Florence Miller

Florence Fenwick Miller (sometimes Fenwick-Miller, 1854–1935) was an English journalist, author and social reformer of the late 19th and early 20th century. She was for four years the editor and proprieter of the The Woman's Signal, an early and influential feminist journal.

Biography

Florence Fenwick Miller was the eldest daughter of John Miller, a merchant sea-captain, and of Eleanor Miller née Estabrook, daughter of a railway engineer. Privately educated as a child, she read for a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh from 1871, in the year following the Edinburgh Seven, the first females to be admitted to the course. Like the Seven, she was unable to pursue clinical practise and Edinburgh declined to award a degree to her. In 1873 she took a midwifery certifiate at the Ladies' Medical College in London.[1]

Despite her training, Miller quickly moved away from medical practice towards wider spheres. She quickly established herself as a lecturer on literary and social reform topics, debating in London at the Sunday Lecture Society, appearing before the London Dialectical Society (which was engaged in investigating the phenomenon of Spiritualism; James Edmunds, the founder of the Ladies' Medical College was a committee member); and giving talks thoughtout the country. She was an early and vocal advocate of women's suffrage and, later, in 1889, was one of the founders, with Emmeline Pankhurst, of the Women's Franchise League.[1]

Miller also wrote, as journalist and author of fiction and non-fiction. In the former capacity she contributed very widely, including to Fraser's Magazine, Lett's Illustrated Household Magazine, Belgravia, and The Governess, the Lady's Pictorial, The Woman's World, the Young Woman, and The Echo. She was for 32 years, from 1886, the 'Ladies'Notes' columnist for the Illustrated London News. Progressing in her career, she was from 1892 editor of two magazines for colonists, Outward Bound and Homeward Bound. In 1895 she assumed control of and edited The Woman's Signal, until 1899 a leading feminist publication. She later wrote for the London Daily News.[1]

Her output as an author was wide: making use of her medical training, she published from 1878 onwards several books on anatomy, including contributing two books to the Hughes's Natural History Readers series. In 1879 she published a three volume fiction, Lynton Abbott's Children; in 1883 a book on Social Economy, and in 1884 a biography of the writer Harriet Martineau.[1]

Miller also engaged herself more directly in social reform. She was elected to the London School Board in 1876 at the comparatively very young age of 22, and held office from 1877-1885. Frederick Rogers, a fellow board member, describes her:[2]

Young, good-looking, brilliant and daring enough to talk frankly on public platforms on matters relating to physiology - it required a tremendous courage to do this in the seventies - and very much of a demogogue, Mrs. Miller in those days enjoyed a popularity which whilst it lasted, was one of the most remarkable incidents of the time. The Commonwealth Club in Bethnal Green was packed to suffocation when she lectured on physiology.

She spoke widely on women's suffrage, later in her career acting as an international delegate, notably visiting Chicago in 1893 for the World's Columbian Exposition and the World's Congress of Representative Women; and again in 1902 as part of the International Council of Women. Her international links brought her into association with leading American suffragists.[1]

Miller made an unsuccessful marriage with one Fred Ford from 1877; they had two daughters, but separated. L. A. Flammang, in a review of a biography of Miller,[3] notes that Ford contributed little to the family and suggests that, in part, the volume of Miller's output was related to her straightened economic circumstances. Miller continued to user her own name after the marriage (Frederick Rogers noting that she changed it from Miss Fenwick Miller to Mrs. Fenwick Miller[2]), leading to litigation seeking to remove her from her London School Board office for sitting under an illegal name: Miller prevailed, and the case established the precedent that women need not take the names of their husband.[1]

Miller died on 24 April 1935 in Hove, Sussex.[1] A biography, Florence Fenwick Miller: Victorian Feminist, Journalist and Educator written by Rosemary T. Van Arsdel, was published by Ashgate Publishing in 2001.[3]

Works

Further reading

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Van Arsdel, Rosemary T. "Miller, Florence Fenwick (1854–1935), journalist and public lecturer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37764. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 Rogers, Frederick (1913). Labour, Life and Literature. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 51.
  3. 1 2 Flammang, L.A. (2003). "Florence Fenwick Miller: Victorian Feminist, Journalist and Educator (Review)". Victorial Studies. Number 4, Summer 2003. Indiana University Press. 45. doi:10.1353/vic.2004.0014.
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