period. Her books in the field included Shakespeare’s Family (1901), Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries (1907), William Hunnis and the Revels (1910), Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage (1913), The Seventeenth-Century Accounts of the Masters of the Revels (1922) and many published notes and articles. Stopes received an award from the British Academy in 1916 for her Shakespearian research, thirteen years before her death in February 1929.
According to Boas,[5] on the day after Stopes died, The Times published the following comment:
C.C. Stopes' study of British women’s history proved to be the most popular and influential of her numerous publications. British Freewomen: Their Historical Privilege was published by Swann Soennenshein in 1894. It ran to several editions and was a key reference point for the British female suffrage movement. As Laura E Nym Mayall observes that British Freewomen was ‘perhaps the single most influential text in casting women’s struggle for the vote within the radical narrative of loss, resistance and recovery’ since Stopes’ arguments, as outlined in successive editions of British Freewomen, were frequently cited by ‘suffragists of all stripes in making the case for women’s suffrage in print, before crowds, and in the courtroom’.[6] Stopes was a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. She wrote pamphlets and spoke publicly in campaigns for women’s rights.
Some of Stopes' research notes and correspondence are deposited at the University College London in a collection entitled MS ADD 157.[7]
The Serious Mrs Stopes: Gender, Writing and Scholarship in Late-Victorian Britain by Stephanie Green. Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, 5/3. (Accessed January 5, 2012.)