Women’s History Walk around L i v e r p o o l

e start the walk from consecrated in 1910, is hidden away at the one of ’s most far corner of the building. The Noble Women windows are positioned at the back of the Wfamous landmarks, the Chapel near to the stairs. These windows were Anglican Cathedral on St James restored after World War Two due to damage Mount. This monumental building but the original designs were reproduced. Portraits include (among others) Queen is visible for miles around from both Victoria, the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning Liverpool and across the Mersey and Christina Rossetti, the Quaker and prison reformer , missionary Louisa from the Wirral. This is a circular Stewart, and two heroines of the sea who had walk which takes us through the captured the public’s imagination at the time. elegant Georgian cultural quarter These are Grace Darling, the daughter of the Bamburgh Lighthouse Keeper in , of Liverpool, through the University who with her father had rescued nine survivors area down to the civic quarter and of a wrecked steamer; and Mary Rogers (née Foxwell) , a stewardess who, as her ship sank close to the world heritage waterfront. If to Guernsey in 1899, refused to enter a lifeboat you are in need of retail therapy, the and died saving the lives of the women and walk also skirts the new Liverpool children in her care. Also pictured is Catherine Gladstone (d. 1900) who was a philanthropist ONE shopping complex. We end and political figure independently of her husband, the walk at Rodney Street, just the Prime Minister William Gladstone. In 1887 Catherine became the first president of the opposite the Anglican Cathedral. Women’s Liberal Federation; like her husband she was also involved in ‘rescuing’ prostitutes and sometimes attempted to restore their ‘self respect’ 1 Anglican Cathedral, St James Mount by entertaining them to tea at 10 Downing Street. Other ‘Noble Women’ are heroines of Liverpool. Before entering be sure to see Kitty Wilkinson saved many lives during ‘The Risen Christ’ sculpture Liverpool’s cholera epidemic of 1832 by using her above the main, West door. kitchen as a public wash house. Kitty’s house This was the sculptor Dame had the only boiler on the street and, on advice Elizabeth Frink’s last religious from a physician, she began using it to wash and commission which was disinfect neighbours’ bedding and clothes using unveiled on Easter Sunday chloride of lime. The need for public baths quickly 1993, a week before her death. became apparent—most poorer homes had no The Lady Chapel is running water—and, eventually, the first public famous for its two stained wash house was established in Upper Frederick glass windows picturing Street in 1842 with Kitty and her husband as Noble Women, including superintendents. Here poor residents could come notable women associated to bathe or wash clothing at a nominal cost. In with Liverpool. The Chapel, addition to this work connected with public which was the first part health, Kitty also attended the sick and founded of the Cathedral to be a school in Liverpool for orphan children.

24 HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 www.herstoria.com The stories of the other of Liverpool’s 3 Canning Street building for students, named Agnes ‘Noble women’ will unfold during our Jones House. walk. , pictured with The artist and theosophist Isabelle lilies as representative of ‘all brave de Steiger (née Lace) was born at 2 6 Myrtle Street champions of purity’, was a social Canning Street in 1836. She trained at the reformer and tireless campaigner for Slade School and enjoyed a career as a The writer Jessie Vaizey (née Bell) was poor women’s rights. Agnes Jones professional artist. Between 1879 and 1926 born at number 47 Myrtle Street South in was inspired to become a nurse by she exhibited on twenty-nine occasions 1856. Her home has gone now alas, but it and was sustained at the Walker Art Gallery. Her best known would have been (approximately) where by her Christian faith as she nursed work is Cleopatra after the Battle of Actium. the Liverpool University Management the poorest of the poor at Liverpool It was relatively unusual for a woman to School car park now stands. Her most . Anne Jemima Clough was have success painting classical historical popular stories were written for girls born in Liverpool in 1820; she pioneered and mythological themes, especially in and Liverpool provided the setting for the University extension movement oils. These were serious male preserves some of them. Her most successful (which provided lectures for women for which women were not deemed to books were about her heroine Pixie who were denied access to universities have the required moral gravitas. It was O’Shaughnessy, published under the because of their sex) and used Liverpool thought more appropriate for women to name Mrs George De Horne Vaizey. as the base for her first pilot project. concern themselves with floral subjects, From 1862 Myrtle Street In January 1914, towards the end pastels and illustrative work, and de was the location of a new Lying- of the militant campaign, Steiger accepted these commissions too. In (Maternity) hospital. Liverpool targeted In the 1880s de Steiger became involved the Lady Chapel and attempted in spiritualism and joined Madame Abercromby Square/ to disrupt evensong services by Blavaksky’s esoteric, occult Theosophical 7 Bedford Street South shouting and unfurling banners. Society—a movement that attracted In 1928 the evangelist and many strong women, possibly because it Walk through to Abercromby campaigner for women’s ordination held out the promise of a new, magical Square and at the end of the Georgian Beatrice Hankey preached a late- understanding of the world with a more Terrace look right up Bedford Street evening Sunday service here. For a equal sexual hierarchy. Number 2 Canning South to the University of Liverpool’s woman to do this was controversial, Street is Eleanor Rathbone Building which but she was supported by the cathedral an elegant commemorates the key role that she canon, Charles Raven, a sympathiser building that played in establishing the School of with the cause of women’s rights. has fallen on Social Science at the University. Artist Sarah Biffin and hard times; Kitty Wilkinson are buried in inside is a 8 Brownlow Hill St James’ Cemetery here. beautiful The Anglican Cathedral has a spiral staircase Continue on through the university quiet café with a lovely atmosphere, which must campus untill you get to Brownlow Hill. ideal for refreshment prior to have been You cannot fail to notice Liverpool commencing the walk. wonderfully University’s Victoria Building on the imposing in de corner with Ashton Street. Opened Blackburne House, Steiger’s day. in 1892, this was designed by Alfred 2 off Hope Street Waterhouse and is the origin of the 4 Huskisson Street term ‘red-brick university’. University Opposite the College Liverpool had been founded Anglican Cathedral Lucy Cradock, the first woman doctor in 1881 and formed part of the federal in Blackburne to practise in Liverpool, established and Victoria University with Manchester Place is Blackburne ran a surgery at 52 Huskisson Street. and Leeds. It received its charter in House. This was 1903 and became the University of founded in 1844 Catharine Street Liverpool open to men and women as a girls’ day alike (although the first woman medical school—The Lucy Cradock lived near to her students were allowed in 1905). In 1927 Liverpool Institute surgery here at 29 Catharine Street. Liverpool began a pioneering Health High School for Visitors Course which opened up valuable Girls—one of the employment opportunities for women. first of its kind 5 You’ll notice at Number 1a, just Many women of note are associated in England. One of the more famous before the with the University of Liverpool Victoria alumnae of Blackburne House (as it junction with Women’s Settlement which was based was and is more usually known) is Myrtle Street, at 322 Netherfield Road (too far to walk!). former MP Edwina Currie. Today the John The University Settlement movement the building is used as a women’s Moores began in the mid 1880s. The idea was for education and training centre, with a University university women (men had their own welcoming café bar (open weekdays). residential

HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 25 settlements) to live among the poor and Infirmary. This pioneering scheme later factory to provide working classes in order to help them spread from Liverpool to the rest of the homeless girls and lead by example. The settlements country. In the mid 1880s it was decided with work. Butler proved attractive to independent young to rebuild the infirmary and the architect was also central women who desired a more public life was commissioned. to the movement than that of a wife and mother. A notable He consulted with Nightingale over the to reform the law member of the Victoria Settlement was plan of the building which opened in which resulted in the Eleanor Rathbone, who began social 1889. It closed in 1978 and the greater Married Women’s work at the Settlement in 1903. Rathbone, part of this classic Waterhouse gothic Property Act of 1882 one of the great women of Liverpool, building is now Liverpool University’s and in initiatives to was a philanthropist, secretary of the conference venue The Foresight Centre. provide higher education for women. Liverpool Suffrage Society, and a central Near to this building on Pembroke However Josephine Butler is most figure in local Liverpool politics. She was Place was the Baptist Pembroke remembered for leading the Ladies’ elected as an independent MP in 1929 Chapel which hosted suffrage meetings, National Association in its campaign and is best known for her campaigns bazaars and other political events. against the Contagious Disease Acts, on women’s issues, especially family Women played a significant part in the misguided legislation which had allowances. (See the book review of the the running of the chapel, including been introduced in 1864, 1866 and 1869 Rathbone biography in this issue). suffragetteHattie Mahood who was a to curb the spread of venereal disease Eleanor Rathbone met her life-long deacon. Another feminist worker, Ethel amongst soldiers and sailors in eighteen friend Elizabeth Macadam at the Victoria Snowden, once preached from the garrison towns and ports (although not Settlement where Macadam was Warden pulpit and was inspired by the chapel Liverpool). Butler interpreted these Acts 1901-1910. At this time the Settlement reverend to go out into the Liverpool as ‘the most flagrant of injustices against ran dispensaries, clinics, clubs and classes slums to give temperance lectures. women’ and as a legal embodiment of the for disabled children. Macadam pioneered sexual double-standard (men were not procedures here and launched a training Metropolitan Cathedral inspected for disease). The Acts allowed programme for social workers; in 1910 10 (Brownlow Hill Workhouse) for any woman suspected by a plain- Macadam became Liverpool University’s clothed policemen of being a prostitute to first lecturer on the methods and practice be picked up and subjected to an internal of social work. The suffragist and preacher examination—‘rape by speculum’—or Maud Royden, who was born at Mossley be sent before a magistrate to prove her Hill near Liverpool, spent eighteen months virtue. If found to be infected she would at the Victoria Settlement. Royden was be imprisoned in a lock hospital for around motivated by a profound religious faith, a three-nine months. Butler exhibited faith that informed her suffrage views. In great bravery in taking up this cause and 1909 she helped found the Church League speaking out in public, and one MP called for Women’s Suffrage; she also shocked her ‘worse than a common prostitute’. some in the Anglican faith with her belief After almost twenty years of campaigning that women should be allowed to preach. The site now occupied by the the were She herself did so when invited, although Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral suspended in 1883 and repealed in 1886. many bishops refused to give permission. was until 1931 the location of the The Brownlow Hill workhouse was Physician Lucy Cradock also worked at Brownlow Hill workhouse, the largest also where another of Liverpool Lady the dispensary of the Victoria Settlement. institution of its kind in England. This Chapel’s ‘Noble Women’ helped the City’s In 1939 Liverpool University awarded housed many women and children; sick and poor. Agnes Jones came to an honourary degree to Virginia on September 7 1862 a fire destroyed Liverpool in 1865, accompanied by twelve Woolf; in 2009 one female Liverpool one of the dormitories and twenty Nightingale-trained nurses, to become graduate—Carol Ann Duffy— one children and two women died. lady superintendent of the workhouse made history as the first female poet The Brownlow Hill workhouse was infirmary. Liverpool pioneered the use laureate (Duffy studied philosophy). where Josephine Butler commenced of trained nurses—and Brownlow was The red-brick Victoria Building is her work amongst the poor of Liverpool. the first workhouse now a gallery and museum – with, Butler had moved to the City in 1864, to have its own yet again, a lovely coffee bar. shortly after the death of her daughter training school for Eva. This tragedy had left her in despair nurses— through Pembroke Place/ and keen to ‘meet people more unhappy’ this experiment 9 Brownlow Street than herself. She found such people which was led by in the prostitutes at Brownlow Hill Jones and funded by District nursing as an organised workhouse; she sat with these women in local philanthropist movement began in Liverpool in 1862 the segregated oakum shed, where they William Rathbone. when William Rathbone, with guidance were tasked with unravelling rope—a Agnes Jones from Florence Nightingale, set up The tedious and often painful business. Butler was intensely Liverpool Training School and Home for went on to nurse these women in her religious and Nurses attached to the Liverpool Royal own home and to open a small envelope hardworking; she

26 HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 www.herstoria.com looked after up to 1500 patients at in certain districts. In Liverpool many men and they were often forced to work any one time assisted by eighteen widows and single women were now the streets out of economic necessity. trainees and around fifty female inmates entitled to vote in local elections. Married The Liverpool slums were notorious and who received a small salary. Worn women were exempt as their husband many of the women featured in this walk out, she died of typhus fever at the was deemed the ratepayer, not them. were motivated in their philanthropic workhouse infirmary in February 1868. work by dismay at the distress suffered Again, the Cathedral has a nice 12 Renshaw Street by local women and children. coffee bar if you need to take a rest. The Jubilee 14 Clayton Square 11 Mount Pleasant Congress of District Nursing Property developer Sarah Clayton The Liverpool Medical Institute at 114 was held at the (d. 1779) used an inherited lease on a Mount Pleasant is one of the oldest Methodist Central piece of Liverpool land to lay out Clayton medical societies in the world. The only Hall in Renshaw Square, and probably nearby streets too woman doctor associated with it in the Street in 1901. (she had developed an early interest nineteenth century is Lucy Cradock, District Nursing is in architecture). She moved into a large Liverpool’s earliest female physician. In closely associated house on her square in 1767, although October 1888 the council of the LMI with Liverpool. all the properties were not completed debated whether to allow Cradock—a The hall is now until nearly twenty years later. Sadly, the woman—membership. Cradock had an alternative grand houses were demolished at the end written a humble letter, acknowledging shopping complex. of the 1980s to make way for the retail possible objections to her attending park. There is a well-known portrait by meetings and reassuring that she 13 Lime Street Joseph Wright of Derby, painted around would only attend if papers of great 1769, which pictures Sarah Clayton interest were to be presented, and that Lime Street was infamous in the sitting with a plan of Clayton Square. she was ready ‘to take a hint’ and leave nineteenth century and first half of the if her presence hindered discussion. twentieth century as the place where 15 William Brown Street Cradock was elected, despite some ‘ladies of the night’ plied their trade. opposition, although she was kept to These, famously, included Maggie The Wellington Column was a the periphery at the beginning at least. May. A nineteenth-century Liverpool favourite location for open-air suffrage Alongside her private practice based sea shanty was written about Maggie meetings held by the Liverpool in Huskisson Street, Cradock served as who had ‘robbed so many a sailor, and Women’s Social and Political Union Medical Officer to the Female Staff of skinned so many a whaler’ but who had (Mrs Pankhurst’s militant suffragettes). the Liverpool Post Office, became House ‘a figure so divine, like a frigate of the line’. In early 1909 the WSPU held two major Physician to the Women’s Hospital in The lyrics to Maggie May became well- parades through the City centre. Shaw Street, served on the Dispensary known when the song was recorded by Board of the Victoria Settlement, was a various groups including the Beatles: 16 Walker Art Gallery medical attendant to the School of the Blind, and medical officer to the women Now gather round you sailor boys, and students of the University Training School. listen to my plea She remained in Liverpool until her And when you’ve heard my tale you’ll death in 1903, at the age of fifty-three. pity me By 1916 the LMI had seven women For I was a real damned fool in the port members; in 1926 Dr Frances Ivens, of Liverpool who had run a Medical Unit during The first time that I came home from sea the First World War, was elected vice- president, and in 1957 Dr Margaret I was paid off at the Home, from a Thomas (Later Lady Woolton) voyage to Sierra Leone became the first woman president. Two pounds ten and sixpence was my pay The Walker Art Gallery on William Hope Street When I drew the tin I grinned, but I Brown Street, which opened in 1877, was very soon got skinned Britain’s first publicly-owned art gallery. The Everyman Theatre, built in the By a girl by the name of Maggie May What’s more, the first work bought for 1960s, incorporates part of an old chapel, the gallery with public funds was Sophie Hope Hall, which later became a meeting Poverty was chronic in Liverpool Anderson’s Elaine (1870). The Walker was and concert hall. It was here in 1869 that in the final decades of the nineteenth ahead of its time in its support of women the early suffrage leader,Lydia Becker, century, exacerbated by the traditions artists and held exhibitions organised spoke before a meeting of suffragists of casual labour in the docks and the by The Society of Female Artists gathered to celebrate the amendment to arrival of many Irish families fleeing the which had been established in London the 1869 Municipal Corporations Franchise famine. Employment opportunities for in 1855. In 1893 the painter Henrietta Act which enfranchised women ratepayers women were even scarcer than those for Rae became the first woman to sit on

HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 27 the Hanging Committee of the Liverpool suffrage campaigners as a Exchange Street East Autumn Exhibition, an annual event favourite place of pubic debate. 19 (Liverpool Cotton Exchange held at the Walker and at which women 20 and Exchange Flags) were not infrequent exhibitors. Rae’s Castle Street (Liverpool painting Ophelia had been purchased 18 Town Hall) This is at the commercial heart by the Liverpool Corporation in 1890 of Liverpool which is full of grand and is still owned by the Walker. Bessie Braddock or ‘Battling Bessie’ buildings, many with art deco design The Walker Gallery’s permanent as she was known locally, must be one and decorations. Liverpool was probably collection includes works by Lavinia of the most colourful characters to ever the major centre of militant suffrage Fontana (d. 1614), Elizabeth Vigee- serve on . Bessie, activity beyond London. Suffragettes Lebrun (d. 1842), Emma Sandys (d. a staunch socialist, was elected in 1930 set fire to a school and a church towards 1877), Sophie Anderson (d. 1903) and and while in office she never tired of the east of the City, and Edith Rayner Louisa Starr (d. 1909). These and other fighting for Liverpool’s poor. She argued placed a bomb at the Liverpool Cotton artists are featured in the Walker’s The Rise against the inequities of the casual dock Exchange in 1913 (it did not detonate). of Women Artists exhibition to be held labour system and against sweatshops; This building (at the corner of Old Hall 23 October 2009 to 14 March 2010. she once took a large megaphone into Street and Ormond Street) has been the council chamber to force action over rebuilt, but if you go behind the existing 17 St George’s Hall Liverpool slums. On another occasion building you can see an original entrance she was escorted from the chamber for with the words ‘Cotton Exchange’ above taking the mace from the dais during a it in stone . Suffragettes targeted this heated meeting. In the post-war 1945 affluent part of the City and held a series election Bessie was elected to Parliament of public meeting at the Exchange Flags. as the first woman to hold a Liverpool This is a large paved area behind the Town seat—Liverpool Exchange—which Hall, but in the early part of the twentieth she held for twenty four years. She century it featured colonnades and was also the first woman to be given arches which formed an enclosed plaza. the honourary Freedom of Liverpool. Bessie—who was larger than life in size 21 Liverpool Docks/Pier Head In 1875 Fanny Calder established and personality—remembered that her the pioneering Liverpool School of mother, the redoubtable Liverpool trade In March 1916, during wartime Cookery and began running classes for unionist and suffragist , when male labour was scarce, up to fifty adults at St George’s Hall. Calder’s aim used to take her as a young child to the women were employed at the docks was to improve the conditions of the dock meetings at which she spoke. It working as porters unloading cotton poor; her staff gave demonstrations and was announced in 2008 that there is and other goods. The women had instructions and the scheme was soon planned a statue in memory of Bessie to only been employed for around three extended to girls in schools. The Liverpool be placed at Liverpool Lime Street Station. weeks when the dock management School remained at the forefront of the In 1909 Eleanor Rathbone gave way to intense opposition from movement for domestic science when was the first woman to be elected male dockers and the Union and fired Calder set up the Northern Union of to Liverpool City Council. them. Women were never employed Training Schools of Cookery in 1876, Liverpool Town Hall is a grand as dockers again, but during World and the national Association of Teachers War Two women were sometime of Domestic Science in 1897. In 1892 employed to sweep the warehouses. Florence Nightingale wrote to her Trans-Atlantic liners used to leave ‘Good speed to your great work—Saint from the pier head and women were of the Laundry, Cooking and Health’. employed on these ships from the Mary Bamber, trade unionist, 1860s onwards, as stewardesses looking suffragist and worker with the poor—and after female passengers, laundry maids, mother of Bessie Braddock (see 18)— hairdressers and in other ‘female’ jobs. used to run, with other women, a soup Of course it is difficult to be at kitchen for the Liverpool poor during the Liverpool Docks and not think about economic depression of winter 1906-7 , into which thousands of women from St George’s Plateau. She organised building with opulent decorations and a were ‘traded’ in Liverpool. In the second women workers and frequently spoke splendid council chamber. On the roof of half of the eighteenth century Liverpool at outdoor meetings here and close by the Hall is a statue of Minerva, the Roman was Britain’s leading slave port. Women at the Wellington Column. Bamber was Goddess of Wisdom. The Hall is open to were actively involved in the campaigns once arrested during an occupation the public at various times with guided against slavery, in particular it was in protest at unemployment staged tours (see www.civichalls.liverpool.gov.uk) women who initiated and carried out at the Walker Art Gallery in 1921. the slave-sugar boycott of 1792. One St George’s Plateau was also of these women campaigners, Quaker used by Liverpool’s women Mary Birkett (author of A Poem on the African Slave Trade. Addressed to her own

28 HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 www.herstoria.com Sex), was born in Liverpool , although said that Byron the ocean, she moved to Dublin as a child. carried her poems The rush of whose pinion bears onward The ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’ operates around with him; the storms; from George’s Landing Stage. Take she is generally Like the sweep of the white-rolling the Seacombe Ferry to the Wirral on a recognised as the wave was their motion, weekend and you will hear the story of most significant I felt their dim presence,–but knew Mother Redcap, who served as banker to woman poet of the not their forms ! smugglers and pirates (and often fleeced Romantic period, I saw them–the mighty of ages them!). Her cottage was at Egremont, although male departed– near the Seacombe Ferry Terminal. contemporaries The dead were around me that night such as Byron and on the hill: 22 Duke Street Wordsworth are From their eyes, as they pass’d, a cold better remembered. It was Hemans who radiance they darted,– The miniature wrote the poem Casabianca (1826) which There was light on my soul, but my painter Sarah contains the well-known opening lines: heart’s blood was chill. Biffin (sometimes I saw what man looks on, and dies–but Beffin) ran her The boy stood on the burning deck, my spirit own independent When all but he had fled; Was strong, and triumphantly lived studios at 44, The flame that lit the battle’s wreck through that hour; and then 8, Duke Shone round him o’er the dead. And, as from the grave, I awoke to Street . (Number inherit 44 still exists, but The University of Liverpool remembers A flame all immortal, a voice, and a the numbering her with an annual Felicia Hemans power ! changes with lyrical poetry prize open to staff. Day burst on that rock with the purple the hairdressers cloud crested, next door to it now number 16; number ‘The Rock of Cader Idris’ by Felicia And high Cader Idris rejoiced in the 8 would have been where Duke Street Hemans (from Welsh Melodies 1821) sun;– meets the new Liverpool ONE shopping But O ! what new glory all nature complex, near to John Lewis.) Biffin I lay on that rock where the storms have invested, was born into humble beginnings in their dwelling, When the sense which gives soul to her Somerset in 1784. She suffered from a The birthplace of phantoms, the home beauty was won ! severe medical condition which resulted of the cloud; in greatly-shortened arms and legs and Around it for ever deep music is 24 Colquitt Street an adult height of just thirty-seven swelling, inches . Biffin painted using her mouth The voice of the mountain-wind, and, despite this, became a well-known solemn and loud. artist commissioned by royalty. Her ‘Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully 1833 full-size portrait in oils of Fanny streaming, Maria Cox (1833) is owned by the Walker Of wild waves and breezes, that Art Gallery. Her works are referred to mingled their moan; by Dickens in his novels (including Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulfs Nicholas Nickelby, Little Dorrit and The Old faintly gleaming; Curiosity Shop) and exhibitions of hers And I met the dread gloom of its were held in Liverpool, including at The grandeur alone. Mechanic’s Institute (now The Liverpool I lay there in silence–a spirit came o’er Institute of Performing Arts) in 1844. me; Walking along Duke Street you will Man’s tongue hath no language to The old Liverpool Royal Institution pass the building that was Liverpool’s speak what I saw: building was the meeting place in the first public lending library, opened Things glorious, unearthly, pass’d 1880s of the Liverpool Astronomical in October 1852 at number 105. floating before me, Society. Attending these meetings Women were enthusiastic users of And my heart almost fainted with was astronomer Elizabeth Brown who this, which was the second public rapture and awe. was director of the Solar Section of the library to be opened in the country. I view’d the dread beings around us LAS 1883-1890. Brown made notable 23 The prolific poet Felicia Hemans that hover, research contributions in her field and was born in 1793 at 118 Duke Though veil’d by the mists of made expeditions to view solar eclipses Street (the building is there but boarded mortality’s breath; to Russia in 1887 and the West Indies in up for refurbishment at time of going And I call’d upon darkness the vision 1889. In 1889 she was instrumental in to press.) She was a celebrity in her time to cover, the creation of the British Astronomical and received many prizes and poetry For a strife was within me of madness Association, an organisation which was commissions. Hemans’ work was praised and death. an alternative to the exclusive Royal by John Taylor Coleridge and it was I saw them–the powers of the wind and Astronomical Society which refused to

HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 29 16 Old Hall St 15

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St John’s Lane 9

19 Victoria St 18 9 13

Castle St Water St 8 14 Cook St

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Pedestrianised or limited access areas

Mermaid by milliande.com.

30 HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 www.herstoria.com Map of Women’s History Walk

16 of Liverpool 15

20 17 Pembroke Place

St John’s Lane 9 Lime St

19 Great Newton St 9 18 Lime St

13 St Ashton Brownlow St Brownlow Brownlow Hill 8 14

21 Peach St Peach 10 12 Mount Pleasant News From Nowhere, Renshaw St Bold St Abercrombie Square sells Herstoria Magazine 11 Bold St

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22 Mulberry St Colquitt St 26 24 25 6 23 Myrtle St

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29a Catharine St

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HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 31 accept women as fellows until 1915. been inspired to become a and the rest of the family, but to the The Liverpool Royal Institution after hearing Christobel Pankhurst speak fascination of the general public. Soon building also has a place in women’s in London. Flatman participated in many after, while living abroad, she became history as the venue for the Extension suffrage events, including the 1908 addicted to opium; she eventually settled Lectures for Women organised by rush on Parliament to petition Asquith. in Cologne where she died in 1880. Josephine Butler and Anne Jemima Number 28 is on the corner with Seel The first meeting Clough under the auspices of the North Street and is now a betting shop! of The Liverpool of England Council for the Promotion Association of of Higher Education for Women. 26 Leece Street Medical Women This organisation, which represents an was held at 45a important first step in the campaign On Leece Street you will pass the Rodney Street in to open up the universities to women, bombed out church of St Luke’s which is 1909, chaired by organised lectures by sympathetic male left as a wartime memorial. It is said to be Liverpool physician dons for female audiences on various haunted by the ghost of an old woman. Frances Ivens. subjects in the arts and sciences. Butler Pioneer and Clough were founder members 27 Rodney Street of women’s and used Liverpool as their first base for education Anne lectures. In 1871 went on Helen Jane Jemima Clough lived for a time to become Mistress of the residential Gladstone at 9 and 74 Rodney Street. house in Cambridge which became was born at Newnham College for Women, the 62 Rodney Parliament Street second college for women at Cambridge Street in (Girton was established in 1869). 1814, the Finally, a little to the south of the sister of cathedral was the now demolished 25 Berry Street William Parliament Terrace. On November 16 Gladstone 1883 a meeting took place here to set Number 28 Berry Street was the the future up an International Council of Women. location of the Women’s Social and prime Leading figures of the American suffrage Political Union ‘Votes for Women’ or minister. movement Elizabeth Cady Stanton suffragette shop until 1911. These She led a and Susan B Anthony were present. shops sold a variety of suffrage inspired troubled life, suffering from an eating merchandise, for example badges, hatpins, order from the age of fourteen and Claire Jones, with thanks to Linda buckles and ties in the WSPU colours of becoming an invalid. In the summer Friday, Christine Roberts, Pat Starkey, green, white and purple. The Liverpool of 1842 she converted to Roman Ed Casson (Walker Art Gallery) and Paul shop was run by Ada Flatman who had Catholicism, to the dismay of her brother Webster (Livepool Record Office)

MisSpeak ….. the very desire for a vote on the part of a woman is an open confession of weakness, - a proof that she has lost ground, and is not sure of herself. For if she is real Woman, - if she has the natural heritage of her sex, which is the mystic power to persuade, enthral and subjugate man, she has no need to come down from her throne and mingle in any of his political frays, inasmuch as she is already the very head and front of Government.

Marie Corelli, Woman,-or Suffragette? A Question of National Choice(London, Constable, 1905) Marie Corelli (Mary Mackay) was a popular and prolific romantic novelist , her books were said to be Queen Victoria’s favourite reading. The quote above is from a pamphlet she wrote on the question of women and the vote. Although Corelli was opposed passionately to women’s suffrage—she believed that to vote was unwomanly and may desex women— in other ways she could be called a feminist. For example, she believed in women’s intellectual equality with men and supported women’s strivings for economic independence.

32 HerStoria magazine Summer 2009 www.herstoria.com