Lydia Becker

-
Standard Name: Becker, Lydia
Birth Name: Lydia Ernestine Becker
Used Form: L. E. B.
LB first established herself in the mid nineteenth century as a popularizer of scientific knowledge and a proponent of women's scientific education. She is best known for her work on the Women's Suffrage Journal, the major organ of the suffrage movement in the 1870s and 1880s; she also contributed papers and essays to the cause through other outlets.
Painting of Lydia Becker by Elizabeth Sarah Guinness. Becker is wearing a black dress with white lace collar and a bunch of red flowers. She has a pendant hanging on a black strip, and wire-framed glasses. Her hair is parted in the middle and scraped back in a bun. Girton College, Cambridge.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Emmeline Pankhurst
EP 's parents encouraged her intellectual development from an early age. Among the important first texts she read were Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress and John BunyanHoly War, and Carlyle 's French Revolution. Her mother...
Occupation Maude Royden
In 1915 she resigned from the society, which had its source in the merging in 1887 of seventeen organizations devoted to campaigning for women's emancipation. Lydia Becker , then Millicent Garrett Fawcett , had been...
Occupation Josephine Butler
JB threw herself into social work of all kinds, aiming to assist those less fortunate than herself. She began by visiting and examining oakum sheds, in which women, both prison inmates and creatures driven...
politics Emmeline Pankhurst
The WSPU was militant, unlike the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies , a federation of suffrage societies led by Lydia Becker and later by Millicent Garrett Fawcett .
Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst. Kraus Reprint, 1969.
50n1
politics Helen Blackburn
Frances Balfour describes HB as the last of three early workers for the Suffrage, Miss Lydia Becker , and Miss Caroline Ashurst Biggs .
Balfour, Frances. Ne obliviscaris. Hodder and Stoughton, 1930.
II: 131
politics Jessie Boucherett
JB 's associates in maintaining the original committee's name and agenda included Millicent Garrett Fawcett , Frances Power Cobbe , Lydia Becker , Helen Blackburn , and Caroline Ashurst Biggs .
Levine, Philippa. Victorian Feminism 1850-1900. Hutchinson, 1987.
64, 66
Historian Philippa Levine
politics Emily Davies
The Education Act of 1870 allowed for the election of women to School Boards; ED 's prominence as an education activist is evident in her election as only the second woman (following Elizabeth Garrett )...
politics Millicent Garrett Fawcett
MGF was a member of the first Women's Suffrage Committee , formed in July 1867 after John Stuart Mill proposed his suffrage amendment in parliament. She was the youngest woman at the initial gathering. At...
politics Emmeline Pankhurst
After her return to Manchester, EP joined the Lancashire and Cheshire Union of Women's Liberal Associations and organised a Free Trade Hall demonstration. She and her colleagues sought to secure voting privileges for married...
Publishing Helen Blackburn
HB 's other works on the suffrage movement and women's rights include A Handy Book of Reference for Irishwomen (1888) and Some Supporters of the Women's Suffrage Movement (published by the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage
Textual Features Millicent Garrett Fawcett
The microfilm collection is in two parts. Part 1 contains the papers of Lydia Becker and Margaret Ashton . Part 2 contains MGF 's papers, as well as sections on women's suffrage, education, employment, welfare...
Textual Production Frances Power Cobbe
She remained attentive to the patterns of violence against women, particularly sexual crimes and domestic violence. Lydia Becker did not like to ask her to write gratis for the Women's Suffrage Journal, but seems...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Helen Blackburn
The second part of the book comprises biographical sketches of Lydia Becker , since, according to HB , her life above all others has left the impress of its intellectual force and deep sympathy with...
Wealth and Poverty Helen Blackburn
HB bequeathed her library to Girton College , Cambridge, in memory of Lydia Becker and Caroline Ashurst Biggs . The collection was presented to the library in a mahogany bookcase which she designed herself...

Timeline

9 August 1870
The Education Act established a national elementary education system governed by local school boards, to which women could be elected.
1888
Two new groups emerged from the National Society for Women's Suffrage after internal dissension about permitting affiliations with other organisations: the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage retained its existing name; the...
1886
Elizabeth Cady Stanton approached Priscilla Bright McLaren and Anna Maria Priestman to help organise a British delegation to an international conference of suffragists in Washington.

Texts

Becker, Lydia. Botany for Novices. Whittaker, 1864.
Becker, Lydia. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, a Reply to Mr. Fitzjames Stephen’s Strictures on Mr. J. S. Mill’s Subjection of Women. A. Ireland, 1874.
Becker, Lydia. The Political Disabilities of Women. A. Ireland, 1872.
Becker, Lydia. The Rights and Duties of Women in Local Government: A Paper. A. Ireland, 1879.
Becker, Lydia, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and Margaret Ashton. Women’s Suffrage Collection from Manchester Central Library. Adam Matthew, 1994.
Becker, Lydia, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and Margaret Ashton. Women’s Suffrage Collection from Manchester Central Library: A Listing and Guide to the Microfilm Collection. Adam Matthew, 1995.
Becker, Lydia, editor. Women’s Suffrage Journal. Trübner.