Millicent Fawcett
by Radiyah Shakur
Millicent Fawcett is known for her dedication
to women’s
rights and equality. Also known for her pacifist
methods, she rallied for change through constitutional
means,
based on persistent lobbying. Her main aim was to
improve educational opportunities for women.
 Born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk in 1867, she married Henry
Fawcett, a blind British Liberal MP and economist,
in 1833. Millicent assisted her husband’s career
for many years, acting as his secretary and sitting
in on political meetings. From the 1870s, Millicent
campaigned for female suffrage, with her husband's
backing. Henry also encouraged his wife to pursue her
own writing career. She began writing articles for
journals and later publishing books such as Political
Economy for Beginners and Essays and Lectures on Political
Subjects.
Following her husband’s death in 1884, Fawcett
focused her energy on politics. She co-founded Newnham
College, Cambridge in 1871, as a result of her involvement
in the organization of women’s lectures. After
the death of Lydia Becker, she became the leader of
the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS),
the main suffragist organisation in Britain. In addition
to supporting women’s education, she was an advocate
of the Married Women’s Property Act, and was
an opponent of child marriage. She also called for
the revocation of the Contagious Disease Act, which
mandated all prostitutes be tested for sexually transmittable
diseases, and if found guilty of transmitting to their
client they were imprisoned. They could also be imprisoned
for refusing examination, which was often invasive
and painful. The Act, which Fawcett viewed as promoting
sexual hypocrisy, was eventually repealed as a result
of her and other’s campaigning.
Fawcett held her post with the NUWSS until 1919, a
year after women over thirty had been granted the vote.
Following, she devoted much of her time to writing
books, including The Women's Victory in 1920, What
I Remember in 1924 and a biography of Josephine Butler
in 1927. In 1924 she was knighted, becoming a Dame
of the British Empire.
Dame Millicent Fawcett died in London in 1929. Her
legacy has been permanently preserved through the renaming
of the NUWSS to the Fawcett Society, which today continues
to campaign for equality between men and women.
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