Early Life
Millicent Garrett was born on 11 June 1847 in Aldeburgh to Newson Garrett, a warehouse owner, and his wife Louise Dunnell. Newson and Louise had six daughters and four sons, including Millicent and Elizabeth, later famous as the first woman in the United Kingdom to qualify as a doctor. Newson's business quickly became a success, and all of his children were educated at a private boarding school in Blackheath, London run by Louisa Browning, the aunt of Robert Browning.
Millicent was sent there in 1858, and left in 1863 with "a sharpened interest in literature and the arts and a passion for self-education". Her sister Louise took her to the sermons of Frederick Maurice, who was a more socially aware and less traditional Anglican and whose opinion influenced Millicent's view of religion. When she was twelve her sister Elizabeth moved to London to qualify as a doctor, and Millicent regularly visited her there.
Read more about this topic: Millicent Fawcett
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