This biography, written by Elizabeth Crawford, is shared with permission from Brighton & Hove Museums.
Born: 11 June 1847, United Kingdom
Died: 5 August 1929
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
‘Courage calls to courage everywhere, and its voice cannot be denied.’ – Millicent Fawcett
On 4 May 1867 the Sussex Advertiser carried a lengthy description of the wedding of one of Brighton’s MPs, Professor Henry Fawcett, 33, notable for holding academic and political offices despite being totally blind.
On 23 April he had married 19-year old Millicent Garrett. She was the ‘daughter of Newson Garrett, Esq, of Alde House, Aldeburgh and the sister of the gifted lady, Miss Elizabeth Garrett, L.S.A. Elizabeth Garrett was the General Medical Attendant at the St Mary’s dispensary for women and children in London and one of the few ladies who have undergone the study and toil necessary to gain a diploma as medical practitioner’.
The paper was unable to claim any comparable distinction for the bride but did say that she was ‘young, and looked very lovely’.
Among the wedding gifts highlighted by the Sussex Advertiser were ‘an exquisitely-beautiful silver ink-stand, formed from the flower of the water lily, the base of which consisted of lily leaves, charmingly arranged’, presented by ‘Mr Willett’ and ‘a handsome silver cruet’ from Mrs Merrifield, of Brighton’. Henry Willett, a founder of Brighton Museum, had supported Henry Fawcett during his 1865 election campaign, while Mrs Mary Merrifield, an artist and dress historian, was also for many years a local champion of women’s rights.
The Fawcetts divided their time between Cambridge, where Henry was professor of political economy and London, where they lived while parliament was sitting. Millicent, as ‘lady patronesss’ of various charitable events, dutifully fulfilled her role as wife of Brighton’s MP. In October 1867 she was present at the banquet that followed the launching of Brighton’s new lifeboat. The next month she helped organise a Royal Pavilion ball in aid of the Sussex County Hospital. At the beginning of the following year, just over two months before the birth of her daughter, Millicent was ‘lady patronesses’ of a fancy dress ball in aid of Brighton charities.
However, at the same time as performing these wifely duties, Millicent was also forging a career for herself as a writer and speaker on all aspects of the rights of women. Her first article on ‘The Education of Women of the Middle and Upper Classes’ was published in April 1868, in the month of her daughter’s birth.
Then, on 17 July 1869, still only 22 years old, she was one of the speakers at the first London public ‘votes for women’ meeting and on 23 March 1870 gave a talk on that subject to the Brighton Liberal Association in Brighton Town Hall. Long afterwards she mentioned in her memoir, What I Remember (1924), that Frederic Merrifield, husband of Mrs Mary Merrifield, ‘was my best friend in Brighton over my project to give a suffrage address there in 1870’, remembering that ‘Mr and Mrs Merrifield were on the platform, and so were their two little girls’.
Not all Brighton Liberals were so supportive, Millicent noting that ‘Several members of his [Henry’s] Election Committee were aghast at the proposal, and thought I would injure his prospects of re-election’. The meeting was chaired by Charles Carpenter, whose son, Edward, Millicent later described as ‘so well known as a writer on socialist and revolutionary lines’.
The Brighton Herald of 26 March 1870 commented on Millicent’s appearance on the public platform that; ‘She is a lady of small stature, and of fragile but very pleasing appearance; perfectly collected in her manner and with a very clear, distinct, emphatic delivery, not at times without a sense of humour’.The Brighton Gazette (31 March 1870) reported her talk, titled ‘The Electoral Disabilities of Women’, in considerable detail. The paper in no way supported Henry Fawcett’s Radical Liberalism and in its April 7 issue described ‘the agitation for female suffrage’ as ‘nothing more than a piece of impracticable theorising’, the editor remarking that Mrs Fawcett would be held responsible for introducing ‘an element of discord into many households’ should women be given the vote. His final words were that ‘The best advice we can give these lady agitators is to let matters alone’.
Unsurprisingly, Millicent Fawcett didn’t heed this advice and continued as a member of the committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage which in 1872 opened a branch in Brighton, with Mrs Mary Merrifield as its treasurer. Among its members were Edward Carpenter, his mother and sisters.
With a general election imminent Henry and Millicent Fawcett came down to Brighton at the beginning of February 1874 and were staying in lodgings in Cannon Place when, on 3 February, Millicent suffered the one notable accident of her long and supremely active life. Horses had been brought round to Cannon Place so that the couple could go for a ride on the Ladies’ Mile on the Race Hill. Millicent had mounted and was waiting while a friend helped Henry into his saddle when her horse bolted. It raced down Cannon Place and then slipped on the kerb at the turn of the road, throwing Millicent into the middle of King’s Road. She was unconscious when taken into the chemist shop run by Mr Gibson (this was probably at number 107 King’s Road). Dr Gavin Pocock, of 42 Cannon Place, was called to attend to her. It was 30 minutes before Millicent recovered consciousness and could be carried back to the lodgings. Henry was distraught but Millicent’s sister Elizabeth, who came down from London that evening, was able to reassure him that no bones had been broken. It took Millicent a while to recuperate, time spent in writing a novel, Janet Doncaster (1875).
At the general election, held a few days after the accident, Henry Fawcett lost his Brighton seat but was soon back in the House of Commons as MP for Hackney. He and Millicent returned to Brighton in May, staying at 29 Cannon Place, presumably the lodgings they had used in February. The boarding house was run by a widow, Mrs Margaret Maguire, and the attractive bow-fronted house still stands, one of a short listed terrace.
In What I Remember Millicent Fawcett, referring to her Electoral Disabilities lecture, wrote, ‘It is a pleasure to reflect that the Suffrage seed sown [in Brighton] in 1870 may possibly have had some share in preparing the soil for the return of Lady Astor as the first woman M.P. in 1919’. As you pass Brighton Town Hall, walk down Cannon Place, or visit the Pavilion, remember for a moment young Millicent Fawcett for whom visits to Brighton marked an early step in a long political career. In 1918, as leader of the constitutional suffrage movement, she ensured that for the first time a large number of women were granted the parliamentary vote and in 1928, now a dame of the British Empire, saw all women recognised as citizens on the same terms as men.