Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett

June 11, 1847-August 5, 1929

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, GBE was an English suffragist (one who campaigned for women to have the vote) and an early feminist. She was a British suffragist, an intellectual, political leader, Union leader, mother, wife and writer. However, she is primarily known for her work as a suffragist.

She was born Millicent Garrett in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. As a suffragist, as opposed to a suffragette, she took a moderate line, but was a tireless campaigner. She concentrated much of her energy on the struggle to improve women’s opportunities for higher education and in 1871 co-founded Newnham College, Cambridge. She later became president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (the NUWSS), a position she held from 1890 until 1919. In July 1901 she was appointed to lead the British Government’s commission to South Africa to investigate conditions in the concentration camps that had been created there in the wake of the Second Boer War. Her report corroborated what the campaigner Emily Hobhouse had said about conditions in the camps.