Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Frances Power Cobbe
-
Standard Name: Cobbe, Frances Power
Birth Name: Frances Power Cobbe
Nickname: Fan
Nickname: Fanny
Pseudonym: C.
Pseudonym: F.
Pseudonym: F. P. C.
Pseudonym: Only a Woman
Pseudonym: Merlin Nostradamus
Used Form: Miss Cobbe
As one of the most prominent Victorian writers of non-fiction prose, and the only feminist of the period who wrote regularly in periodicals, FPC
published prolifically in a range of genres from reportage and travel writing to social criticism, theology, and ethics. As a professional journalist she wrote more than a hundred periodical essays, and above a thousand anonymous newspaper leaders. She published, at a conservative estimate, eighteen books and innumerable tracts. A key figure in the Victorian women's movement, she produced ground-breakingly trenchant as well as frequently witty analyses of women's social and political disabilities, representing womanly duty as feminist praxis. All her social writings are grounded in her life-long effort to promulgate a nondenominational theistic system of ethics. In her later career she dedicated herself to fighting animal vivisection (a cause she characterized as an abolitionist crusade analogous to anti-slavery) and the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts. For the anti-vivisection campaign alone she produced considerable journalism and at least two hundred tracts. Her theology, ethics, feminism, and anti-vivisection converged in her argument that sympathy—beyond as well as within the human community—was an index of true civilisation.
Hamilton, Susan. “Locating Victorian Feminism: Frances Power Cobbe, Feminist Writing, and the Periodical Press”. Nineteenth-Century Feminisms, No. 2, pp. 48 -66.
48
Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press, 2004.
"Frances Power Cobbe" Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Frances_Power_Cobbe.jpg.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
Theodore Watts-Dunton
's tribute in the Athenæum recalled a noble band of women represented by George Eliot
, Mrs. Webster, and Miss Cobbe
, who, in virtue of lofty purpose, purity of soul, and deep...
death
Lydia Becker
She died at the Clinique Juillard before being seen by a doctor, and was buried in Geneva. Among the many who paid tribute to her were Arabella Shore
and Frances Power Cobbe
.
Blackburn, Helen. Women’s Suffrage. Source Book Press, 1970.
186-7
Dedications
Catharine Amy Dawson Scott
CADS
was the first poet to be published by Heinemann
. The book was dedicated to F. P. C.in reverent affection and admiration:
Scott, Catharine Amy Dawson. Idylls of Womanhood. Heinemann, 1892.
prelims
presumably this is the prominent feminist activist Frances Power Cobbe
Education
Anna Kingsford
She had been inspired to discover more about medical research after publishing an anti-vivisection letter from Frances Power Cobbe
in her journal, The Lady's Own Paper.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
In preparation for her studies, AK
dabbled with...
Friends, Associates
Anna Kingsford
AK
's wide-ranging interests brought her into contact with an array of people known to a greater or lesser extent in the intellectual life of the day. Through the women's movement she met Barbara Bodichon
Friends, Associates
Jessie Boucherett
Partly through her membership of the Kensington Society
(a social and political discussion group of about fifty women inaugurated in 1865), JB
broadened her acquaintance with significant members of the feminist movement, including Frances Power Cobbe
Friends, Associates
Emily Faithfull
As a member of the Langham Place GroupEF
counted most of the women activists of the day among her friends. Her far-flung circle of associates included Adelaide Procter
and Frances Power Cobbe
.
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany, 1994.
183, 16
Friends, Associates
Anna Kingsford
AK
appears to have had a somewhat complicated relationship with Frances Power Cobbe
. Their association seems to have begun around 1872, when Kingsford moved to London and became an active member of the English...
Friends, Associates
Emily Faithfull
EF
suffered in various ways as a result of the trial. The sense that she had prevaricated, at the very least, alienated many of her associates on The English Woman's Journal, including Emily Davies
Friends, Associates
Julia Wedgwood
As a direct result of such work, she became a friend of such women as Josephine Butler
and Frances Power Cobbe
.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Friends, Associates
Felicia Skene
From her youth FS
was accustomed to mixing with distinguished people. Sir Walter Scott
, a friend of both of her parents, found her youthful company a relief when he was old and ill. In...
Friends, Associates
Mary Carpenter
This house was bought for her by Lady Byron
, who also arranged for Carpenter's close friend and fellow activist Frances Power Cobbe
to move into Red Lodge with her in November that year. Cobbe...
GJ
entered the social scene of the capital with several connections already made. Her London friends included members of the Kingsley and Rossetti families, feminist reformer Frances Power Cobbe
, author John Ruskin
, Samuel Carter
Francis Coventry
anonymously published The History of Pompey the Little; or, the life and adventures of a lap-dog, a novelà clef which satirizes Pompey's successive owners.
23 June 1849
Louisa Nottidge
's relatives were were put on trial for confining her against her will in a lunatic asylum; she was awarded £50 damages.
Britain annexed South Burma during the Second Burmese War.
June 1853
The Act for the Better Prevention of Aggravated Assault Upon Women and Children made wife assault punishable by up to six months imprisonment or a £20 fine.
3 November 1855
An advertisement marked the launch of the conservative (high Tory
and Anglo-Catholic
), weeklySaturday Review; it focused on Politics, Literature, Science, and Art.
The English Woman's Journal, a practical and theoretical source of organized feminism from London, merged into The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's Journal.
23 May 1865
The Kensington Society
, a quarterly women's discussion group devoted to social and political issues, held its inaugural meeting in London.