Jessie Boucherett

Jessie Boucherett

Boucherett, ca. 1860
Born Emilia Jessie Boucherett
November 1825
Willingham
Died 18 October 1905
Nationality British
Occupation writer, editor
Known for Society for Promoting the Employment of Women

(Emilia) Jessie Boucherett (November 1825 – 18 October 1905) was an English campaigner for women's rights.

Life

She was born in November 1825 at Willingham, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. She was the youngest child of Ayscoghe Boucherett and Louisa, daughter of Frederick John Pigou of Dartford, Kent. She was educated at the school of the four Miss Byerleys (daughters of Josiah Wedgwood's relative and partner, Thomas Byerley) at Avonbank, Stratford-on-Avon, where Mrs. Gaskell had been a pupil.<ref name"dnb"> This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, Charlotte Fell (1912). "Boucherett, Emilia Jessie". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement. London: Smith, Elder & Co. </ref>

Boucherett's activities for women's causes were inspired by reading the English Woman's Journal, which reflected her own aims, and by an article in the Edinburgh Review about the problems of the many 'superfluous' women in England during the middle years of the nineteenth century, a time when there were far more women than men in the population.[1]

With Barbara Bodichon and Adelaide Ann Procter, Boucherett helped found the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women in 1859. This became in 1926 the Society for Promoting the Training of Women which today operates as the registered charity Futures for Women.[2]

Also in 1859, Boucherett and Procter joined the Langham Place Group. A small but determined group which campaigned for the improvement of the situation of women, it was active between 1857 and 1866.[3]

Boucherett was a promoter of the women's suffrage movement and a strong supporter of the Married Women's Property Act. She founded the Englishwoman's Review in 1866, and edited it until 1870, when she founded with Lydia Becker the Women's Suffrage Journal.[4]

Works

References

  1. History of the Society at sptw.org, the web site of the Society for Promoting the Training of Women (accessed 23 March 2008)
  2. Futures for Women at futuresforwomen.org.uk, the web site of Futures for Women (accessed February 2014)
  3. Walker, Linda. "Boucherett, (Emilia) Jessie (1825–1905)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31982. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Phillips, Melanie. The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffragette Movement and the Ideas Behind It. London: Abacus, 2004. ISBN 0-349-11660-1. p. 132.

Sources