Dora Marsden

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Following a notorious suffrage career, DM founded, edited, and wrote for the highly influential journals The Freewoman, The New Freewoman, and The Egoist. She then wrote several books on the intersections among philosophy, religion, and science. Repeating the pattern of her lifetime, much of the critical attention accorded to Marsden in recent decades has focussed primarily on her early feminist activities and associations, rather than her pursuits in The Egoist or her monographs.

Milestones

5 March 1882

DM was born at her father's family home, The Hey, in the West Yorkshire village of Marsden.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
5, 7-8

1 October 1908

DM published the first of her many articles in the WSPU journal Votes for Women. In this piece she covered a Union rally attended by about 50,000 in Huddersfield.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
29, 49

March 1912

Mary Gawthorpe resigned her co-editorship of The Freewoman after DM published there her explicit attack on the WSPU , A Militant Psychology. Gawthorpe had disagreed with Marsden's position for some time.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
71-2

September 1912

The Freewoman was banned from W. H. Smith shops because the nature of certain articles which have been appearing lately are such as to render the paper unsuitable to be exposed on the bookstalls for general sale.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
77

10 October 1912

Under an editorial team that included DM and Rebecca West , the last issue of The Freewoman was published.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
83

1955

DM 's pamphlet The Philosophy of Time was issued by Holywell Press . This was arranged by Harriet Shaw Weaver , as Marsden was then a resident patient at Crichton Royal Hospital .
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
186

13 December 1960

DM died of a heart attack at her residence of twenty-five years, Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
185

Biography

Birth and Family

5 March 1882

DM was born at her father's family home, The Hey, in the West Yorkshire village of Marsden.
Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Avebury.
5, 7-8