DEBORAH CASTLE (1816-1902) AND WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE (PART TWO)

As I wrote in my last post here, Mary Carpenter and Deborah Castle grew up together in Bristol and shared a zeal for social and educational reform, influenced in large part by the teaching of Mary’s father the Unitarian minister Dr Lant Carpenter.

In 1869 the Misses Carpenter and Castle shared a stage in Bristol at the first Ladies Conference of the Social Science Association. Their contributions illustrated tensions within the Women’s Movement – should women simply take a greater public part in traditional feminine philanthropic “caring” roles? or should they campaign for greater rights?

Mary Carpenter (1807-1877) in c1870

Author Lawrence Goldman in Science, Reform and Politics in Victorian Britain describes events at the conference:

On 29^th September Mary Carpenter, in the chair, told the congress was told that “they would keep clear of public or political subjects, and of what were called ‘women’s rights’, or their fancied wrongs,” adding later in the proceedings, “ladies should work modestly and quietly, and not seek after more publicity than is necessary to attain their object. She hoped that they would avoid political or religious discussions, women’s suffrage, or ‘rights’ … they were much safer in keeping to women’s work.”

The Ladies Conference met again on the following day, this time under the presidency of Lady Bowring, and it debated its raison d’être: “the question was whether that basis should be extended to the consideration of all subjects whatever in which women are interested, such as are treated of by the Congress in general, or whether it should be confined to the consideration of benevolent efforts and works by women, discarding political subjects such as Women’s Suffrage, the Married Women’s Property Bill, etc.”

Apparently “many ladies took a part in the discussion” and the majority favoured “the first proposition”, or what might be termed the political option. Miss Carpenter’s views had been overturned.

Lady Deborah Bowring née Castle (1816-1902) in 1864

It’s always difficult when friends disagree. At the same conference the following year, Mary did not attend; but Deborah spoke on topics ranging from the suffrage and married women’s property to education – all of them subjects dear to Mary and her inspiration, the Hindu social reformer Ram Mohan Roy. Roy was visiting Deborah’s cousin Catherine Castle (1812-1834) when Mary met him in 1833, and it is highly likely that Deborah met him too and was influenced by his convictions.

It could be argued that Deborah embodied both the philanthropic and political aims of the Women's Movement. Throughout her married life with Sir John in Exeter, and after his death, she was an active supporter of the local hospital and museum, and of education for girls in the city. And in 1871 Deborah became a vice-president of the Bristol and West of England Society for Women's Suffrage, an office which she held until her death. She has been described as an apt and dignified speaker who blended a good deal of humour with her shrewd and graceful remarks. Deborah made her last speech in support of the cause in May 1897.

At that 1870 Social Science Association conference Deborah touched on the divisions between politics and philanthropy in the Women’s Movement which the previous year’s conference had highlighted:

I do not doubt that there are those present who do not consider that purely benevolent action in the political area can be confined within such, or indeed, any limits, but would deem it needful to consider that it is ultimately associated with the attainment of the social advancement and proper position of women, and more especially that she should enjoy that absolute political equality with those of the other sex. Looking calmly and dispassionately at these so-called women’s rights questions, I cannot but imagine that a time will come when the justice of these claims will be recognised.

As Goldman points out, Deborah’s convoluted language suggests the delicacy with which she had to approach the subject. But although she added that the attainment of that equality “must necessarily be distant,” she is quite clear that absolute political equality is the goal. A hundred and forty three years later, I wonder how she thinks we’re doing.

Lawrence Goldman’s Science, Reform and Politics in Victorian Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2002), from which much of my information about Deborah Bowring’s work comes

DEBORAH CASTLE (1816-1902) AND WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE (PART ONE)

Much is still imperfect in the social relationship between the sexes. But the recent anniversary of the death of Women’s Suffrage campaigner Emily Davison should remind us how far we have come in the last hundred years. And the fight for electoral equality had already been underway for perhaps a hundred years when Ms Davison died from injuries sustained while trying to tie a protest scarf to the king’s horse during the Derby.

I recently came across a Bergen University worksheet of quotations from campaigners for women’s suffrage in 1878. With great pride I found that two of the thirteen voices cited were ancestors of mine of whom I have written here in the past.

Mary Gurney (1836-1917)

One was Mary Gurney, daughter of my great great great aunt Emma Gurney (nee Rawlings) and author of Are We To Have Education For Our Middle Class Girls? Mary wrote in October 1878:

If women householders were not, as at present, excluded from the parliamentary franchise, their influence would be of much value in securing attention in the House of Commons to measures affecting the educational interests of girls.

The other was my favourite forebear, my formidable great great great aunt Deborah Castle. In October 1878, according to the Bergen University document, she declared:

My view with respect to the extension of the franchise remains unchanged. I cannot but think that those women ratepayers who like myself take an interest in social questions, must, as I do, feel strongly the injustice that is done them in being called upon to share in the taxation, without participating in the advantages conferred by property on the other sex, of a voice in parliamentary representation.

Sir John and Lady Deborah Bowring, in 1864, by Disdéri Eugène (who made his name and fortune after photographing Napoleon III in 1859)

Deborah blossomed in middle age. Thwarted in unsuitable love as a young woman, she seemed condemned to stay at home dutifully caring for her aging parents. The death of her widowed mother in 1856 finally released her, and four years later she married the radical but elderly Sir John Bowring (1792-1872). As Lady Bowring, Deborah emerged from the shadows of spinsterdom to become a radical voice in her own right, speaking from platforms on women’s issues and the Unitarian Church, of which both she and John were followers. She grew a reputation as "a woman of vigorous grasp of mind and efficient action."

Deborah, eleventh of thirteen children, was christened in Lewins Mead Unitarian Chapel in Bristol in 1816, in a sort of job lot with her three older siblings Charles, Caroline and Ellen. (Her other siblings were also christened there in similar batches.) A year after her christening, the pastorship of Lewins Mead passed to Dr Lant Carpenter, a campaigning educationalist who had taught Deborah’s husband at his previous appointment in Exeter and whose sermons must surely have influenced her thinking as she grew up in Bristol.

 Dr Lant Carpenter (1780-1840), c1830, from the memoirs published in 1842 by his son Russell Lant Carpenter; and Mary Carpenter (1807-1877), c1870, by Cyrus Voss Bark

Dr Carpenter’s eldest daughter Mary, although nine years Deborah’s senior, must have been a friend. Mary is remembered today as a campaigner for women’s rights and a social reformer who founded the ragged school movement. Besides her father, a formative influence on Mary was a meeting with Hindu reformer Ram Mohan Roy, who had fought since the early nineteenth century for property inheritance for Indian wives, education for Indian girls and an end to the practice of Indian widows immolating themselves on their late husbands’ funeral pyres.

(Mary met Roy while he was staying in Bristol with “Miss Castle and Miss Kiddell.” Roy died of meningitis at Catherine Castle’s home in 1833, and Catherine died in 1834, her will the subject of much speculation by Deborah’s brother Charles in a letter about which I have written here before. Catherine’s mother was Catherine Kiddell, and by the will a Miss Kiddell, presumably a niece of the mother and cousin of Catherine Castle, inherited an eyebrow-raising £7000. Mary’s father Dr Carpenter was left £3500, while Deborah, Charles and their eight surviving siblings had to share a mere £11,000 between them!)

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833)

I digress. Mary Carpenter and Deborah Castle shared with Mary Gurney a zeal for social and educational reform and in 1869 the Misses Carpenter and Castle also shared a stage in Bristol at the first Ladies Conference of the Social Science Association. Their contributions illustrated tensions within the Women’s Movement – should women simply take a greater public part in traditional feminine philanthropic “caring” roles? or should they campaign for greater rights? More on that clash of ideologies in my next post.