Use your Vote… She couldn’t

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827-1891) Campaigner and Artist.  A golden haired enthusiast who welcomed George Elliot to London, painted in the Algerian desert, and supported so many friends in their enterprises fo women's rights.   Barbara first campaigned for married women’s property rights in the 1850's, then helped to found the feminist magazine the  English Woman’s Journal at Langham Place.  She gave a paper to the Kensington Society which became the basis for the 1866 women’s suffrage petition, (see my ‘group’ article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ‘ Kensington Society (act. 1865–1868)’ ) She helped Emily Davies found Girton College.  She was also a successful painter, exhibiting and selling her work andwhen she died she left thousands of pounds that she had earned from her painting to Girton College

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography   P. Hirsch, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, 1827–1891: feminist, artist and rebel (1998) · S. Herstein, A mid-Victorian feminist, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1985) · H. Burton, Barbara Bodichon, 1827–1891 (1949) · The George Eliot letters, ed. G. S. Haight, 9 vols. (1954–78) · A. M. Howitt, An art student in Munich, 2 vols. (1853)