Barbara Leigh Smith after her marriage Barbara Bodichon.
Barbara's father, Benjamin Leigh Smith, was an MP's eldest son. One of his four sisters married into the Nightingale family and produced a daughter, Florence; another married into the Bonham-Carter family. Smith's home was 5 Blandford Square, Marylebone, London, but from 1816 he inherited and purchased property near Hastings: Brown's Farm near Robertsbridge, with a house built around 1700 (extant), and Crowham Manor, Westfield, which included 200 acres. Although a member of the landed gentry, Smith held radical views. He was a Dissenter, a Unitarian, a supporter of Free Trade, and a benefactor to the poor. In 1826 he bore the cost of building a school for the inner city poor at Vincent Square, Westminster, and paid a penny a week towards the fees for each child, the same amount as paid by their parents.
Ben's father wanted him to marry Mary Shore, the sister of William Nightingale, an in-law by marriage; however, on a visit to his sister in Derbyshire in 1826 Smith met Anne Longden, a 25-year-old milliner from Alfreton. She became pregnant and Smith took her to a rented lodge at Whatlington, a small village in Sussex. There she lived as 'Mrs Leigh', the surname of Ben Smith's relations on the Isle of Wight. The child, Barbara, was born on 8 April 1827. Smith rode on horseback from Brown's Farm to visit them daily, and within eight weeks Anne was pregnant again. When little Ben was born the four of them went to America for two years, during which time another child was conceived. On their return to Sussex they lived openly together at Brown's (left), and had two more children. After their last child was born, in 1833, Anne became ill and Smith leased 9 Pelham Crescent, which faced the sea at Hastings; the healthy properties of sea air were highly regarded at the time. A local woman, Hannah Walker, was employed to look after the children. Anne did not recover so Smith took her to Ryde, Isle of Wight, where she died in 1834.
It is something of a mystery that the couple never wed. The scandal of marrying a woman from a lower social class was nothing compared with raising five children out of wedlock. Biographer Pam Hirsch feels that perhaps Smith did not want Anne and the children to become his chattels, as the law would have deemed them had the pair married. This would certainly have fitted in with Smith's radical beliefs and later actions.
In 1836, when Barbara was nine, Smith and the five children settled permanently into 9 Pelham Crescent (right). Smith was elected MP for Norwich and while at the House of Commons, he asked Aunt Dolly Longden or Aunt Julia Smith to look after the children. Local people were employed to help: Catherine Spooner, governess; Harry Porter, Latin and history tutor; and Mr Willetts, the foremost local riding master. In 1842 Smith spent £215 on a beautifully ornate, eight-seater omnibus from the best coachbuilders in Hastings, Rock and Baxter of 6 Stratford Place, West Parade. With coachman Stephen Elliott at the reins, four horses drew the magnificent vehicle carrying the Leigh Smith children and their staff around Sussex and the home counties.
During the 1840s Benjamin Smith bought more land to the south and west of Robertsbridge, including Scalands Farm (extant), Mountfield Park Farm (extant) and Glottenham Manor (rebuilt and now a nursing home). The latter included the ruins of a 14th-century fortified and moated house. When each of his children reached 21, Smith broke with tradition and custom by treating his daughters the same as his sons, giving them investments which brought each an annual income of £300. He also gave to Barbara the deeds of the Westminster school.
The combination of an unconventional upbringing and a private income placed Barbara in an extraordinary position for a mid-Victorian woman. Whereas most women were raised to be obedient and expected only to marry, bear children and live in subordination to a husband, Barbara was free to live her life almost as she pleased. Money could not buy everything, however; for example her brother Ben went to Jesus College Cambridge in 1848, but Barbara was denied such academic opportunities, since no university would admit women. But she did not succomb to housewifery; she became a painter and social reformer. Despite her wealth Barbara eschewed high society and allied herself with the bohemian, the artistic, and the downtrodden.
Despite having illegitimate children, Benjamin Smith was highly regarded and he became a magistrate in Hastings in 1845 after retiring from Parliament. His children were accepted by Hastings society and during her seventeen years at Pelham Crescent Barbara became acquainted with many notable people. In 1846 she met her best friend Bessie Rayner Parkes (left), when Bessie's father hired rooms from Smith at 6 Pelham Crescent. In Hastings Barbara also met Anna Howitt and her children; Eliza Fox Bridell; Gertrude Jekyll; Marianne North, whose father was one of the two Hastings' MPs; Miss Bayley of 2 Holloway Place; and Ann Samworth and her children, who lived at Brooklands Cottage, Holloway place, Old London road.
The three Samworth girls and the three Leigh Smith girls enjoyed painting expeditions around Hastings. Barbara studied art at Bedford Square Ladies College (London) during 1849 and gained some reknown as a painter. Some of her work is held at Hastings Museum; other paintings are at Girton College, Cambridge. The Hastings & St Leonards Observer wrote (in 1891) of her paintings:
Among the canvasses the scenes of Algerian landscapes are such that only a born artist would dare to paint. The most vivid colours are dashed about in wonderful profusion, and such a critic as Ruskin has spoken in terms of high praise of her clever work.
In the art world Barbara met the painter William Hunt, who lived during the winter in a small house at the foot of the East Cliff, Hastings. Barbara's painting tutors included W. Collingwood Smith, who took her to meet John Hornby Maw in West Hill House. Through Miss Bayley she met George Scharf, later director of the National Portrait Gallery. Through the Howitts she met Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anna Jameson, Adelaide Procter and William Johnson Fox, the Unitarian minister. In 1852 she met George Eliot, who was to remain a lifelong friend.
As well as art, Barbara studied political economy and law at Bedford Square. Another lifelong friend was William Ransom (b.1822), a printer and stationer based at 42 George Street, Hastings. He gave her the opportunity to get her radical ideas into print by allowing her to write women's emancipation articles for his newspaper, the Hastings & St Leonards News. From June to August 1848 Barbara wrote, under the pen-name 'Esculapius', An Appeal to the Inhabitants of Hastings, Conformity to Custom and The Education of Women.
In 1850 Bessie Parkes introduced Barbara to her cousin, the first woman physician, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. However, Barbara's cousin Florence Nightingale snubbed her Uncle Ben's illegitimate offspring.
As young women of 21 and 23, Bessie and Barbara were, most unusually, allowed to go unchaperoned on a walking tour of Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, visiting Mary Howitt in Munich. The three discussed women's inferior status and wanted to change it. But men held all political power and would fight to preserve the system which served their interests so well. The two did, however, indulge in a little personal liberation. Female costume at the time was uncomfortable, impractical and restrictive. They abandoned their corsets and shortened their skirts, prompting Barbara to pen the lines:
Oh! Isn't it jolly
To cast away folly
And cut all one's clothes a peg shorter
(A good many pegs)
And rejoice in one's legs
Like a free-minded Albion's daughter.
They were also, rather audaciously, swanning around in heavy boots and wearing blue tinted spectacles! Click here to read a letter from Barbara to Bessie.
From the early 1850s Barbara divided her life between Hastings and London. The opening of the railway line to London in 1851 shortened her journeys to just 2 1/2 hours. Prior to this, the journey took 8 hours, either by road, or by road and rail via Staplehurst Station.
Willie Leigh Smith became estates manager at Glottenham and Ben was training to be a barrister so in 1853 their father gave up Pelham Crescent. Smith and Barbara lived at Blandford Square or in Sussex, staying often at Scalands Farm. While in the Hastings area Barbara continued to spend time among artists and bohemians. Among her friends were members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood including Rossetti and Siddal. It was she who arranged convalescent accommodation for Lizzie Siddal at 5 High Street in 1854.
In London Barbara met the Americans Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and Harriet Martineau and Mary Somerville, all now famous for their feminist activism. In 1854 Barbara wrote her first nation-wide publication, A Brief Summary, in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws concerning Women. This remarkable document listed for the first time the legal disabilities and restrictions under which women lived. Barbara proved herself a researcher and scholar by sifting through all the laws of Britain to create 'a pamphlet very thin and insignificant looking, but destined to be the small end of the wedge which was to change the whole fabric of the law' [Englishwoman's Review, 1891, p149.] It was widely read and discussed and provided an agenda for action. Barbara's friends and fellow feminists Florence and Rosamund Davenport Hill discussed the pamphlet with their solicitor brother Alfred, who took it to the Law Amendment Society, of which he was a member, which appointed a committee to investigate the laws listed.
As Barbara may have been aware, women's suffrage had already been taken up in a very small way by Anne Knight (1786-1862), who had founded a Female Political Association in 1847 to demand votes for women, and petitioned parliament; and also by Harriet Taylor Mill (1807-1858), who in 1851 argued for women’s suffrage in the Westminster Review, a paper edited by her husband, John Stuart Mill. Barbara's priority however was to tackle women's non-existence within marriage. When a woman married, everything she owned, inherited or earned belonged solely to her husband to dispose of as he wished (see my brief overview of women's status). This arrangement was long standing and was rarely questioned. At the time, to even contemplate changing it seemed outlandish; yet Barbara formed a committee whose intention was to reform the law and give married women rights to their own property. Many men said it would cause arguments between married couples; others said that the move would upset the "natural" balance of power between husbands and wives; some feared that women would become self-assertive, a fearful prospect for men.
Within a year Barbara's little committee had become a nation-wide campaign group, and she drafted a petition, the text of which was published in the Hastings and St Leonards News on 15th February 1856. A footnote informed the reader that one of the 70 copies of the petition was lying at Mr Winter's shop at 59 George Street, Hastings (pictured). The paper had "no doubt that many ladies will find their way thither to attach their names." The committee also compiled case studies of how individual women were suffering because of the law. There were hundreds of instances of women losing everything on marrying a man who absconded after the wedding, leaving them destitute. If such a woman was subsequently to earn or inherit any money, the errant husband could return at any time, seize all she had and leave once more. The petition was intended to support the suggestions of the Law Amendment Society. The 70 parts were pasted together and presented to the House of Lords in March 1856 with 26,000 signatures. This was the first organised feminist action in the UK. Its rejection comes as no surprise given that Parliament consisted of men, most of whom were married and therefore benefited directly from the status quo. However, the ladies did not give up. In 1857 the Married Women's Property Bill passed its first and second readings in the House of Commons.
Barbara's personal qualities were lauded in her day and after. Bessie described Barbara as "the most powerful woman I have ever known." Dale Spender points out that Barbara is "almost invariably portrayed... as a woman of glowing strength, active intelligence, warmth, understanding, and energy". Barbara's friend Jessie Boucherett described her as "beautifully dressed, of radiant beauty, and with masses of golden hair", and historian Ray Strachey remarked:
There seems to have been something particularly vigorous about Barbara Leigh Smith, who was taken by George Eliot as the model for Romola [the eponymous heroine of a novel]. Tall, handsome, generous and quite unselfconscious, she swept along, distracted only by the too great abundance of her interests and talents, and the too great outflowing of her sympathies... Life was a stirring affair for Barbara. Everything was before her - Art (for her painting was taken seriously by many eminent painters), philanthropy, education, politics - everything lay at her feet. The only trouble was to pick and choose.
Another of her interests was spiritualism: she attended a series of séances in London during 1853 with Rossetti, Bessie, and the Howitts. Stress and overexhaustion led to a serious nervous collapse in 1856 on returning from a trip to Rome.
Just prior to this breakdown, Barbara had a love afair with her publisher John Chapman, who was married. He was by all accounts a philanderer and rogue who Barbara's father wanted her to shun. Ben Smith arranged trip to Algeria with her brother Ben and their sisters. There she met Eugène Bodichon, a French physician, who she married on 2 July 1857. Most unusually for a woman at that time, she wrote her profession on her marriage certificate ('artist'). Eugène was as unconventional and free-thinking as Barbara: for much of their marriage she spent half the year with him in Algeria and the remainder without him in England, where she continued her profession and her feminist campaigning. During their seven-month honeymoon they visited Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell in the USA and Barbara entreated her to return to England. The following year Dr. Blackwell was a guest at Barbara's London home. Barbara introduced her to Elizabeth Garrett, an aspiring physician. This meeting was to prove a momentous one, for the two later opened the first women's medical practices in London. (Garrett later became famous and London's Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital was named for her.) Under Barbara's influence, in 1879, Blackwell moved to Hastings, where she remained until her death 30 years later.
In 1857 Barbara published a very radical pamphlet called Women and Work in which she asserted: "No human being has the right to be idle... Women must, as children of God, be trained to do some work in the world." She called for equality of education and work opportunities and advocated that all married women should work, citing nature as support: "Birds, both cock and hen, help one another to build their nest" Again, this was an outrageous demand, and thought by some to be subversive. Barbara did not hold back; she said plainly that letting men hold all the financial resources of the world and then refusing to admit women to any decently-paid work or professional career forced them to marry for financial support, which amounted to legal prostitution; and the 43 percent of women with no man to support them lived in poverty which led many to succumb to casual prostitution. Barbara made plain that she meant interesting, challenging occupations and not menial or domestic chores by emphasising that women needed: "WORK - not drudgery, but WORK". In 1858 Barbara purchased The Englishwoman's Journal and was able to disseminate her ideas more widely. It was published nation-wide and informed women about the rights movement. From this sprung the Association for Promoting the Employment of Women.
Between 1853 and 1863, Barbara was a frequent visitor to the Hastings area, staying on the family estates, or back at No. 9 Pelham Crescent, where her sister's family now leased rooms, or with the Samworths at Hastings. She painted Mrs Samworth's corn field in 1855, near the spot where another of the Samworth's house-guests, Holman Hunt, had painted 'Our English Coasts' three years earlier.
When Smith died in 1860 Barbara inherited 5 Blandford Square, Ben inherited the Glottenham estates and Willie inherited Crowham Manor. In 1863 Barbara leased three acres from Ben and built Scalands Cottage in a pinewood clearing in Harding's Wood. It was near Scaland's Farm but closer to the road, and thus she called it Scalands Gate (extant, now Scaland's Folly). The house was built to Barbara's own design and specification. The internal walls were covered from floor to ceiling with Barbara's own paintings. Gertrude Jekyll created the garden. The house was visited by Barbara's interesting circle of friends. In the 1860s these included Mary Howitt, Rossetti and Siddal, Frederick and Marianne North, Dean and Lady Stanley, and Herbert Gladstone (who became Prime Minister). Later guests included the Brownings, Gertrude Martineau, Lord Brassey, Henry Fawett, George Eliot and John Ruskin.
In 1865 Barbara, as a member of the Kensington Society, co-drafted another petition, this time for women's suffrage. Two women took it to Westminster Hall: Elizabeth Garrett and Emily Davies, (with whom Barbara founded Girton College). Feeling self-conscious, they asked the apple-seller to hide the huge petition under her stall while they waited for John Stuart Mill MP. She agreed, but bid the ladies unroll it a little so that she could apppend her own signature. Mill accepted the petition (pictured) and presented it to the House of Commons in 1866 to support an amendment to the Reform Act that would give women the vote. It was defeated by 196 votes to 73. In 1869 Barbara contributed to the debate once again by publishing Reasons for and against the Enfranchisement of Women and J.S. Mill published The Subjection of Women.
Barbara's life in the world away from Hastings was extraordinarily varied, busy and productive. Her story has been admirably documented by her biographers and will not, therefore, be repeated here. Pam Hirsch's 1998 work is highly reccommended. There is also a 1949 biography by Hester Burton.
Instead we jump forward to 1882 and find Barbara bestowing her philanthropy increasingly on her local area, in particular she funded Scalands Night School for the poor.
Barbara had hoped to have children, but this was not to be. After 28 years of marriage Eugène died in 1885 and shortly afterwards Barbara suffered a stroke at her cottage at Zennor, Cornwall, after which she was an invalid. In her declining years, Barbara specified that Mr E. Taught of Castle Road, Hastings was to undertake her funeral and chose a quiet spot in a country churchyward in which she wished to be buried.
When she died, in June 1891, the Hastings & St Leonards Observer wrote that
a movement started by her culminated in the Married Women's Property Act, and with a little help from Miss Davies she founded Girton College. There is one other act that the deceased lady did, for which the world is indebted to her, and that was to bring before the world the writings of "George Eliot".
Strangely, since then, Barbara's achievements have been submerged and, until recently, almost forgotten. She is not nearly as famous as some of her contemporaries who achieved less.
The funeral procession route was lined with hundreds of people whom she had helped to educate at the night school. The Hastings & St Leonards Observer wrote:
Those who were present will never forget the sight so long as they live... From the house to the grave side sad faces and tear-rimmed eyes filled the roads... [Inside the church were heard] sobs that would not be stifled... She gave with a free hand, and left before the recipient had time to thank her... She was a true Englishwoman, of noble character, strong in purpose, and quick to act on any sensible suggestion, if someone would be blessed by it.
In another article the newspaper remarked that:
The deceased lady was a militant Radical, but she lived only to do good. The poor of Scalands Gate have sustained the loss of a warm sympathiser... she housed and educated her labourers and their families... Madame was accustomed to receive the visits of politicians, authors, artists, and others of name and fame in the great world... But upon none can have grief for her departure come more acutely than upon Mr William Ransom and Miss Sanderson, both old, admiring and attached friends... Her whole life was wrapped up in trying to elevate the poor, and alleviate the sufferings of all that were downtrodden.
Barbara was buried at St Thomas à Becket Church, Brightling. The inscription on her gravestone is now almost indecipherable. Her name is absent from the church guidebook's list of the notable people buried there. Her brother Ben is thought worthy of inclusion, as he was an Arctic explorer. Readers may ponder why this is considered worthy of note while founding the British women's rights movement is not.
There was not even a Blue Plaque on No. 9 Pelham Cresent. This was rectified in April 2000, following requests by myself and others to Hastings Borough Council - 109 years after Barbara's death. Scalands was partly destroyed by fire in the 1950s. It was rebuilt on the same site and still stands, as Scaland's Folly.
I recently discovered a very curious connection. Ben Leigh Smith was rescued in 1882 by Henry Gore-Booth, a fellow arctic explorer. Gore-Booth at that time had a 14 year old daughter, Constance. In 1918, she would become the first woman elected to the British Parliament. His daughter Eva, then 12, was to become a well known suffragette and campaigner for women's employment rights.
This short biography of Barbara Bodichon appears in my recent publication Notable Women of Victorian Hastings
Illustrations
Top - Barbara Leigh Smith (Madame Bodichon).
Second - Brown's Farm near Robertsbridge in 1999.
Third - Pelham Crescent c.1830s.
Fourth - Bessie Rayner Parkes (Madame Belloc).
Fifth - 59 George St, Hastings, June 2000
Bottom - Miss Davies and Miss Garrett present the petition to JS Mill. Painted by Bertha Newcombe, 1910.
References and related web resources:
Dale Spender: 'Women of Ideas' (Pandora
Only as a finished artist is Madame Bodichon well known, but also as a philanthropist, one of those brave and noble women who make strenuous efforts to stem the tide of vice and misery, and to right the wrongs under which so many helpless sisters suffer.
This lady is the eldest daughter of the late Benjamin Smith, Esq., many years member for Norwich, and granddaughter of William Shaw Smith, Esq. (the friend of Fox, Wilberforce, and Clarkson), who for thirty years represented the same borough.
Miss Smith was born April 8, 1827, at Watlington, in Sussex, and was educated under the immediate care of her father. From her earliest years she was constantly in the society of her father and his political friends. Consequently, from the days when her girlish thoughts deepened into reflection, she took an
absorbing interest in social questions. As her father,during the whole course of his life, was a firm and consistent Liberal, this contributed greatly to the formation of the young girl's opinions. Her father anxiously watched the development of her mind, and regarded with pride and interest her progress in artistic studies. He aided her in various charities and social works, always giving her the kindest and
most paternal sympathy.
In the winter of 1855-6, Miss Smith proposed to some Mends that an effort should be made to secure to women unhappily married their own property, or the money earned by their personal industry. A petition was drawn up, signed with the most influ-
ential names. Anna Jameson, Mary Howitt, Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and numerous other ladies distinguished ia literature, art, and science,
gladly subscribed their signatures. The names of Englishwomen appended numbered in all three thousand. The petition was presented to the House of Lords by Lord Brougham, and to the Commons by Sir Erskine Parry. Although this attempt was not
rewarded with immediate success, it had the effect of drawing the attention of Parliament to the desired measure, and led to a change in the law of marriage
and divorce.
Among her earliest public efforts was the establishment of a school at Portman HaU, Paddington.
This school, for boys under ten and girls above six, was successfully carried on for nine years, the entire responsibility of funds, etc., being undertaken by Miss Smith,
It was from Mr. W. Ellis's Birkbeck Schools, and the admirable teaching of his coadjutor, Mr. Shields, that she learned what a good system of education was ; and one of the teachers, Miss E. Whitehead, afterwards Mrs. Frank Matheson, went
into training for a year under Mr. Shields.
A remarkable feature in the Portman Hall School was the great number of efficient volunteer teachers who offered to aid the work, and the school was remembered with great affection by both teachers and pupils. It was in many respects quite an experiment
The scheme proposed was to bring a thoroughly good education within the reach of the lower-middle and working classes, at a cost of sixpence a week, and the course of instruction comprised, besides the ordinary subjects taught at National Schools, elementary physiology, social economy, the outlines of science, drawing, vocal music, needlework, including mending and cutting-out
The actual cost of giving this education was eighteen-pence per head, but the results were eminently happy. Since then, the lower Camden Schools for girls, and other institutions of the kind, have brought an excellent education within
reach of the lower-xniddle classes at a very moderate price, though not so low as that of the Portman Hall Schools.
In July, 1857, Miss Smith married Dr. Eugene Bodichon, a French physician, long resident in Algiers,
Dr. Bodichon is of a noble Breton family : the author of some of the earliest and more noteworthy works on Algeria and French colonization in that country. He
has also written an important philosophical work called " De THumanit^," published in two vols., 1867, which was favourably noticed by the leading English
reviews.
Portions of it have been translated into English, notably a monograph on Napoleon the First {Temple Bar, 1873). Dr. Bodichon took a leading part in Algerian affairs for many years, and during the stormy period of 1848, was named Corresponding
Member of the Provisional Government in Paris. His first act was to advise the liberation of the slaves throughout the proviuce, which was immediately done.
All Dr. Bodichon's works are characterized by a singular degree of political insight and a passionate love of liberty. The political prophecies enunciated in his books have since been verified in his own country as well as this, and are among the most remarkable instances of historic foresight on record.
In 1857, Dr. and Madame Bodichon went to America, where they stayed a year, visiting the most important cities of Canada, and the United States, and the South.
Madame Bodichon painted some beautiful pictures.
From her earliest youth she had ardently studied painting, under the direction of John Varley's brother, and for years she had been the pupil of William Hunt, senior. Her principal studies had been from David Cox, Prout, Copley Fielding, etc.
Some of her most popular works were produced in America. Her ** Falls of Niagara " was much admired.
During her stay, she exhibited at Washington, Philadelphia, and other places of importance.
Many of her American pictures were afterwards exhibited at the Dudley, and other galleries in London, and immediately sold. She kept copious diaries, which
are full of incident and picturesque detail : some extracts have already been published in magazine form.
A few years later (1861), Madame Bodichon, with her husband, visited Brittany, where she made some charming transcripts of scenery and country life; also writing many very lively little descriptive " bits."
Thus travelling, she found unusual facilities for studying landscape. Mr. Gambart twice exhibited collections of her water-colour drawings at the French Gallery in Pall Mall The first exhibition was April,
1861; the second, July, 1864.
In 1866-67, Madame Bodichon and her husband travelled through Spain on the way to Algiers, crossing from Gibraltar to Gran, her active pencil every- where preserving vivid recollections of the spots wandered through. Her memories of the Andalusian
scenery, including the ever-entrancing Alhambra, with its countless associations, were exhibited during the following year.
The residence of Dr. and Madame Bodichon in Algiers was full of interest : not only from the natural charm of the place itself, but from the noted persons with whom they came in contact, their pleasant villa being hospitably open to the great number of European tourists who flocked to the sunny region to escape the cold winters of the north.
The villa on the green heights of Mustapha Supdrieur, commanding a glorious view of sea, city, and plain, will be long and gratefully remembered by many who, but for
such a meeting-place, would have found the Algerian capital friendless indeed. Among the distinguished visitors who enjoyed the hospitality of Mustapha Superieur, may be mentioned — Cobden, Arlfes Dufour, Egg, F. Walker, and Lady Dunbar.
Nor were Madame Bodichon's sympathies restricted to the abundant exercise of " Gastfreundschaft" She took great interest in the Orphelinat — an institution
for orphans near Algiers, and also in many other public works, chiefly the planting of the Eucalyptus, or blue-gum tree, which has been found to exercise so salutary an influence in districts infested with malaria, and to which both Dr. and Madame Bodi-
chon devoted much time, energy, and money. It has been found that wherever the Eucalyptus is planted fever decreases, in consequence not only of the aromatic oil contained in the leaves, but because of the extraordinary amount of moisture absorbed by the roots. Madame Bodichon, who is one of the first authorities on the subject, wrote a paper concerning it for the Pall Mall Gazette^ called " Australian Forests and Algerian Deserts." Dr. Bodichon drew the attention of the French government to the necessity of planting trees in Algeria thirty years ago.
Now large plantations of these trees are found throughout the fentire Metidje plain, and in every instance a marked improvement of the sanitary condition has been the result.
Since her return to Europe, Madame Bodichon has chiefly resided in England, devoting herself to art and philanthropy with a rare energy and enthusiasm. In conjunction with Miss Emily Danes, she was instrumental in founding the now well-known
Girton College, which was opened in temporary buildings, 1869, but has since been removed to a building erected expressly near Cambridge, incorporated 1872, under the title of Girton College.
This college is the first institution of the kind opened in England where women could obtain the same educational advantages ofiered to men at the universities. Madame Bodichon headed the subscription list with the munificent gift of £1000 — one among the countless instances of her generosity and public spirit ; and the appeal to the public has been responded to, but further sums are needed, as students are waiting to be admitted till another wing of the building is erected. For this, the money is not yet forthcoming. Several students have gained honours in the classical
fuad mathematical tripos, and many have passed the ordinary or B.A. degree. An excellent article ap- peared in Fraser's Magazine^ May, 1875, giving an account of this college.
Some of Madame Bodichon's drawings have attracted Buskin's notice — notably a "Cornfield after a Storm," whilst perhaps her "Falls of Niagara," variously painted, have received most public attention. Of late years she has paid great attention to the modem French landscapists. Corot and Daubigny, especially, have been of great use to her.
There is certainly no one in England who more thoroughly appreciates these great painters, also the good old school of English water-colour artists, than Madame
Bodichon.
Never painted expressly for sale, her pictures have yet sold largely, and have been ever among the most favourite subjects exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Dudley, and other galleries.
Madame Bodichon is one of the few artists who can paint moving masses of water : her waves dance and leap as if they were really moving, while renders the subtle hues intenningled, whether in the tumbling cascade, the ** fluctus decumanus " * oflF a
Hastings beach, or the heaped-up masses of the distant ocean rock.
This lady is favourably known as a writer, having many varied and interesting experiences to relate, and a style lively and graphic. Her papers and pam-
phlets on the political disabilities of women, laws affecting the property of women, and education in reference to her own sex, have been reprinted several times ; and she has also contributed to Macmillan's Magazine, Temple Bar, and other journals, chiefly very amusing sketches of travel in America, Algeria, and Spain. In the Englishwoman's Magazine — a journal chiefly devoted to the educational and industrial interests of women, and which was printed and supported by Madame Bodichon and others have been published the largest number of these diaries and
reminiscences ; and the papers on " Slavery in the South," might advantageously be reprinted now, since they realize the awfulness of slavery in vivid and simple pictures.
All this time Madame Bodichon was actively engaged in pursuing her art, contributing to the various exhibitions, and gaining recognition from English and foreign art critics and connoisseurs
Some of her most favourite studies have been made from the fishmarket of the picturesque town of Hastings ; and at an exhibition of her work in 1874, noticed in several papers, it was more especially the Hastings subjects that met with praise and purchasers.
Visits to Normandy, Wales, Cornwall, and the sea, from time to time, not tor speak of the long residence in Algeria, have aflforded an unusual variety of sub-
jects to a ready imagination and a quick appreciation of beauty, whether in colour or form ; and Madame Bodichon's peculiar gifts, which once were appreciated
but by few, are now rapidly acquiring the reputation they deserve.
It may be said of her, as of every real artist, that she has never painted in order to gain popularity. She has portrayed Nature through the poetical medium of an imaginative spirit, and not from a narrow, artificial, or conventional point
of view. Such gifts may not always win ready applause or sympathy at once, but must lead to high position.
It is scarcely necessary to make any remarks on the works or merits of so well-known an artist. Few ladies have acquired more brilliant reputation: some French critics have declared her to be the "Eosa Bonheur of Landscape." She does not merely repro-
duce the outward features of her scenes, but brings a strong intellectual force to give vitality. The number of her pictures is already large, but the principal ones may be considered to be : " Sunflowers," two highly finished oil pictures, presented to Girton College ; " Dirty Weather, St. Leonards ; " " Chateau Gaillard ; " " Early Morning, Hastings ;" " Negro Women sacrificing, Algiers ;" "Aloes ;" " Stonehenge ;"
" Cedar Forest in Temel-el-Haad (Atlas Mountains) ; " "Arab fishing;" "Cornfields in Sussex;" "Outside Malaga ; " " Beeds " — an Algerian study, afterwards chromo-lithographed ; " Niagara ; " " Beechey Head ; " and a very large number of highly poetic studies of Algerian and English coast scenery, more especially those made at Hastings and St. Leonards.
To few artists has it been given to exercise so wide an influence outside the immediate circle of their personal friends and admirers as to Madame Bodichon an influence always used for large and noble purposes, always for the general good.
She was also a cousin to Florence Nightingale
