Amber Reeves

Amber Blanco White ( Reeves; 1 July 1887 – 26 December 1981) was a New Zealand–born British feminist writer and scholar.

Early life Reeves was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, the eldest of three children of Fabian feminist Maud Pember Reeves (née Robison; 1865–1953) and New Zealand politician and social reformer William Pember Reeves.

Reeves attended Kensington High School until 1904, and then travelled to Europe to become fluent in French. Her own father was not fully converted to the higher education of women; when he gave her the choice between being presented at court and going to the University of Cambridge, she chose Cambridge. Reeves then began studying Moral Sciences (philosophy) at Newnham College in 1905. It is unlikely her father raised further opposition as he always spoke highly of her academic achievements.

University of Cambridge While at Cambridge Reeves began to associate with other young women who shared her intellectual enthusiasms and socialist political leanings, forming a lifelong friendship with Eva Spielmann (later Eva Hubback), who became an educationalist. She became involved in a number of societies, including the debating society. In 1907, she led the inter-collegiate debate with Girton, arguing that "the socialist conception of life is the most noble and the most fruitful, both for the state and the individual."

In 1906, she founded the Cambridge University Fabian Society (CUFS) with Ben Keeling, a member of the (somewhat inactive) existing Fabian society in the town. CUFS was the first society at Cambridge to enlist women from its founding. Young women met regularly with men as equals and discussed everything from religious beliefs to social evils to sex, which would have been impossible in the conventional atmospheres of their homes.

She excelled in her studies, taking a double first in 1908. Gilbert Murray once wrote of an address she had given to the Newnham Philosophical Society, "It seems to me quite the best college paper that I have read—I mean as treated by a young person and from a non-metaphysical point of view." A fellow student described her as "intellect personified" after a lecture she gave to the Philosophical Society. Whilst there, Wells sold his family home in Sandgate and bought a new house for his wife and two sons in London.

Reeves attempted to get her theories on currency, later brought together in her book The Nationalisation of Banking, adopted by the Labour Party, and she and Rivers became responsible for a party publication called Womens Leader. Reeves remained active in the Fabian Society, and by this time many Fabians agreed that there was a need to work through the parliamentary Labour Party. She stood twice as a candidate for Hendon, in 1931 and 1935. Although she enjoyed discussing politics and world affairs, she felt disillusioned about the socialist hopes of her youth, and supported the Conservatives in the 1970 election. She believed that the wrong people were leading the left and that only diehards would vote for them.

In December 1981, she was admitted to a hospital in St John's Wood and died on 26 December aged 94.