Millicent Fawcett

Other names: 

Millicent Garrett Fawcett

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Date of birth: 
11 Jun 1847
City of birth: 
Suffolk
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
05 Aug 1929
Location of death: 
London, England
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About: 

Millicent Fawcett was a prominent feminist and suffragist. She was married to Henry Fawcett, Liberal MP who often voiced Indian concerns in Parliament and was a member of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress.

In July 1867, Millicent Fawcett was asked to join the executive committee of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and was one of the speakers at its first public meeting two years later. In 1874 she joined the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage, which merged into the new Central Committee for Women's Suffrage in 1877. In 1896 she was asked to preside over the joint meetings of the suffrage societies, which resulted in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). She was President of the NUWSS from 1907 to 1919.

Through her prominent suffragist role, Fawcett met Indian women such as Sophia Duleep Singh and Mithan Lam. During the First World War, she became involved in the issue of women's social, political and educational status in India, an area in which she had become interested through her husband and retained after the conflict came to an end.

Connections: 

Syed Ameer Ali, Mithan J. Lam, Emmeline Pankhurst, Sophia Duleep Singh, Cornelia Sorabji

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies

Network: 
Cornelia Sorabji
Sophia Duleep Singh
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Contributions to periodicals: 

Englishwoman

Mother's Companion

Secondary works: 

Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (London: UCL Press, 1999)

Holton, Sandra Stanley, ‘National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (act. 1896–1918)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/96378]

Howarth, Janet, 'Fawcett, Dame Millicent Garrett (1847–1929)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33096]

Rubinstein, David, A Different World for Women: The Life of Millicent Garrett Fawcett (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991)

Strachey, Ray, Millicent Garrett Fawcett (London: John Murray, 1931)

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Archive source: 

The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University, London