Mar. 15th, 2022

oursin: George Beresford photograph of the young Rebecca West in a large hat, overwritten 'Neither a doormat nor a prostitute' (Neither a doormat nor a prostitute)

Why had I not heard about this???!!! Statue of suffragist Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy. She was a somewhat marginalised figure in the late C19th movement on account of being a freethinker, involved with the Malthusians, and living in a free union with Ben Elmy, her partner, until prevailed upon to regularise their match when she fell pregnant (and even then that did not satisfy the More Respectable tendency).

***

Two earlier women out there on the radical secularist fringes, and mixed up with one of those what I think of the Bad News Boys of Free Love, in this instance Richard Carlile - Wife no 1, Jane Carlile, who kept his paper The Republican going while he was in prison and was imprisoned herself. At some point they separated, and Carlile formed a free union or common-law marriage with Eliza Sharples, herself a writer and lecturer on freethought and allied subjects.

***

Earlier yet, and currently being celebrated around her birthplace, Aphra Behn: they are raising money to erect a statue.

***

And circling back to more modern days, I've certainly, back when, read some of Kay Dick's works. I might even have read, decades ago, They. Of interest.

May 2026

S M T W T F S
      1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 31st, 2026 07:12 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios