Note 12 — Chapter VIII · THE STRUGGLE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

I have already described the influences that had for centuries been undermining the older English ideal, but this open violation of it, at the very time when streams of oratory were flowing all over England on liberty and the value of representation, naturally led to a reaction. The agitation for the Reform Bill had itself re-awakened in women the desire of sharing in public life, and the injustice shown by the reformers would not allay it. There were not wanting gospels for the new cause. Mary Wollstonecraft had published a Vindication of the Rights of Women in the height of the French Revolution (1792), and a political writer who had great influence with Liberals, William Godwin, had supported her. William Thompson had issued a spirited reply to James Mill in 1825. Robert Owen, who had immense influence in England by 1840, adopted the same view. Women also joined in the Corn Law Agitation, and some of its chief leaders acknowledged that they proved their capacity for public life. Cobden and Villiers favoured their claim. W. J. Fox, one of the most brilliant of the Free Traders, minister of South Place Chapel (London), warmly espoused their cause. About 1850 pamphlets and magazine articles began to appear, advocating the enfranchisement of women.[12]