Emily Townshend Explained

Emily Caroline Townshend
Birth Name:	Emily Gibson
Birth Date:	1849
Death Date:	1934
Citizenship:	British
Occupation:	Social reformer

Emily Caroline Townshend (1849  - 1934) was a British social reformer.

Early life and education

Born Emily Gibson in 1849, she was the first applicant to, and one of the first five students at Girton College, Cambridge, then in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. She studied there from 1869 to 1872, and while there met her husband, Cambrey Corker Townshend, through a fellow student, Isabella Townshend.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Social reform and activism

Emily Townshend joined the Fabian Society in 1894, becoming active in its Research Department and writing several tracts for the group. She also served a term on its executive in 1915/16. Townshend spent two years as editor of the School Child journal, and was also active on the Walham Green Juvenile Advisory Committee.^[4]

In 1907, age 57, Townshend spent two weeks in Holloway Prison for her part in a suffragette protest. In 1909, her daughter Rachel Townsend spent two months imprisoned there for similar activities.^[5]

Her daughter Caroline Townsend (1878–1944) was a leading stained glass artist and followed her mother in membership of the Fabian Society and interest in women's suffrage.

Legacy

In November 1979 the historian, Brian Harrison, interviewed Townshend’s grandaughter, Mrs Joan Radice (née Keeling), as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.^[6] Joan talked about Emily’s career, household arrangements, relationship with her daughter Rachel and with the suffrage movement. Joan was the daughter of Emily’s daughter Rachel, who married social reformer Frederic Keeling (known as Ben) in 1909.^{[7] [8]} Although the couple later divorced, Keeling kept in touch with his former mother in law. After Frederic’s death in the trenches of the First World War in 1916, Townshend edited and published his letters in a 1918 volume titled Keeling Letters & Recollections, with a foreword by H. G. Wells.^[9]

Notes and References

1. Stephen, Barbara. (2010) [1933]. Girton College 1869–1932. Cambridge University Press. p. 24, 193. .
2. Murphy, Ann B. and Deirdre Raftery. (eds.) (2004). Emily Davies: Collected Letters, 1861–1875. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press. p. 396, 494. .
3. White, Dr. Sarah. (6 November 1975). "Gaining Parity by Degrees: Women at Cambridge." New Scientist p. 349.
4. Biographies of new candidates . Fabian News . April 1915.
5. Web site: Caroline Townshend. 2022-01-08. Woman and her Sphere. en.
6. Web site: London School of Economics and Political Science . The Suffrage Interviews . 2024-08-09 . London School of Economics and Political Science . en-GB.
7. Web site: 2021-02-12 . Townsend (Townshend) Family Records - Rachel Susannah Townshend (5D32) . 2024-08-09 . user.astro.wisc.edu . en.
8. Web site: Keeling, Frederic Hillersdon [Ben] (1886–1916), social reformer ]. 2024-08-09 . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . en . 10.1093/ref:odnb/75464.
9. Book: Keeling, Frederick Hillersdon . Keeling letters & recollections . Townshend . Emily Caroline Gibson . 1916 . New York : Macmillan Company . University of California Libraries.