Elizabeth Malleson

Elizabeth Malleson (née Whitehead; 1828-1916) was an English educationalist, suffragist and activist for women's education and rural nursing.

Life

Elizabeth Whitehead was born into a Unitarian family in Chelsea, Malleson was the first child of 11. After working as a governess and teaching at the experimental Portman Hall School.[1][2]

In May 1857 she married a businessman and Unitarian minister named Frank Rodbard Malleson and they were to have four children. Malleson became involved with Frederick Maurice's Working Men's College.[3]

In 1863 she was a founding member of the Ladies' London Emancipation Society.[4] Other founder members and executive committee included Mary Estlin, Sarah Parker Remond, Harriet Martineau,[5] Eliza Wigham[6] and another women's college founder Charlotte Manning.[4]

Malleson founded the Working Woman's College in Queen Square in Bloomsbury in 1864, and the Rural Nursing Association in 1889 which supplied District Nurses into England's villages.[1][2]

Working Women's College

The college became open to both men and women in 1874 after the Working Men's College refused an offer to merge. This co-educational idea was driven by Malleson and her husband and the resulting opposition in the college led to a group moving away to form another college for women. The Malleson's "College for Men and Women" continued in operation to 1901.[7]

Rural Nursing

Malleson moved with her family to Dixton Manor in 1884[3] and there she was concerned to find that there was little local service of nurses for pregnant women. Malleson arranged for a trained nurse to be available to serve the people of Gotherington. Malleson's scheme was not the first but she decided to form a national organisation and her appeal for help brought her into contact with Lady Lucy Hicks-Beech. She was the wife of Michael Hicks Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn and they gathered enough support to launch a Rural Nursing Association.[8]

In 1871 Queen Victoria decided to use £70,000 donated to her Jubilee to found the Queen's Nursing Institute in 1889. Malleson's nurses became the Rural Nursing Division in 1891 and Malleson became the organisation's secretary.[8]

References

  1. 1 2 Ogilvie & Harvey 2000, p. 834.
  2. 1 2 Crawford 2003, p. 367.
  3. 1 2 Owen Stinchcombe, ‘Malleson , Elizabeth (1828–1916)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 29 July 2015
  4. 1 2 Mitchell, Sally (2004). Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press. p. 132.
  5. ↑ "The Ladies' London Emancipation Society, Bedford College for Ladies, Bloomsbury". Museum of London Archive. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  6. ↑ Crawford, Mary (2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928. p. 209. ISBN 1135434026.
  7. ↑ Working Women's College, Bloomsbury Project, Retrieved 19 July 2015
  8. 1 2 Pamela Horn (3 September 2014). Ladies of the Manor: How wives & daughters really lived in country house society over a century ago. Amberley Publishing Limited. pp. 130–. ISBN 978-1-4456-1989-7.

Bibliography

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