As both researcher and book dealer I stumble across facts that, while delighting, do not fit into planned projects. ‘Woman and her Sphere’ provides a home for such orphans, rescued from the rubble of history.
Do consult the Links (on right) to see – and hear - the fruit of some of the research I have undertaken over the last few years – and to view the books and ephemera that I have for sale on Abebooks.
I specialise in selling second-hand books and ephemera by and about women and produce printed catalogues of items for sale. Do get in touch if you would like to be added to my mailing list. Lists can be sent by post or by email.
I am the author of:
The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide, 1866-1928, Routledge, 1999
Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their Circle, Francis Boutle, 2002
The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: a regional survey, Routledge, 2005
Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, Francis Boutle, 2013
I add daily posts on:
Collecting Suffrage
Suffrage Stories
Book of the Week
Mariana Starke
Kate Frye’s Diary
Women’s Writers and Italy
The Garretts and their Circle
Contact me at e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
#1 by Gaby Weiner on July 27, 2012 - 11:17 am
Very impressive Does this mean that you won’t be sending your catalogue out or is this an addition.
gaby
#2 by womanandhersphere on July 27, 2012 - 11:28 am
Dear Gaby
Yes, I shall still be sending out printed catalogues – this is just an addition. My hope is that the site will interest others; it rather entertains me.
Best wishes
Elizabeth
#3 by Kenneth Florey on July 27, 2012 - 11:47 am
Elizabeth,
A very impressive web site and one that was sorely needed. My only regret here is that it was not available before I sent off my manuscript on suffrage memorabilia to my publisher. Your background information on suffrage artifacts is invaluable, particularly for an American who is very interested in the British movement, but does not have ready access to some essential manuscript material. As usual, your analytical skills are impeccable.
#4 by womanandhersphere on July 27, 2012 - 12:06 pm
Dear Ken
Thanks for your comments. Do you have a publication date yet for your book?
Best wishes
Elizabeth
#5 by Kenneth Florey on July 27, 2012 - 12:42 pm
Not yet. I have been forewarned that this will be a slow process. Based on what the publisher has told me, my guess is 8-9 months, although I am trying to speed up the process on my end. Thanks for asking. Needless to say, your “The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a Reference Guide” was a very valuable resource for me.
#6 by Jacki Becker on August 13, 2012 - 12:31 am
I once was in the open university bookshop in Milton Keynes and found a book with a long chapter on the relationship between my aunt Lydia Becker and Jacob Bright MP and as this was around 1995 when I had just met my now husband also a Bright it was of particular interest! he knows of no MP in his family history indeed knows little of them in Victorian times and he did look remarkably like th pic of Jacob with a fair beard in black and white in my biography of Lydia by Blackburn
Also I have been contacted by someone writing about the relationship correspondence between Lydia and Darwin as she was a botanist I am not a research student but do have an interest to col
Ate this info as all our Papers and books relating to her were given to the Fawcett library by my grandfather in the 1960s
#7 by womanandhersphere on August 13, 2012 - 10:14 am
I suspect the book you saw in the bookshop was Audrey Kelly, Lydia Becker and the cause, published in 1992.I don’t have a copy in stock at the moment, but copies are available on Amazon. Here is the link to the Lydia Becker Papers in the Women’s Library (formerly the Fawcett Library) – http://calmarchive.londonmet.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqSearch=((text)='lydia becker’)&dsqPos=14
I have read her papers there – and am, therefore, very grateful to your grandfather for donating them!
The Brights were, of course, a large Lancashire Quaker family – with 2 MPS in the 19th century – the more famous John Bright – as well as his brother, Jacob. Through intermarriage they created a powerful network – reaching through England and Scotland – supporting all the 19th-century radical causes. Bright women were prominent in the suffrage campaign. Because these families interested me so much, my book ‘The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide’ has an appendix showing the family trees of ‘The Radical Liberal Family network.’ ‘Bright’ is not, of course, an uncommon name, but your husband might find he was connected in some way to these radicals.
Elizabeth
#8 by artandarchitecturemainly on September 8, 2012 - 7:09 pm
Thank you for the link.
Yes, I would love to receive a list of books and catalogues by email.
Hels
http://melbourneblogger.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/history-of-tea-rooms-and-suffragettes.html
#9 by Joy Bounds on September 30, 2012 - 7:11 pm
Hello Elizabeth, what a lovely website! I’m going to order a couple of things from No 175, but before doing so, wondered if you ever come across copies of Christopher St John’s Ethel Smyth, – a Biography? This is a book I would dearly like to own if I found one resonably priced.
I’m getting towards the first draft of my booklet about the Ipswich suffragettes. What great stories they are!
Best wishes, Joy
#10 by David Schuyler on December 10, 2012 - 9:22 pm
Dear Elizabeth. I write as editor of the final volume of the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers project. We found your work on Fanny Wilkinson very helpful. In another letter of 1894, to his son John, then traveling in England, he suggests visiting “any of the revised church yard public gardens of Miss Carpenter’s designing.” In your work in the MGPA collection in the London Metropolitan Archives, did you come across a Miss Carpenter? We whall be grateful for any help you might be able to provide.
Thanks very much.
David Schuyer
#11 by womanandhersphere on December 11, 2012 - 9:55 am
Dear David
Good to make contact. I must confess, though, that I am baffled by the mention of a ‘Miss Carpenter’ laying out church yards etc c 1894. I do not recall coming across anybody of that name in the MPGA records – or in such records of the Kyrle Society as survive. Do you think Olmsted just might have got the name wrong – and really meant ‘Miss Wilkinson’? If there had been a Miss Carpenter mentioned anywhere I am sure I would have pounced on her to discover more about her. Emmeline Sieveking was, of course, FW’s assistant – but, again, hardly a name one could mishear or mistranscribe as ‘Carpenter’. Incidentally, the previous year Fanny Wilkinson did have some kind of plans exhibited at the World Fair – presumably in the Woman’s Exhibition. WOuld Olmsted – as designer of the site – have taken any interest in such a minor exhibit? Did Olmsted’s son make any report back on the state of English public gardens?
Best wishes
Elizabeth
#12 by David Schuyler on December 11, 2012 - 6:43 pm
Dear Elizabeth,
I agree. Olmsted surely must be mistaken. He was well aware of Fanny Wilkinson’s work with MPGA (at Lord Meath’s suggestion he was an honorary member) and expected to meet her when in London in June 1892. He was seriously ill for most of that visit, however, and I find no evidence that they did get together.
One thing that Olmsted hoped to achieve was to have a separate exhibition for landscape architecture at the Columbian Exposition and he wanted Edouard Andre, William Robinson and other European friends to support that effort. He was not able to persuade the exposition’s planners to have such a dedicated exhibition, and so his firm’s work was a rather small display. I’m sure he knew of Fanny’s plans but he did not, so far as I can tell from surviving correspondence, comment upon it.
I’ll keep you posted as I continue this odyssey.
Thanks, and best wishes,
David
#13 by Fight for the Right on February 11, 2013 - 9:29 am
Dear Elizabeth,
I just wanted to write and say thank you for this wonderful website and also for your publications The Woman’s Suffrage Movement and From Frederick Street to Winson Green. Both have been extremely useful for our project Fight for the Right: The Birmingham Suffragettes. We are particularly focusing on Hilda Burkitt, Bertha Ryland and Catherine Osler and are aiming to have our film finished by June this year.
Best wishes,
Nicola
#14 by womanandhersphere on February 15, 2013 - 6:19 pm
Dear Nicola
Your kind words are much appreciated – and encouraging. Coincidentally I have just completed an entry on Catherine Osler for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which is doing a concentrated blitz on Birmingham personalities to coincide with the opening of the new library). Hilda Burkitt crops up briefly in my new book – to be published very soon. ‘Campaigning for the Vote’ is an edited version of a diary of a woman, Kate Frye, who worked as an organiser for one of the smaller suffrage societies – and who, when organising in Dover, stayed in digs with Hilda’s aunts, the Misses Burkitt.
Best wishes
Elizabeth
#15 by Fight for the Right on February 16, 2013 - 1:00 pm
Dear Elizabeth,
Thanks for this. I look forward to reading your DNB entry on Catherine, she’s a very interesting character, and your new book sounds fascinating.
Best,
Nicola
#16 by Martin Moseling on May 9, 2013 - 11:17 am
Dear Elizabeth,
I’m on the point of publishing a book which takes in the events of 1913 at Tunbridge Wells and I am trying to locate a high res photograph of the burnt out pavilion at TW Cricket Club. I see you have one on your pages and winder if you might be able to direct me to the source.
Martin 07973834410
#17 by Guy Jones on May 15, 2013 - 11:40 pm
Interesting to read your letter in the recent edition of the antiques trade gazette.There was an intresting “Suffragette tea service” in an auction at Dreweatts of Bristol a few months back which might have been of interest to you (the items never made their reserve).I will contact you in the future if I come across similar pieces.