Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827-1891) is one of 19th-century Britain’s most influential feminist campaigners. She launched the first women’s suffrage campaign, championed female higher education at Girton College, Cambridge, passionately advocated for the abolition of slavery and was instrumental in bringing the Married Women’s Property Acts into law. Alongside all this, she had a successful career as an artist, producing stunning watercolours that were exhibited at the Royal Academy.
Yet unlike her friends George Eliot, Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, Millicent Fawcett, and her cousin Florence Nightingale, Barbara Bodichon is not a household name. We think she should be.
In this episode of She Wrote Too, historian Jane Robinson tells Caroline about her biography, Trailblazer: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, the First Feminist to Change our World.
We discuss Bodichon’s unconventional background, her generous philanthropy, her art and her commitment to justice – as well as the positive and compassionate personality that inspired love and loyalty in those who knew her.
Trailblazer, published by Penguin and out now in paperback, is available from your favourite bookshop. You can find out more about all Jane Robinson’s books – including Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders, Bluestockings and A Force to be Reckoned With – at her website, www.jane-robinson.com.
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