Alicia Little

Alicia Little or Mrs Archibald Little (1845 – 31 July 1926) was a British writer and a campaigner for women's rights and later against foot binding in China.

Life Little was born as Alicia Ellen Neve Bewicke in the Madeira islands of Portugal in 1845 to Calverley and Amelia Jane Bewicke. Her parents owned Hallaton Hall in Leicestershire but she was brought up in Madeira. She returned to England and successfully published her first tranche of books. She travelled abroad but she was based in England until 1886. Both of them travelled around China, although Little had to dress as a male to avoid attracting attention, which had on occasion resulted in items being thrown. She was the leading European campaigner from 1896 to 1906 against this practice. In 1898 she founded Tien Tsu Hui (Natural Foot Society) which campaigned against the Chinese custom of binding the feet of girls and women. The organisation initially took expats as members and Little realised that she needed to not confuse her message with religion. Little with the support of her husband organised a campaign of postcards and Little set out to deliver talks in leading cities in China, Hong Kong and Macau. Little delivered these talks using X-rays of the deformed feet and with quotes from Confucius. She had seen and written about the effects of this custom where children's feet and toes were broken before they were bound to prevent normal growth. Women with bound feet had to work in the fields on their knees because they could not stand and women killed themselves during wars because they knew that they could not run.

In 1908, her husband died and she took time to complete the publication of his book which was published in 1910 as a joint effort. It was one of the first in English to describe the province of Yunnan.

Little died in Kensington.

Legacy Little is unusual in being one of the few women who outshone their husband in the ODNB. Her work on foot binding was well received but has now been seen as expressing British cultural superiority. Her work has been compared with some external approaches to the custom of female genital mutilation in Africa in the 21st century.

Selected publications

Flirts and Flirts: or, A Season at Ryde (1868) One Foot on Shore: A Novel (1869) Love me for my Love (1869) Last of the Jerninghames (1873) Lonely Carlotta: "a crimson bud of a rose" (1874) Onwards! But Whither?: A Life Study (1875) Margery Travers (1878) Miss Standish, and By the Bay of Naples (1883) Mother Darling (1885) A Marriage in China (1896) My Diary in a Chinese Farm (1896) Intimate China (1899) Li Hung-Chang: His Life and Times (1903) Across Yunnan: A Journey of Surprises (1908) on behalf of her late husband