Frances Julia Wedgwood 1833 – 1913
Philosopher, writer, and feminist.
6 February 1833 – 26 November 1913
A tribute by Alison Stone
Julia Wedgwood was a philosopher who was linked to Bloomsbury because she attended lectures at Bedford College in the early 1850s, frequently used the British Museum Reading Rooms from the mid-1860s onwards, and lived at 94 Gower Street from 1889 to 1897.
In the Victorian period, Wedgwood was well-known for her many writings on philosophical and religious subjects. After her friend Frances Power Cobbe retired to Wales, Wedgwood was judged to have stepped into Cobbe’s shoes as the ‘thoughtful woman par excellence’ (Sue Brown, Julia Wedgwood,3). Strangely, in the twentieth century Wedgwood has been almost wholly forgotten. If she is remembered at all, it is usually for her short but intense relationship and lengthy correspondence with Robert Browning, or for her reactions to Darwin’s ideas. But in her own time Wedgwood was seen as someone to pay attention to in her own right. Happily, Sue Brown’s excellent recent biography Julia Wedgwood: The Unexpected Victorian sets the record straight about Wedgwood’s significance in the later nineteenth century.
Julia was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family dynasty. Her father Hensleigh Wedgwood was a renowned philologist; her mother, Fanny Wedgwood, was a pioneer in higher education for women, salon hostess, and great friend of the polymath Harriet Martineau; and her aunt Emma Wedgwood was Charles Darwin’s wife. Julia therefore grew up in a very stimulating, if not overpowering, milieu. She was educated largely at home, with a spell at a school in Liverpool run by Martineau’s sister Rachel, after which she attended lectures at Queen’s and Bedford Colleges on miscellaneous subjects including political economy, Latin, and logic.
Bedford College, then located in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, was the first higher education institution for women in the UK. It was established in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid, another friend of Harriet Martineau – the two were both very active in the international movement to abolish slavery. Reid was also friends with the celebrated philosopher and historian of art, Anna Jameson. Jameson herself had a Bloomsbury connection: she lived on Chenies Street when first married, and she had been carrying out research for the latest volume of her monumental Sacred Art and Legendary Art book series in the British Museum when, walking back to her lodgings in nearby Conduit Street, she was caught in a snow storm that led to her death from pneumonia.
To return to Wedgwood, having left College due to health problems she tried writing novels, bringing out An Old Debt and Framleigh Hall in the 1850s. But she abandoned fiction partly because her father objected to the emotional disclosure involved, partly because she concluded that she was suited to more analytical work. Thus began a prolific publishing career in philosophy. She authored at least fifty journal articles, the first few anonymously in Macmillan’s Magazine, then many more in the Spectator (again anonymously) and the Contemporary Review (signed). The topics ranged across ‘The Relation of Memory to Will’ and ‘Ethics and Science’ to the origins of language, literature, the Bible, ancient Greek culture, contemporary theology, women’s suffrage, and anti-vivisection. Some of these articles later made up her book Nineteenth-Century Teachers (1909). Wedgwood also wrote stand-alone books: her magnum opus, The Moral Ideal (1888); biographies of the Methodist John Wesley (1870) and her great-grandfather Josiah Wedgwood, the latter unfinished when she died; and the sequel to The Moral Ideal, The Message of Israel in the Light of Modern Criticism (1894). This was an important account of Judaism’s moral contribution and centrality to Western civilization in opposition to rising antisemitism. A barrage of antisemitic insults had been directed against Benjamin Disraeli when he was Prime Minister in the 1870s, and antisemitism grew further in the 1880s and 1890s in a hostile reaction to increasing numbers of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Wedgwood’s very first published piece of philosophy was a two-part dialogue on evolution, published in 1860-1 in the wake of Darwin’s Origin of Species. The dialogue is between ‘Philocalos’ (‘lover of the good’), who initially thinks that evolutionary theory must be rejected because it undermines our belief in God, duty, and immortality, and ‘Philalethes’ (‘lover of the truth’), who convinces Philocalos that when evolutionary theory is rightly understood it is compatible with Christianity. Philalethes argues that God sets off the stream of life and plans the basic forms of the species, including for human beings to have special moral powers. Evolution merely implements the plan and works out the detail. Through the struggle and conflict of species over scarce resources, species-forms gradually become perfected, leading up to humanity and giving us an appropriate physical form to realise the spiritual powers God has always intended us to have. In sum, ‘Failure, and suffering, and strife, and death, are but the steps by which man has been raised to the height at which he finds himself’ (Wedgwood, ‘Boundaries of Science’, part 2, 247).
This idea that the species are perfected through conflict is interestingly mirrored in the form of the dialogue, as both interlocutors modify and refine their views until they reach a resolution. They, too, perfect their thinking through conflict. As for Darwin’s response, he appreciated Wedgwood’s dialogue, writing to her that she was one of the few to have fully understood his work. However, Darwin’s growing religious doubts eventually led him to declare himself an agnostic, whereas Wedgwood always remained a Christian, arguing in 1897 that scientific questioning should not be pushed so far as to undermine the religious foundations of our lives.
This typifies the character of Wedgwood’s philosophy – she was very moderate and judicious, generally seeking to balance and reconcile opposing positions and find elements of truth everywhere. Her major work, in which this conciliatory approach came to fullest fruition, was the book The Moral Ideal, on which she worked for 20 years. This incredibly ambitious work traced the stages of historical civilisation from ancient India and Persia, through ancient Judaea and classical Greece and Rome, into early Christianity and Western Christendom, and on to the rise of science and modernity. Wedgwood viewed the movement of history dialectically, though curiously without ever referencing Hegel. For her, each stage of civilisation developed a particular principle (e.g., classical Greece developed the elastic unity of differences), the next stage developed its antithesis (e.g., ancient Rome developed the opposition between state and individual), the next stage again was the synthesis of the ones before it, then a new antithesis to that synthesis arose, and so on. Wedgwood described this as the zig-zag march of history. We cannot find the truth all at once but have to zig first one way, then the other, before learning to balance the two on an upward path.
The most recent antithesis, and the one that for Wedgwood defined modernity, was between religion and science – more specifically, between the religious aspiration towards an ideal and the scientific acceptance of natural reality. Wedgwood, who was a feminist and supporter of women’s suffrage, saw a link between the reconciliation of science and religion on the one hand, and the complementarity of the sexes on the other. In the relation to a member of the opposite sex, each individual can learn to relate to someone who is naturally different from them, which unites the relation to an ideal beyond the self with the acceptance of natural reality.
The mutual love of man and woman is an expression of the fact that it contains something which is not mutual, something which does not merely invert all self-centred feeling . . . but which supplies self with a complement and teaches men concession to needs they do not feel. (Moral Ideal,374–5)
For Wedgwood, therefore, sexual equality, in the sense of reciprocity, was the necessary next stage in history and the way to resolve the science/religion opposition, showing us how we can accept nature as it is and still aspire to an ideal beyond the individual self. Wedgwood also tied this in to an argument that only Judaism had fully recognised the ethical and spiritual significance of relations between men and women in the family.
This only scratches the surface of Wedgwood’s complex and fascinating set of philosophical ideas. Her books, acclaimed in their time, are worth rereading today. I hope she may start to be rediscovered as part of the collective effort to restore historical women philosophers who have been unjustly left out of the philosophical canon.
Alison Stone is the author of a number of books including Frances Power Cobbe – a short book about this once-famous nineteenth-century feminist philosopher – and Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain, which looks at twelve women philosophers working in Britain during this period, including Harriet Martineau and Julia Wedgwood.
P. S. A Short Note on Julia Wedgwood’s Feminism by Sue Brown
Though Julia Wedgwood’s contributions as a feminist are now largely forgotten, in her own time she was seen as a leading advocate of female suffrage, active in Elizabeth Garret’s very successful campaign in Bloomsbury and the nearby districts for election to the London Education Board in 1870, and acted as unofficial tutor to the initial intake at what became Girton College, Cambridge, the first women’s higher education institution to prepare women for the same university examinations as men. Deafness, however, prevented her from joining leading women’s groups like the Kensington Society and the Langham Place Group. Temperamentally, too, she was averse to pressing the case for female suffrage on public platforms. Nonetheless, when Josephine Butler edited an important collection on women’s issues in 1869, Women’s Work and Women’s Culture, she invited Wedgwood to write the key article on the case for giving women the vote. Wedgwood’s argument was a moderate but convincing one. The issue, she wrote, was about fairness. Why should women meeting the same qualifications as men for having the vote be excluded simply because of their sex? Enfranchising women would put their abilities and experience at the service of the state and bind them into the polity. Above all, it would normalise relations between men and women. “We desire” the vote, she wrote in an article in the Contemporary Review in 1872 “more for what it would make us than what it would give us.” She increasingly resented the fact that men alone decided what political status women should have. In 1884 she signed the petition presented to Gladstone asking for the inclusion of women on the same terms as men in the Reform Act then going through Parliament. After his rejection of the case, she, like her good friend, Frances Power Cobbe, turned away from advocating the rights of women to pressing the claims of animals for protection.
Her belief in the importance of education for women remained, not least because of the great teachers she had known in her teens, James Martineau, F. D. Maurice and Frank Newman. When Emily Davies asked her to join the first intake of young women at what became Girton College, she agreed to live with them for two terms. Her particular challenge was to help them with Latin and Greek, subjects not all had learnt at school but which were required if they were to continue with the Cambridge University syllabus. All of them found her a charming and encouraging example of what a learned woman could be. She also taught Latin and Shakespeare at the London Working Women’s College in Queen’s Square and, with her mother, was a generous supporter of the College.
Originally a Gladstonian Liberal, Wedgwood broke with him over Home Rule for Ireland. She moved to the right in her later years liking to describe herself as “a tremendous old Tory”. She stood aside from the suffragist movement and was horrified by the tactics of the suffragettes, but as she saw from her own experience of younger writers and the increasing professionalisation of female journalism, women were playing a more active role in the cultural and intellectual life of the country. She contributed to female suffrage charities even when she no longer signed petitions but left the bulk of her estate to animal welfare charities sensing that animals were less able than women to protect themselves.
Further reading
Julia Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal (London: Trübner).
Sue Brown, Julia Wedgwood, The Unexpected Victorian: The Life and Writing of a Remarkable Female Intellectual (London: Anthem Press, 2022).
B. L. Wedgwood, A Critical Study of Life and Works of Julia Wedgwood (PhD thesis, UCL, 1983), at: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1546145/
MINI BIOGRAPHY
Education
Little early formal education.
1846 Spent a few months at Rachel Martineau’s school in Liverpool.
Self-taught in Latin, Greek, French and German, as well as drawing.
1849-1852 Attended lectures at Ladies’ College (renamed Bedford College 1859) in Bedford Square.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
1848 Was a Lady Visitor at Queen’s College.
Worked as a research assistant for Mrs Gaskell in her preparation for the Life of Charlotte Brontë.
Known as a brilliant conversationalist especially on scientific and theological topics. She explored the boundary between scientific knowledge and religious belief both in discussions and in her writing.
1860-1 Published a two-part dialogue on evolution following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species discussing the compatibility of evolutionary theory and Christianity.
Many of her works contain themes of gender identity and gender role reversal. An advocate of female suffrage, she supported different initiatives to widen opportunities for women’s education and for women to have the vote.
1870 Life of John Wesley, a non-fiction study of the life and historical significance of John Wesley published to great acclaim.
Early 1870s Assisted Darwin with translating Linnaeus.
Contributed articles on science, religion, philosophy, literature and social reform to periodical magazines.
1888 The Moral Ideal: a Historic Study, a history of the evolution of ethics in great world civilizations, published to great acclaim.
In her later years, detached herself from the tactics used by suffragettes but strengthened her focus on animal welfare.
Issues
Wedgwood has not received the attention should deserves for her writing on philosophical and religious subjects although in her time her work was much respected.
Received little formal education growing up potentially because of her father’s indifference of his children and because of her early onset deafness. Her deafness was to increase over her lifetime and limit her involvement in women’s groups and appearance on public platforms.
Her parents held the view that a woman’s only viable future was to marry well rather than make a career for herself.
1852 Fell seriously ill which may have contributed to her decision to leave Bedford College.
Her father scorned her first two novels. She then dropped work on her third novel and spent some years caring for her disabled brother.
1860s After a period of intense correspondence with Robert Browning on intellectual issues, she broke off their friendship believing the platonic nature of the relationship was misunderstood by others. The break distressed her greatly.
1894 Her work The Message of Israel in the Light of Modern Criticism was not well received, this causing her to pull back from writing.
Spent much of her time caring for relatives and their children, leaving only a few hours a day to read and write.
In her last years suffered from cancer.
She died leaving her last work on the life of her great-grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, unfinished. The Personal Life of Josiah Wedgwood the Potter by Julia Wedgwood and Charles Harold Herford was published in 1915.
Connection to Bloomsbury
Ladies’ College (Bedford College).
Used the resources of the British Museum Reading Room.
Taught Latin and Shakespeare at the Working Women’s College in Queen’s Square.
1989-1897 Lived at 94 Gower Street.
Female networks included:
Elizabeth Gaskell, Emelia Gurney, Emily Davies, Frances Emma (her mother), Frances Power Cobbe, George Eliot, Harriet Martineau.
Work
Published articles, many anonymously, in journals such as Contemporary Review, Macmillan’s Magazine, the Spectator, Westminster Review.
1858 An Old Debt, a novel published under the pseudonym Florence Dawson.
1858 Framleigh Hall, a novel.
1860/1861 Published the article The Boundaries of Science in Macmillan’s Magazine reviewing Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
1869 Article Female Suffrage, Considered Chiefly with Regard to its Indirect Results in Women’s Work and Women’s Culture ed by Josephine Butler.
1870 Life of John Wesley.
1871 Published an article reviewing The Descent of Man in the Spectator.
1888 and 1907 The Moral Ideal.
1894 The Message of Israel in the Light of Modern Criticism.
1909 Nineteenth Century Teachers.
Further reading:
Brown, S. Julia Wedgwood, The Unexpected Victorian: The Life and Writing of a Remarkable Female Intellectual. Anthem Press, 2022.
Harris, J. Wedgwood, (Frances) Julia (1833-1913), novelist and writer. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2011.
Julia Wedgwood. Darwin Correspondence Project, 2015.