Born: 4 August 1868, United Kingdom
Died: 28 April 1938
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
Irish-English women’s rights activist Esther Roper fought for equal employment and voting rights for working-class women. She was one of the first women to graduate with a degree from Owen’s College in Manchester, in 1891, and helped establish the Manchester University Settlement in 1895 to provide education and cultural opportunities to the local working poor. She was employed from 1893 to 1905as secretary of the Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage and is credited with re-energising the MCSWS following the death of its previous secretary, Lydia Becker. Roper broadened the scope of the organisation’s work, shifting focus away from the interests of middle-class women and actively seeking out the involvement of working-class womento sign petitions and advocate for the cause. In 1896, she met and fell in love with Irish poet and aristocrat Eva Gore-Booth and the two worked together for years on social justice causes, organising women to stand up for their rights. In 1916, the founded Urania with Dorothy Cornish, Jessey Wade and Irene Clyde, a privately circulated journal expressing pioneering views on gender and sexuality.