Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism

207 Pages·2006·2.975 MB·English

by  Susan Hamilton (auth.)

Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism
Also by Susan Hamilton
ANIMAL WELFARE AND ANTI-VIVISECTION, 1870–1910:
Nineteenth-Century British Woman’s Mission (editor)
CRIMINALS, IDIOTS, WOMEN AND MINORS:Nineteenth-Century
Women’s Writing by Women on Women (editor, second edition)
Frances Power Cobbe and
Victorian Feminism
Susan Hamilton
© Susan Hamilton 2006
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-9995-5
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First published 2006 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-1-349-54809-5 ISBN 978-0-230-62647-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230626478
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hamilton, Susan.
Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian feminism / by Susan Hamilton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Cobbe, Frances Power, 1822–1904. 2. Feminists–Great Britain–
Biography. 3. Journalists–Great Britain–Biography. 4. Feminism–Great
Britain–History–19th century. 5. Journalism–Great Britain–History–
19th century. I. Title.
HQ1595.C63H36 2006
305.42092–dc22
[B]
2005045608
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014
For my daughter MaryClare, ‘Then along came
Emily Murphy!’, and in memory of my son, Finlay
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1 Victorian Feminism and the Periodical Press 1
Chapter 2 ‘She and I have Lived Together’: women’s
celibacy and signature in Cobbe’s early writing 25
Chapter 3 The ‘force’ of sentiment: Married Women’s
Property and the ideal of marriage in Fraser’s
Magazine 61
Chapter 4 ‘Speaking in Fleet Street’: the feminist politics
of the editorial in the London Echo, 1868–1875 95
Chapter 5 Making History with Frances Power Cobbe:
Victorian feminism, domestic violence and the
language of imperialism 125
Chapter 6 ‘A Crisis in Woman’s History’: Duties of Women
and the practice of everyday feminism 145
Notes 173
Bibliography 189
Index 199
vii
Acknowledgements
My debts are many, but my pleasures in acknowledging them even
more. For support, my deepest thanks and love to Susan L. Smith,
dear friend. Without her unflagging confidence in my work, constant
urging, and institutional know-how, this book would remain forever
in process. To Teresa Zackodnik, whose formidable acuity, intellectual
engagement, tender heart, and sheer delight in writing and talking
about writing, has kept me more buoyed than she would ever know.
To Glenn Burger, friend of a lifetime, who always thinks I have some-
thing to say and is willing to listen. To the other members of my
writing group, whose careful attention and gastronomic treats have
made this a better book: Lesley Cormack, Judy Garber, Lois Harder
and Daphne Read.
The University of Alberta has been a most congenial address for my
research and teaching. Amongst the many, past and present, who
make the Department of English and Film Studies a good place to head
for each day: Jo-Ann Wallace, friend and past chair; Peter Sinnema,
fellow Victorianist and talented carouser; Cecily Devereux, who keeps
me on my toes imperialistically; Monica Flegel for spirited conversa-
tion and pet-care. My thanks, too, to the McCalla Research Professor-
ship committee, whose award of one year’s writing time finally
brought this ship to berth, and to the University of Alberta’s Human-
ities, Fine Arts and Social Sciences Research Fund for support of a
research trip at a critical time. Thanks too to the Social Science and
Humanities Research Council of Canada for support of a research
project that, long ago, led me to Frances Power Cobbe.
More far-flung, Janice Schroeder, whose work on the Victorian femi-
nist periodical press I have been privileged to learn from; Sally Mitchell
for sharing her incomparable knowledge on matters Cobbe; to Steven
Kruger, for inspiration; to Geraldine Brennan and Neil Littman for
giving me a London home whenever I need one; to Joseph and
Dorothy Hamilton, parents extraordinaire; and to David Doughan
who guided a session of ‘Suffrage City’ conference-goers in song, and
who, though he doesn’t know it, helped me to know how committed
I was to the history of feminism.
ix
x Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism
And finally, to the two people most important in my life. To
Paul Brennan, my heart, for years of loving support, tea and sweet
colloquy; and to MaryClare, my delight, who continues to wonder
why her school once had separate entrances for boys and girls.
Earlier versions of Chapter 4, ‘The Practice of Everyday Feminism,’
Chapter 5, ‘Making History with Frances Power Cobbe,’ and Chapter 6,
‘“Crisis in Woman’s History”,’ first appeared, respectively, in Victorian
Periodicals Review, Victorian Studies, and Women’s History Review. My
thanks to Indiana University Press and Andrew H. Miller at Victorian
Studies, Ann Heilmann, and the editors of Women’s History Reviewand
Victorian Periodicals Review.
1
Victorian Feminism and the
Periodical Press
One day in 1878 I was by chance reading a newspaper in
which a whole series of frightful cases [of domestic
violence] were recorded, here and there, among the ordi-
nary news of the time. I got up out of my armchair, half
dazed, and said to myself: ‘I will never rest till I have tried
what I can do to stop this.’1
Frances Power Cobbe was a mid-Victorian feminist journalist and
one of a handful of women to make a steady living writing for the
mid-nineteenth century established press. She was involved in the
national women’s suffrage campaign, argued for women’s increased
educational and employment opportunities, and was a vocal critic of
marriage. She worked to improve education for ‘ragged’ or homeless
children and the condition of workhouses. She was instrumental in
the passage of the 1878 Matrimonial Causes Act, which made domes-
tic violence grounds for legal separation. She also agitated on behalf
of, and helped to write, the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act, which
sought to limit the use of live animals in scientific experiments. She
was one of the best-known feminist thinkers of her day.
As the lines from her autobiography tell us, Frances Power Cobbe
believed in the power of the press. The ‘what I can do’ of this
passage is the statement of a writer, a journalist who used the press
for decades to mount appeals, make arguments, decry abuses.
Despite her prodigious accomplishments and the strong sustained
interest in histories of feminisms, her writings have been overlooked
by historians and literary scholars. Cobbe felt the particular force of
1