Miss Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme (-Elmy)

Other sources: https://www.parliament.uk/1866
https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/m0bfs41
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866?1928 (2001); Susan Kingsley Kent, Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860?1914 (1987); Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality 1885?1914 (1995)

Database linked sources: https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3223/elizabeth-wolstenholme-elmy
https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/activity/3203/what-were-the-suffrage-campaigners-fighting-for

Family information: Father was a Methodist minister. Later married Ben Elmy, a silk crepe manufacturer, in 1874.

Additional Information: Elizabeth was a corresponding member of the Kensington Society (as she lived in the north of England) and made the journey to Westminster when Mill presented the 1866 petition to Parliament, which she signed. She was also responsible for collecting about 300 of its signatures from women in the north. Elizabeth subscribed to the Enfranchisement of Women Committee (1866?7) and was likely instrumental in meetings that resulted in the formation of the Manchester NSWS ? although she is seldom credited. In 1871, she was a member of the Central Committee of the NSWS (CCNSWS), but formed the Women's Franchise League (WFraL) with other Manchester radicals (including Emmeline Pankhurst) when the CCNSWS and the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage (CNSWS) would not lift the exclusion of married women from suffrage reform proposals. In the 1890s, Elizabeth set up the Womens Emancipation Union (WEU) as her successor to WFraL, and by 1894 she and her husband had mortgaged their home to keep it going. Elizabeth was excited by the more radical suffrage activity emerging in the north of England and by the formation of the WSPU. She was very supportive of the Union from its earliest days, taking part in a large demonstration that the WSPU held in 1908, and offering herself for photographs and interviews to help with propaganda. She continued to be publicly supportive, but by 1912, seems to have reached a point at which she believed that only constitutional methods would now bring success. She was probably in part persuaded by the rationale behind the NUWSS's Election Fighting Fund (to support the election of Labour MPs, as the Labour Party had now agreed to support women's suffrage) as a good political tactic, but one that the WSPU leadership did not endorse. She likely resigned from the WSPU committee at this point. Despite her advanced years, she was vice president of the Women's Tax Resistance League in 1913, and that same year played a role in the NUWSS pilgrimage, leading the pilgrims into Congleton. Elizabeth died six days after the Representation of the People Act recieved royal assent in 1918, partially granting women the vote. She worked tirelessly for the suffrage cause, but her role was overlooked in suffrage histories for many years. This may have been because of scandal associated with her private life (see Other Activities).

Other Suffrage Activities: Elizabeth ran her own boarding schools for over 18 years, and women's education was a strong motivation for her social and political activity. She founded the Manchester Schoolmistresses Association in 1865 and helped to establish several similar boards in towns across the north. In 1867, with two other women (Mrs Butler and Miss Clough), she founded the North of England Council for Promoting the Education of Women. The Council's work led directly to the University Extension Movement and to the foundation of Newnham College, through its work on women's access to university lectures at Cambridge. She was called upon in 1866 to give evidence as the Manchester representative of the North of England Council for the Higher Education of Women, to the first Royal Commission set up to deal with secondary education. Elizabeth was also deeply involved with the Married Women's Property Committee, becoming its secretary when it formed in 1868. At the same time, she was also active in and was a founder of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. In 1871, she also founded and became honorary secretary of the Committee for Amending the Law in Points Injurious to Women (an offshoot of which ? the Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights ? she also oversaw and was secretary to in its first year). She wrote a number of articles and pamphlets for these causes. Elizabeth also tested the boundaries of respectability in her private life, making her a true radical. She entered into a 'free union' with her husband Ben Elmy (whom she married in 1874), meaning that they lived as man and wife at first without being married. This was very unusual and socially scandalous at the time, especially as Elizabeth became pregnant. She was persuaded by friends that she must marry; otherwise she would be widely ostracised and her work for the wider women's movement, and the movement itself, would be damaged. She consented.