drawing by Anne Sassoon

Social reformist, journalist, publisher.

27 May 1835 – 31 May 1895

Education

Home educated and at boarding school in Kensington.

Some Key Achievements and Interests

1859 Joined with Barbara Leigh Smith, Jessie Boucherett, Bessie Rayner Parkes to form Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW), becoming secretary.

1859 Appointed by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS) to be on a committee ‘to consider and report on the subject of Female Employment’ (along with Jessie Boucherett, Bessie Rayner Parkes, Adelaide Procter, Isa Craig and Matilda Hays).

March 1860 SPEW group founded the Victoria Press, employing women compositors, in Great Coram Street (later moving to Farringdon Street). It printed the English Woman’s Journal from 1860-1866 which aimed to publicise ‘the present industrial employments of women’ both manual and intellectual, the best mode of judiciously extending the sphere of such employments, the laws affecting the property and conditions of the sex.’

1861 Victoria Press appointed Printer and Published in Ordinary to Queen Victoria 6 months after starting business (1864 William Wilfred Head became a partner and took over management of the Victoria Press in 1867).

1863-1881 Established and published monthly journal Victoria Magazine which upheld women’s rights.

1863 Victoria Press stopped printing English Women’s Journal partly due to Faithfull’s involvement in divorce case Codrington v Codrington (see also Alice Vickery’s involvement).

1872-3 & 1882-3 Toured Britain and America lecturing; published account of tours: ‘Three Visits to America’.

1874 Involved in setting up the Women’s Printing Society.

1875 Joined Women’s Trade Union League, acted as treasurer to the girls’ club in Lamb’s Conduit Street, Bloomsbury.

1881 Helped found the International Musical, Dramatic and Literary Association aimed to secure better protection through copyright.

Issues

London Printer’s Union’s disapproval of women typesetting: ‘….the girl apprentices were subjected to all kinds of annoyance. Tricks of the most unmanly nature were resorted to, their frames and stools were covered with ink to destroy their dresses unawares, the letters were mixed up in their boxes, and the cases were emptied of ‘sorts’.’ The men who were induced to come into the office to work the presses and teach the girls, had to assume false names to avoid detection, as the printers’ union forbade their aiding the obnoxious scheme.’ 

Implicated in public divorce of Admiral Sir Henry Codrington and Helen Jane Smith Codrington. Codrington alleged his wife had committed adultery and Faithfull was cited accusations from both sides.  Gossip surrounding the case damaged her reputation and she was shunned by different members of the Langham Place Group.

Connection to Bloomsbury

1860-2 Victoria Press based at 6 Great Coram Street, Bloomsbury. In 1860 Faithfull described the enterprise and its location in a paper given to the Social Science Association:

‘A house was taken in Great Coram Street, Russell Square, which, by judicious expenditure, was rendered fit for printing purposes; I named the locality because we were anxious it should be in a light and airy situation, and in a quiet respectable neighbourhood.’(from Paper read at NAPSS August 1860) The office was opened on 25 March 1859.

Female Networks include

Members of the Langham Place Group.

Charlotte Robinson with whom she lived.

SPEW key figures though Adelaide Procter ended her friendship in 1862.

Also acquainted with actors of the day: Ellen Terry, Lily Langtry, Madge Kendal, Sarah Bernhardt and, in America, Charlotte Cushman.

Writing / publications include: 

See: Emily Faithfull: Miscellaneous. (minorvictorianwriters.org.uk) for papers, news articles and other items
1862 On Some of the Drawbacks Connected with the Present Employment of Women

1863 Essays on the Pursuits of Women, London

1863 The Red Flag in John Bull’s Eyes: London

Articles for Lady’s Pictorial: A Newspaper for the Home, Pall Mall Gazette, The Victoria Magazine

1868 Change Upon Change novel emphasising women’s need for education

1884 Three Visits to America.

Further reading:

Barbara Leigh Smith and the Langham Place Group ed Candida Ann Lacey London 1987

Bridger, A; Jordan, E: Timely Assistance 2009

Emily Faithfull. (minorvictorianwriters.org.uk)

Emily Faithfull: A Short Biography (victorianweb.org)

Quotes from Faithfull:

‘… True marriage is the crown and glory of a woman’s life; but it must be founded on love, and not on the desire of a home or of support, while nothing can be more deplorable, debasing, and corrupting then the loveless marriage brought about in our upper society by a craving ambition and a longing for a good settlement.  Loveless marriages and a different standard of morality for men and women are the curses of modern society…’  from Women’s Needs a lecture given in New York 1873