Note 539 — Chapter LVI

The committee as at first formed, consisted of the following persons: The very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Alford, Miss Jessie Boucherett, Professor Cairnes, Rev. W. L. Clay, Miss Davies, the originator of Girton College, Lady Goldsmid, Mr. G. W. Hastings, Mr. James Heywood, Mrs. Knox, Miss Manning, and Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood. Mrs. Peter A. Taylor was treasurer, and Mrs. J. W. Smith, nee Miss Garrett, honorary secretary. A few months later Mrs. Smith's death left this post vacant, and Mrs. P. A. Taylor then assumed the office of secretary which she retained with the aid of Miss Caroline Ashurst Biggs till 1871. No one else could have rendered such services to our movement while it was in its infancy as Mrs. Taylor gave. Her gentle and dignified presence, her untiring energy, the experience of organization and public life which she already possessed, her influence with an extended circle of friends chosen from among the most liberal thinkers of the nation, secured at once attention and respect for any cause she took up. Many years before she had worked hard for the association of the Friends of Italy, and on the breaking out of the American civil war her sympathies and practical knowledge led her to found a society for assisting the freedmen. In acknowledgment of the invaluable assistance she rendered, her friends in America sent a book containing a complete set of photographs of all the chief anti-slavery workers. When she began her efforts for women's suffrage, the English Abolitionists were among the first correspondents to whom she applied, and they nearly all responded cordially. For years her house, Aubrey House, Kensington, was the centre of the London organization to which she gave her time, strength, and money, well earning the title of "Mother of the Movement," which loving friends have since bestowed.