THE AGE OF ELIZABETH

She was the suffragist from Congleton who arguably did more for women’s rights than any other feminist of her day – yet she’s been erased from the history books. Now a local campaign group is working to change that

- Jessica Salter

A young woman fervent about the burning political questions of her age, Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy, who lived in Congleton for most of her life, campaigned fearlessly and stood by her beliefs, despite those around her being horrified at her, at times, unconventional lifestyle. In many ways, Elizabeth was Cheshire’s Greta Thunberg of her age. And 2020, local campaigners hope, will be the year she finally gets the recognition she deserves.

‘Elizabeth was a very outspoken, passionate campaigner,’ Dr Maureen Wright, author of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy and the Victorian Feminist Movement, says. ‘She was a women’s emancipator, campaigning for more than 20 separate issues over her lifetime.’ Her campaigns included the right to education for girls, the right to refuse sex in a marriage, the right for a woman to keep her own property and earnings when she married, and perhaps most significantly, the right to vote. Indeed, Elizabeth was described by Moss Side-born Emmeline Pankhurst as the ‘brains behind the suffragette movement’.

But aside from a small blue plaque on Buxton House in Congleton, where she lived for 54 years, and her name on the bottom of Fawcett’s recent statue in Parliament Square, Elizabeth has largely been forgotten for the vital campaigning work she started in Cheshire but then spread across the country. It’s something a passionate group of local campaigners have started to change. ‘We have managed to draw attention to her, and people are getting enthusiastic about the need to redress the fact she has been forgotten,’ says Susan Munro, chairperson of Elizabeth’s Group, who are raising money for a statue in her honour, as well as other community projects they hope will continue Elizabeth’s work.