Florence Balgarnie
Florence Balgarnie | |
|---|---|
| Error creating thumbnail: | |
| Born | 19 August 1856 Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 25 March 1928 (aged 71) Florence, Kingdom of Italy |
| Burial place | Cimitero degli Allori, Florence, Italy |
| Occupations | Suffragette, speaker and temperance activist |
Florence Balgarnie (19 August 1856 – 25 March 1928) was a British suffragette, speaker, pacifist, feminist, and temperance activist.[1][2] Characterised as a "staunch Liberal", and influenced by Lydia Becker, Balgarnie began her support of women's suffrage from the age of seventeen.[3]
Early years
[edit | edit source]Florence Balgarnie was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, on 19 August 1856. Her parents were Rev. Robert Balgarnie (1826–1899), a well-known Nonconformist minister[4] of the South Cliff Congregational Church, and his wife, Martha Rooke. The family included two younger sisters,[2][1] including one named Mary.[5]
Career
[edit | edit source]Balgarnie was elected to the Scarborough School Board in 1883.[6] It was here that Balgarnie developed her skills as a speaker. In her native town, she aroused high anticipations for her future career. Since coming to London, in 1884,[5] or 1886, temperance was the subject which interested her the most, and the one on which she spoke with the greatest frequency. It was around 1884 that, with some fear, Balgarnie first began public speaking, but it became a source of pleasure. A great temperance meeting at Derby, England during a general election,[which?] found her addressing several thousand people in the open air. It was to her "a crowded hour of glorious life"; and it was characteristic of her power of repartee that a dissident in the crowd who set himself to interrupt Balgarnie's speech became converted to her view.[4] In 1885, she also addressed crowds at Brigg, Gainsborough, Grantham, Horncastle, Louth, and Sleaford in Lincolnshire.[7]
By 1889, she was the secretary of the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage,[6] but this position was given up to become the organising secretary, under Lady Henry Somerset, of the British Women's Temperance Association. Balgarnie held this appointment till 1895, and thereafter made time for speaking and writing on behalf of temperance and other causes.[4] Balgarnie was the author of A plea for the appointment of police matrons at police stations (1894).[8]
In 1902, in Washington, D.C., she represented the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies at the First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.[5] She was also affiliated with the International Arbitration & Peace Association, the British Anti-lynching League,[1] the London Anti-lynching Committee,[9] the Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors, Personal Rights Association, Moral Reform Union, and the Men and Women's Club. She was a co-founder of the executive committee of the People's Suffrage Federation.[10] She was later fired from employment at Women's Signal for her exposure of issues in the WCTU's stance on state colour lines, before being supported by Frederick Douglass' widow Helen Pitts Douglass in her stance.[11]
She died in Florence, Italy,[12] 25 March 1928,[1] and was buried at Cimitero degli Allori, in Florence.
Works
[edit | edit source]- Lua error in Module:Cite_Q/config at line 10: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
References
[edit | edit source]Citations
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Crawford 2003, p. 30-31.
- ^ a b c Cassell limited 1896, p. 182.
- ^ a b c Crawford 2003, p. 31.
- ^ a b Crawford 2013, p. 56.
- ^ Crawford 2013, pp. 71–72.
- ^ Balgarnie 1894, p. 1.
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Crawford 2003, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Crawford 2003, p. 32.
Attribution
[edit | edit source]- Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
Bibliography
[edit | edit source]- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).