Harriet McIlquham ( Medley; 8 August 1837 – 24 January 1910), also seen as Harriett McIlquham, was an English suffragist.

Early life

Harriet Medley was born in Brick Lane, London, the daughter of Edward Medley (a baker) and Harriet Sanders Medley.Linda Walker, "Harriett McIlquham" i
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''
(Oxford University Press 2004).

Political activism and writing

McIlquham became a member of the

Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage The Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage, whose aim was to obtain the same rights for women to vote for Members of Parliament as those granted to men, was formed at a meeting in Manchester in January 1867. Elizabeth Wolstenholme claimed it had b ...

by 1877. She was also a member of the Bristol and West of England Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1881, she co-organized the Birmingham Grand Demonstration with Maria Colby, and spoke at the Bradford demonstration. In 1889, she was a member of the Central National Society, and co-founded the

Women's Franchise League The Women's Franchise League was a British organisation created by the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst together with her husband Richard and others in 1889, fourteen years before the creation of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. The Pr ...

with

Alice Cliff Scatcherd Alice Cliff Scatcherd (1842–1906) was an early British suffragist who in 1889 founded the Women's Franchise League,Holton, Stanley (2002), ''Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women's Suffrage Movement'', Routledge, with Harriet McIlquham, Ursula ...

and Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme-Elmy, and was the league's first president. She co-founded the

Women's Emancipation Union The Women's Emancipation Union was founded by Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy in September 1891 following an infamous court case. Regina v Jackson, known colloquially as the Clitheroe Judgement, occurred when Edmund Jackson abducted his wife in a ...

in 1892, and served on that organisation's council. She was also a member of the Cheltenham branch of the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...

, but also worked with and donated to the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership an ...

.Papers of Harriet McIlquham
The Women's Library. Accessed 25 July 2022. McIlquham was elected a

Poor Law guardian Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930. England and Wales Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the poor ...

for Boddlington in 1881, the first married woman elected to that office. Her qualifications were questioned, but because she also held property in her own name, the challenge failed. She carried this experience into her further activism, taking particular interest in married women's political rights. She also became overseer of the parish of Staverton, and first chair of the Staverton parish council, among other local appointments. McIlquham published pamphlets based on her lectures, among them "The Enfranchisement of Women: An Ancient Right, A Modern Need" in 1892. She also wrote a series of essays on the history of feminism for the

Westminster Review The ''Westminster Review'' was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal unt ...

Personal life

Harriet Medley married James Henry McIlquham in 1858. They had four children and lived in Gloucestershire. She died in 1910, aged 72 years, just hours after her paper on poet

Robert Williams Buchanan Robert Williams Buchanan (18 August 1841 – 10 June 1901) was a Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist. Early life and education He was the son of Robert Buchanan (1813–1866), Owenite lecturer and journalist, and was born at Caverswall, S ...

was read at the Cheltenham Ethical Society."Mrs. Harriet McIlquham"
''Leamington Spa Courier'' (28 January 1910): 5. Her gravesite is in the churchyard at

Tewkesbury Abbey The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury–commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey–is located in the English county of Gloucestershire. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of Nor ...

. The papers of Harriet McIlquham are archived in

The Women's Library The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McIlquham, Harriet 1837 births 1910 deaths English suffragists Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom