Unitarian Women: A Legacy of Dissent

By Rev. Dr Ann Peart

Three Manchester women are included in my new book Unitarian Women: A Legacy of Dissent. Of the three, at least two have Portico connections.

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), the wife of Portico Chairman the Reverend William Gaskell, is well known as a novelist, and certainly borrowed Portico books. Men in the family of Annie Beard Woodhouse (1869-1939), a prominent Unitarian and intrepid traveller, were also members of the Library. It would be surprising if Margaret Ashton (1856-1937), Unitarian, suffragist and pacifist, the first woman to become a city councillor, did not have a Portico connection, but none has been discovered to date. Until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, women could not become Portico members, but often asked their male relatives to borrow books on their behalf – The Portico has a complete record of Gaskell’s borrowings from this period, which are available to research.

Above: Mary Wollstonecraft, painting by John Williamson, 19th century.

Left: Portrait of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume I., 1825.

The book covers a period of about two hundred years, from the late eighteenth century onwards. Although mainly centred on individual women, it emphasises the context within which each woman lived, as well as their connections through families and friends. These significant networks often enabled women to achieve influence and agency in a world where men were the main players. As Unitarians, they dissented from the orthodox doctrines of their time, and as women, they dissented from the restricted cultural roles prescribed for them by society.

Laetitia Barbauld (third from left) portrayed in Don Dismallo Running the Literary Gauntlet, published by William Holland, 1790.

Above: Elizabeth Gaskell, photographer unknown, c.1860.

Left: Margaret Ashton pictured in The Common Cause, a newspaper of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies published between 1909-1920.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Lucy Aitkin, Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Jesser Reid, Mary Carpenter and Frances Power Cobbe were all well known as pioneers and philanthropists in their day and deserve to be remembered. Some of their writings are in the Library, including Life in the Sick Room and Eastern Life by Harriet Martineau and both versions of The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the first examples of a woman writing about another woman in a biographical format. 

Life in the Sick Room, Harriet Martineau, 1844.

Unitarian Women: a Legacy of Dissent concentrates on telling the story of women active in England, but also includes original work on Ireland and Wales contributed by other authors, and a short chapter on Scotland.

Rev. Dr. Ann Peart is a member of The Portico Library

You can find a select bibliography of the works of Elizabeth Gaskell held at The Portico here.