Dame Millicent Fawcett GBE
Born	Millicent Garrett (1847-06-11)11 June 1847 Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England
Died	5 August 1929(1929-08-05) (aged 82) Bloomsbury, London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Feminist, suffragist, union leader
Spouse	Henry Fawcett ​ ​ (m. 1867; died 1884)​
Children	Philippa Fawcett
Parent(s)	Newson Garrett Louisa Dunnell

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was a British feminist, intellectual, political and union leader, and writer. She is primarily known for her work as a campaigner for women to have the vote.

As a suffragist (as opposed to a suffragette), she took a moderate line, but was a tireless campaigner. She concentrated much of her energy on the struggle to improve women's opportunities for higher education and in 1875 co-founded Newnham College, Cambridge.^[1] She later became president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (the NUWSS), a position she held from 1897 until 1919. In July 1901 she was appointed to lead the British government's commission to South Africa to investigate conditions in the concentration camps that had been created there in the wake of the Second Boer War. Her report corroborated what the campaigner Emily Hobhouse had said about conditions in the camps.^[2]

Millicent Garrett Fawcett was born on 11 June 1847 in Aldeburgh^[3] to Newson Garrett, a successful entrepreneur from Leiston, Suffolk, and his wife, Louisa (née Dunnell; 1813–1903), from London.^[4][5] Millicent was the eighth of ten children^[2].

According to Ray and Barbara Strachey in their book The Cause: A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain: "The Garretts were a close and happy family in which children were encouraged to be physically active, read widely, speak their minds, and share in the political interests of their father, a convert from Conservatism to Gladstonian Liberalism, a combative man, and a keen patriot".^[6]

As a child, Fawcett's elder sister Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who went on to become Britain's first female doctor, introduced her to Emily Davies, an English suffragist. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's daughter, Louisa Garrett Anderson wrote in her mother's biography quoted a statement by Davies to her mother and Fawcett where Davies told the sisters, "It is quite clear what has to be done. I must devote myself to securing higher education, while you open the medical profession to women. After these things are done, we must see about getting the vote." She then turned to Millicent: "You are younger than we are, Millie, so you must attend to that." ^[7]

In 1858 when she was twelve, Millicent was sent to London with her sister Elizabeth to study at a private boarding school in Blackheath. Their sister Louise took Millicent to the sermons of Frederick Denison Maurice, who was a more socially aware and less traditional Church of England minister, and whose opinion influenced Millicent's view of religion. A key moment occurred when she was 19 and went to hear a speech by the radical MP, John Stuart Mill. Mill was an early advocate of universal women’s suffrage. His speech on equal rights for women made a big impression on Millicent, and she became actively involved in his campaign. She was impressed by Mill's practical support for women’s rights on the basis of utilitarianism – rather than abstract principles.^[8] These visits were the start of Millicent Garrett Fawcett's interest in women's rights.^[1] Millicent became an active supporter of Mill's work.^[2]

In collaboration with ten other young and mostly unmarried women, including Garrett and Davies, Fawcett worked to form the Kensington Society, a discussion group focused around English women's suffrage in 1865.^[2] In 1866, at the age of 19, although too young to sign, Fawcett organized signatures for the first petition for women's suffrage^[3] and became secretary of the London Society for Women's Suffrage.^[1]

Mill introduced her to many other women's rights activists, including Henry Fawcett, a Liberal Member of Parliament who had originally intended to marry Elizabeth before she decided to focus on her medical career. Millicent and Henry became close friends, and despite a fourteen-year age gap they married on 23 April 1867.^[3] Millicent took his surname, becoming Millicent Garrett Fawcett.^[3] Henry had been blinded in a shooting accident in 1858, and Millicent acted as his secretary.^[9] The marriage was described as one based on "perfect intellectual sympathy",^[1] and Millicent pursued a writing career while caring for Henry. Their only child, Philippa Fawcett, was born in 1868.^[1] She was close to Philippa as they shared skill in needlework; Philippa also excelled in school, which fared well with her mother and with women's rights.^[10] Fawcett ran two households, one in Cambridge and one in London. "The Fawcetts were a radical couple, flirting even with republicanism, supporters of proportional representation and trade unionism, keen advocates of individualistic and free trade principles and the advancement of women".^[10] Henry and Millicent's close relationship was never doubted; they had a real, and loving, marriage.

In 1868 Millicent joined the London Suffrage Committee, and in 1869 she spoke at the first public pro-suffrage meeting to be held in London.^[1] In March 1870 she spoke in Brighton, her husband's constituency, and as a speaker was known for her clear speaking voice.^[1] In 1870 she published Political Economy for Beginners, which although short was "wildly successful",^[11] and ran through 10 editions in 41 years.^[1][11][12] In 1872 she and her husband published Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects, which contained eight essays by Millicent.^[1][13] In 1875 she co-founded Newnham Hall, and served on its council.^[14]

Despite her many interests and duties, Millicent, together with Agnes Garrett, took on the raising of four of their cousins who had been orphaned at an early age; Amy Garrett Badley, Fydell Edmund Garrett, Elsie Garrett, later to become a prominent botanical artist in South Africa, and Elsie's twin, John.^[15]

After the death of her husband on 6 November 1884, she temporarily withdrew from public life. She sold both family homes and moved with Philippa into the house of Agnes Garrett, her sister.^[1] She resumed work in 1885. Millicent began to concentrate on politics and was a key member of what was to become the Women's Local Government Society.^[16] Originally an active Liberal, she joined the Liberal Unionist party in 1886 in opposition to Irish Home Rule.^[why?] In 1904, she resigned from the party on the issue of Free Trade when Joseph Chamberlain gained control in his campaign for Tariff Reform.^{[citation needed]}

After the death of Lydia Becker, she became the leader of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), the main suffragist organisation in Britain. She held this post until 1919, a year after the first women had been granted the vote in the Representation of the People Act 1918. After that, she left the suffrage campaign for the most part, and devoted much of her time to writing books, including a biography of Josephine Butler.^[17]

She was granted an honorary LLD by the University of St Andrews in 1899,^[18] appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 1925 New Year Honours^[19] and died, four years later, at her home in Gower Street, London.^[20] Fawcett was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. Her memory is preserved now in the name of the Fawcett Society, and in Millicent Fawcett Hall, constructed in 1929 in Westminster as a place that women could use to debate and discuss the issues that affected them. The hall is currently owned by Westminster School and is the location of its drama department, incorporating a 150-seat studio theatre.

Fawcett began her career in the political platform at twenty-two years old at the first women's suffrage meeting. Millicent Garrett Fawcett (leader of NUWSS) was a moderate campaigner, distancing herself from the militant and violent activities of Suffragettes like the Pankhursts and the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She believed that their actions were, in fact, harming women's chances of gaining the vote, as they were alienating the MPs who were debating this topic, as well as souring much of the general public towards the campaign.^[21] Despite the publicity given to the WSPU, the NUWSS (one of whose slogans was "Law-Abiding suffragists"^[22] ) retained the majority of the support of the women's movement. By 1905, Fawcett's NUWSS had reached 305 constituent societies and almost fifty thousand members. In 1913 they had 50,000 members, in comparison to the WSPU's 2,000.^[23] Fawcett mainly fought for women's right to vote, and found home rule to be "a blow to the greatness and prosperity of England as well as disaster and ... misery and pain and shame".^[24] In Fawcett's book titled, Women's Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement, she explains her disaffiliation with the more militant movement:

I could not support a revolutionary movement, especially as it was ruled autocratically, at first, by a small group of four persons, and latterly by one person only ... In 1908, this despotism decreed that the policy of suffering violence, but using none, was to be abandoned. After that, I had no doubt whatever that what was right for me and the NUWSS was to keep strictly to our principle of supporting our movement only by argument, based on common sense and experience and not by personal violence or lawbreaking of any kind."^[25]

Fawcett cut her liberal ties in 1884: her belief in women's suffrage was unchanged; however, her political views did change and began to resemble the views she had when she was younger. In 1883, Fawcett was made president of the Special Appeal Committee.^[26]

The South African War created an opportunity for Millicent to share female responsibilities in British culture. Millicent was nominated to be the leader of the commission of women who were sent to South Africa.^[10] In July 1901, she sailed to South Africa with other women "to investigate Emily Hobhouse's indictment of atrocious conditions in concentration camps where the families of the Boer soldiers were interned".^[10] In Britain a woman had never been trusted with such a responsibility during wartime. Millicent fought for the civil rights of the Uitlanders, "as the cause of revival of interest in women's suffrage".^[10]

Over many years, Millicent had backed countless campaigns, not all successful. A few campaigns Millicent supported were "to curb child abuse by raising the age of consent, criminalizing incest, cruelty to children within the family, to end the practice of excluding women from courtrooms when sexual offences were under consideration, to stamp out the 'white slave trade', and to prevent child marriage and the introduction of regulated prostitution in India".^[10] Fawcett also campaigned for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which reflected sexual double standards. The Acts required that prostitutes be examined for sexually transmitted diseases, and if they were found to have passed any on to their clients, they were imprisoned. Women could be arrested on suspicion of being a prostitute, and could also be imprisoned for refusing consent to the examination, which was invasive and could be painful. The prostitutes' infectious male clients were not subject to the Acts, which were eventually repealed as a result of Fawcett's and others' campaigning. Millicent believed that the double standard of morality would never become eradicated until women were represented in the public sphere of life.^[10]

Fawcett was also an author. She usually wrote under her own name as Millicent Garrett Fawcett,but as a public figure she was Mrs. Henry Fawcett.^[10] Fawcett had three books, a co-authored book with her husband Henry Fawcett, and many articles, some of which were published retrospectively.^[27] Fawcett's textbook, Political Economy for Beginners, went to ten editions, sparked two novels and was reproduced in many languages. One of Fawcett's first articles on women's education was published in Macmillan's Magazine in 1875. In 1875, Fawcett's interest in women's education lead her to become one of the founders of the Newnham College for Women, located in Cambridge. Fawcett served on the college council, she was also supported a controversial bid for all women to receive Cambridge degrees.^[10] Millicent was also a speaker and lecturer at girls' schools and women's colleges, and also spoke in adult education centres. In 1899, for her services in education, the University of St. Andrews awarded her an honorary LLD.^[10]

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the WSPU ceased all of their activities to focus on the war effort, whereas Fawcett's NUWSS ceased political activity to support hospital services in training camps, Scotland, Russia and Serbia.^[28] This was largely because as the organisation was significantly less militant than the WSPU: it contained many more pacifists, and general support for the war within the organisation was weaker. The WSPU, in comparison, was called jingoistic as a result of its leaders' strong support for the war. While Fawcett was not a pacifist, she risked dividing the organisation if she ordered a halt to the campaign, and the diverting of NUWSS funds from the government, as the WSPU had done. The NUWSS continued to campaign for the vote during the war, and used the situation to their advantage by pointing out the contribution women had made to the war effort in their campaigns.

Fawcett is considered instrumental in gaining the vote for six million British women over 30 years old in 1918.

The Fawcett Society continues to teach British women's suffrage history to younger generations and inspire young girls and women to continue the fight for gender equality while also creating campaigns like the #FawcettFlatsFriday to make strides in lessening the gender equality gap in Fawcett's name.^[29]

The Fawcett archives are held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics, ref 7MGF.

“A memorial inscription added to the monument to Henry Fawcett in Westminster Abbey in 1932 asserts that she 'won citizenship for women'".^[10]

The blue plaque for Millicent Fawcett, which states, "Dame Millicent Garrett FAWCETT 1847-1929 pioneer of women's suffrage lived and died here", was erected in 1954 by London County Council at 2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 6DP, London Borough of Camden, where Fawcett lived for 45 years and died.^[30]

On 6 February 2018, Fawcett was the winner of the BBC Radio 4 poll for the most influential woman of the past 100 years.^[31]

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 (which granted voting rights to some women over the age of 30), a statue of Millicent Fawcett by Gillian Wearing was erected in Parliament Square, London.^[32][33][34] The campaign to erect the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square garnered more than 84,000 signatures on an on-line petition.^[34] Fawcett's statue holds a placard quoting from a speech she gave following Emily Davison's death during the 1913 Epsom Derby, reading "Courage calls to courage everywhere".^[33] The statue was unveiled on 24 April 2018.^[32]

• 1870: Political Economy for Beginners. Full text online.
• 1872: Essays and Lectures on social and political subjects (written with Henry Fawcett). Full text online.
• 1872: Electoral Disabilities of Women : a lecture
• 1874: Tales in Political Economy. Full text online.
• 1875: Janet Doncaster, a novel.
• 1889: Some Eminent Women of our Times: short biographical sketches. Full text online.
• 1895: Life of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Full text online.
• 1901: Life of the Right Hon. Sir William Molesworth. Full text online.
• 1905: Five Famous French Women. Full text online.
• 1912: Women's Suffrage : a Short History of a Great Movement. ISBN 0-9542632-4-3. Full text online.
• 1920: The Women's Victory and After: Personal reminiscences, 1911–1918. Full text online.
• 1924: What I Remember (Pioneers of the Woman's Movement). ISBN 0-88355-261-2.
• 1927: Josephine Butler: her work and principles and their meaning for the twentieth century (written with Ethel M. Turner).
• dozens of articles for periodicals including The Englishwoman, Woman's Leader, Fraser's Magazine, National Review, Macmillan's Magazine, Common Cause, Fortnightly Review, Nineteenth Century and Contemporary Review.
• Fawcett wrote the introduction to the 1891 edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Lyndall Gordon states this was an "influential essay", in which Fawcett cleansed the reputation of the early feminist philosopher and claimed her as a foremother of the struggle for the vote.^[35]

• Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792
• Josephine Butler and Lydia Becker, early proponents of non-violent methods of protest.
• Emmeline Pankhurst, a proponent of militancy.
• Charlotte Despard and Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders of movements midway between the NUWSS and the WSPU in militancy.
• History of feminism
• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• List of women's rights activists
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom
• Fawcett Society
• Newnham College, Cambridge, of which Fawcett was a co-founder.

The archives of Millicent Fawcett are held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics ref 7MGF

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Millicent Fawcett.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Millicent Garrett Fawcett

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "Fawcett, Millicent Garrett" . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
• Fawcett Society
• The Women's Library (formerly the Fawcett Library)
• Works by Millicent Fawcett at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Millicent Fawcett at Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about Millicent Fawcett at the Internet Archive
• Works by Millicent Fawcett at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Article on Communism written by Fawcett for the 9th (Scholars) Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica
• "Archival material relating to Millicent Fawcett". UK National Archives.
• "Millicent Garrett Fawcett". BBC Radio 4 – Great Lives. BBC. 19 December 2006. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
• Millicent Fawcett at Find a Grave for Millicent Garrett Fawcett
• Millicent Fawcett at Find a Grave for Henry Fawcett

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