Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy

Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme-Elmy (née Wolstenholme; 1833 – 12 March 1918) was a British teacher, campaigner and organiser, significant in the history of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. thumb Her elder brother, also named Joseph Wolstenholme (1829–1891), was afforded an education, and became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, but Elizabeth was not permitted to study beyond two years at Fulneck Moravian School. Wolstenholme took her role seriously. When local women's suffragist groups faltered following the disappointment of failed suffrage bills, Wolstenholme was instrumental in maintaining the momentum of her city's committee with a re-grouping in 1867 under the name Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage.

In 1877, the women's suffrage campaign was centralised as the National Society for Women's Suffrage. Wolstenholme was a founding member (with Harriet McIlquham and Alice Cliff Scatcherd) of the Women's Franchise League in 1889. Wolstenholme left the organisation and founded the Women's Emancipation Union (WEU) in 1891.

Women's Emancipation Union 1891–1899 Wolstenholme founded the Women's Emancipation Union in September 1891 following an infamous court case. Regina v Jackson, known colloquially as the Clitheroe Decision, occurred when Edmund Jackson abducted his wife in a bid to enforce his conjugal rights, long before the concept of marital rape existed. The court of appeal freed Mrs Jackson under Habeas corpus. Wolstenholme recognised the significance of this judgement in relation to coverture, the principle that a wife's legal personhood was subsumed in that of her husband. and as a watershed moment in improving the laws governing marriage.

Wolstenholme funded the WEU by subscriptions and by finding a benefactor, Mrs Russell Carpenter. The WEU campaigned for four great equalities between men and women: in civic rights and duties, in education and self-development, in the workplace, and in marriage and parenthood. It pioneered cross-class collaborations, encouraging women's resistance to authority while their right to vote remained unacknowledged. It also advocated making women's suffrage a test question in the selection of prospective parliamentary candidates.

The WEU committee held an annual conference and over 150 public meetings between 1892 and 1896. Papers given at the conferences included Amy Hurlston's "The Factory work of Women in the Midlands" and William Henry Wilkins's "The Bitter Cry of the Voteless Toiler", both in 1893, and Isabella Bream Pearce's "Women and Factory Legislation" in 1896.

There were ten local organisers in cities from Glasgow to Bristol, and international subscriptions of over 7,000. A short-lived Parliamentary subcommittee was established in 1893. Executive members included Mona Caird, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Caroline Holyoake Smith, and Charles W. Bream Pearce (husband of Isabella Bream Pearce). Members included Lady Florence Dixie, Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, and George Jacob Holyoake. Isabella Ford worked on behalf of the WEU at outdoor rallies in London's East End in 1895.

Following the Local Government Act 1894, the WEU worked to encourage those women who were covered by it (mostly property owners) to stand for election in bodies of local administration, or at least to vote. Over 100 of the WEU organisers were elected as Poor Law Guardians or Parish Councillors. was invited to became a member of the executive committee of the Women's Social and Political Union. The WEU was a forerunner to the combative "militant" WSPU suffragettes.

Wolstenholme was on the stage when Keir Hardie and Pankhurst spoke to a large crowd in Trafalgar Square, and also wrote an eyewitness account of the 1906 Boggart Hole Clough meeting and the 1908 Women's Sunday,

Personal life Wolstenholme met silk mill owner, secularist, republican (anti-monarchist), and women's rights supporter Benjamin John Elmy (1838–1906) when she moved to Congleton, Cheshire. He became her soulmate and domestic partner in a free union. Elmy was born in Hollingsworth to Benjamin Elmy, an Inland Revenue officer, and Jane ( Ellis) Elmy. Working as a teacher in his early 20s, Elmy lost his faith and became a factory manager in Lancashire's textile trade. It was this work that gave him insights into economic hardships that beset women workers. following the free love movement and horrifying their devout Christian colleagues. When Wolstenholme became pregnant in 1874, her colleagues were outraged and demanded that they marry, against their personal beliefs. Despite the couple going through a civil marriage registry ceremony on 12 October 1874,

Wolstenholme died in her home at Chorlton-on-Medlock on 12 March 1918, shortly after women were granted the vote.

In April 2021, a new Congleton linkroad was named Wolstenholme Elmy Way in honour of Elizabeth and her husband, Benjamin.

A charity was set up in Congleton in 2019 to raise her profile. Elizabeth's Group raised funds to create a statue in Wolstenhome's memory. It was designed by sculptor Hazel Reeves and unveiled by Baroness Hale of Richmond on International Women's Day, 8 March 2022.