Barbara Bodichon - Later Life

Later Life

Early on, she showed a force of character and catholicity of sympathy that later won her a prominent place among philanthropists and social workers. She and a group of friends began to meet regularly during the 1850s in Langham Place in London to discuss women's rights, and became known as "The Ladies of Langham Place". This became one of the first organised women’s movements in Britain. They pursued many causes vigorously, including their Married Women’s Property Committee. In 1854 she published her Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women, which had a useful effect in helping forward the passage of the Married Women's Property Act 1882. During this period she became close friends with the artist Anna Mary Howitt, for whom she sat on several occasions.

In 1857 she married an eminent French physician, Dr Eugene Bodichon, and, although wintering many years in Algiers, continued to lead the movements she had initiated in behalf of Englishwomen.

In 1858, she set up the English Women's Journal as an organ for discussing employment and equality issues directly concerning women, in particular manual or intellectual industrial employment, expansion of employment opportunities, and the reform of laws pertaining to the sexes.

In 1866, co-operating with Emily Davies, she matured a scheme for the extension of university education to women, and the first small experiment at Hitchin developed into Girton College, Cambridge, to which Mme Bodichon gave liberally of her time and money.

With all her public interests she found time for society and her favorite art of painting. She studied under William Holman Hunt, and her water-colors, exhibited at the Salon, the Royal Academy and elsewhere, showed great originality and talent, and were admired by Corot and Daubigny. Her London salon included many of the literary and artistic celebrities of her day; she was George Eliot's most intimate friend, and, according to her, the first to recognize the authorship of Adam Bede. Her personal appearance is said to be described in that of Romola. Mme Bodichon died at Robertsbridge, Sussex, on the 11th of June 1891.

She was a Unitarian who wrote of Theodore Parker: He prayed to the Creator, the infinite Mother of us all (always using Mother instead of Father in this prayer). It was the prayer of all I ever heard in my life which was the truest to my individual soul. (Lingwood, 2008)