Early c19th female philanthropists and reformers


This is a list of women whose social reform work was not in the field of women's rights but focused on education, health, prisons, workhouses and temperance.

{Let me know who's missing from this list ~ email the webmistress }


Mary Carpenter(c1807-1877) Juvenile delinquency reformer; founder of Ragged School movement

Elizabeth Fry, (1780-1845) Prison reformer

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) Pioneering nurse, administrator, statistician and writer

Baroness Angela Burdett Coutts (1814-1906) Greatest philanthropist of the Victorian age

Sarah Martin (1791-1843) Prison reformer

Lydia Irving (1797-1893) Prison and convict worker

Hannah Marishall Bevan (1798-1874) Prison and convict worker; ragged school founder; temperance worker

Angelica Patience Fraser (1823-1910) Tailors' benefactor

Rosamond Davenport Hill (1825-1902) Social reformer (prisons, education, poor law)

Sarah Robinson (1834-1921) Army temperance activist

Helen Lucas (1835-1918) Social worker among Jewish working women

Ellice Hopkins (1836-1904) Campaigner for male chastity, anti-prostitution

Emma Cons (1838-1912) Suffragist, promoter of new skills for working women, temperance, model dwellings, pioneer of women councillors

Octavia Hill (1838-1912) Housing and social reformer

Flora Clift Stevenson (1839-1905) Education reformer






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All pages © Helena Wojtczak 2009. Corrections and additions are warmly welcomed. Email me