Harriet McIlquham

Harriet McIlquham
Born
Harriett Medley

8 August 1837
Brick Lane, London, England
Died24 January 1910
Burial placeTewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire, England
Occupation(s)suffragist, poor law guardian and local councillor
Organization(s)Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage
Women's Franchise League
Women's Emancipation Union
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
Children4

Harriet McIlquham (née Medley; 8 August 1837 – 24 January 1910), also known as Harriett McIlquham, was an English suffragist, poor law guardian and local councillor.

Early life

Harriet Medley was born on 8 August 1837 in Brick Lane, London, the daughter of Edward Medley (a baker) and Harriet Sanders Medley.[1] She was from a wealthy Unitarian family which encouraged political discussion.[2] In 1869, she purchased a large estate in Staverton.[3]

Political activism

Suffrage activism

McIlquham was a member of the Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage by 1877.[1] She was also a member of the Bristol and West of England Society for Women's Suffrage and a founding member of Cheltenham's Suffrage Society.[2] When the motion "should women, equally with men, be invested with the parliamentary franchise?" was discussed by the Cheltenham Debating Society on 7 December 1880, McIlquham participated in the debate. The motion was carried.[4]

She co-organized the Birmingham Grand Demonstration with Maria Colby which was held on 22 February 1881, and spoke at the Bradford demonstration.[1] In 1890, she was a delegate to a demonstration at St James' Hall in central London.[2]

In 1889, McIlquham was a member of the Central National Society, and co-founded the Women's Franchise League (WFL) with Alice Cliff Scatcherd and Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme-Elmy, and was the league's first president.[5][6][7] The WFL was the first organisation to include a commitment to married women's suffrage.[2] McIlquham addressed the league at meetings on topics including women's suffrage, women's training and employment opportunities,[8] and the 1884 Reform Act.[2]

Due to a disagreement with Ursula Bright in the WFL,[2] the organisation split in 1891.[9] McIlquham co-founded the more radical Women's Emancipation Union (WEU) in 1892, and served on that organisation's council. She was also a member of the Cheltenham branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), but also worked with and donated to the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).[10] In 1905, she lobbied at the House of Commons alongside Sylvia Pankhurst of the WSPU.[2]

McIllquham's closed friend Elmy initially refused to be paid for her work in the campaign for women's enfranchisement, but after her home was mortgaged in 1894 to fund her continued activism, McIlquham and other friends of Elmy organised a "Grateful Fund" to pay her £1 a week. McIlquham served as a trustee of this fund.[11]

Local politics

McIlquham was elected a Poor Law guardian for the Boddington in the Tewkesbury Union in April 1881, the first married woman elected to that office in the country.[3][12] She beat her male rival Henry Arkell by 48 votes.[2][3] Her qualifications for the position were questioned, but because she also held property in her own name, the challenge failed. She carried this experience into her further activism, taking particular interest in married women's political rights.[13] McIlquham served as a poor law guardian for thirteen years,[2] and also sat a finance sub-committee of the Tewkesbury Board of Guardians.[3]

McIlquham also became overseer of the poor for the parish of Staverton, the first chair of the Staverton parish council and vice-chairman of the Boddington School Board, among other local appointments.[1] In 1889, McIlquham unsuccessfully stood as a Liberal candidate for the Cheltenham division of Gloucestershire County Council and gained 3% of the vote.[14] She encouraged other women to stand as candidates in local elections.[2]

Writing

In January 1883, McIlquham wrote to the press criticising the staff of the local asylum, following a visiting committee report and information given by an escaped inmate.[3]

McIlquham published pamphlets based on her lectures, among them "The Enfranchisement of Women: An Ancient Right, A Modern Need" in 1892.[15] She also wrote a series of essays on the history of feminism for the Westminster Review.[16][17]

Personal life

Harriet Medley married James Henry McIlquham in 1858. They had four children and lived in Gloucestershire.[1]

She died in 1910, aged 72 years, from heart failure, influenza and bronchitis.[2] Her death came just hours after her paper on poet Robert Williams Buchanan was read at the Cheltenham Ethical Society.[18] She was described in obituaries as a "tireless worker for the rights of her sex."[14]

The papers of Harriet McIlquham are archived in The Women's Library at the London School of Economics.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Walker, Linda. (2004) "Harriett McIlquham" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pike, Linda (23 October 2018). "Harriett McIlquham (1837–1910), Petitioner and local politician". In Andrews, Maggie; Lomas, Janis (eds.). Hidden Heroines: The Forgotten Suffragettes. The Crowood Press. ISBN 978-0-7198-2762-4.
  3. ^ a b c d e Slack, Jennifer. "Harriet McIlquham (1837-1910)". Tewkesbury Historical Society. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  4. ^ Rowbotham, Sue (2015). "The Women's Suffrage Movement in Cheltenham, 1871-1914" (PDF). Cheltenham Local History Society. 31: 5.
  5. ^ Hamilton, Susan (4 April 2006). Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism. Springer. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-230-62647-8.
  6. ^ Wright, Maureen (9 January 2014). Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy and the Victorian Feminist Movement: The Biography of an Insurgent Woman. Manchester University Press. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-7190-9135-3.
  7. ^ Joannou, Maroula; Purvis, June (1998). The Women's Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives. Manchester University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-7190-4860-9.
  8. ^ Levine, Philippa (24 July 2018). Victorian Feminism, 1850-1900. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-6388-1.
  9. ^ Doughan, David; Gordon, Peter (3 June 2014). Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825-1960. Routledge. p. 166. ISBN 978-1-136-89770-2.
  10. ^ a b Papers of Harriet McIlquham, The Women's Library. Accessed 25 July 2022.
  11. ^ Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. pp. 195–196. ISBN 978-1-135-43402-1.
  12. ^ Richardson, Sarah (2013) The Political Worlds of Women: Gender and Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain. Routledge. p. 97. ISBN 9781135964931
  13. ^ Broad, Jacqueline. (2015) The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue. Oxford University Press. p 22. ISBN 9780191026201
  14. ^ a b Phillips, Jenni (16 January 2021). "The legendary Gloucestershire women who made history". Gloucestershire Live. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  15. ^ McIlquham, Harriet. "The Enfranchisement of Women: An Ancient Right, a Modern Need" (Women's Emancipation Union 1892).
  16. ^ McIlquham, Harriett. "Early Writers on the Woman Question" Westminster Review (September 1902): pp. 312-320.
  17. ^ McIlquham, Harriett. "Women's Suffrage in the Early Nineteenth Century" Westminster Review (February 1903): pp. 539-551.
  18. ^ "Mrs. Harriet McIlquham" Leamington Spa Courier (28 January 1910): 5.
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