Barbara Bodichon

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was the most unconventional and influential leader of the Victorians women's movement. She was a feminist, law reformer, painter, journalist, educationalist, the closest friend of George Eliot, and the cousin of Florence Nightingale. The illegitimate child of a radical MP, she was tall, red-haired, vivacious and charismatic. Her friends saw her as a great "free spirit", and she was painted as Boadicea, the warrior queen. She travelled unchaperoned, shocking respectable society, and was the only person George Eliot told of her elopement with G.H. Lewes. Bodichon herself astonished her circle by marrying a French doctor from Algeria, living with him in Europe and travelling to America. As the centre of the "Langham Place Group" Bodichon led four campaigns - for married women to be granted legal recognition as individuals; for women's rights to work; for the right of all women to vote; and to have access to education, including university - she was the leading spirit in the foundation of Girton College, Cambridge.
Hirsch makes use of Bodichon's journals, letters, sketches and paintings in this biography, recreating the woman in her various moods, and placing her firmly in the context of women's struggle for equality.