Emily Langton Massingberd

Upon her father's death in 1887 Langton inherited his estate and re-assumed the surname Massingberd by royal licence, and thereafter went by "Mrs. Massingberd" rather than "Mrs. Langton".The photograph, circa 1894, shows her wearing the hatchet pin of the Pioneer Club, which she founded in 1892. Emily Caroline Langton Massingberd (19 December 1847 – 28 January 1897), known as Emily Langton Langton from 1867 to 1887, was an English women's rights campaigner and temperance activist.

Her husband, Edmund Langton, died in 1875. In 1877, Emily built and lived in the Red House in Bournemouth. Since the 1940s, the house has often been erroneously associated with Lillie Langtry and Bertie, the Prince of Wales. It was one of the first, and one of the most powerful and well known, of progressive women's clubs in the UK, and was particularly influential while she remained alive.

Her birth surname was Massingberd, and her married surname was Langton. After her father's death, she re-assumed the surname Massingberd by royal licence on 20 May 1887, and went by "Mrs. Massingberd" rather than "Mrs. Langton".

Early life and family Emily Massingberd was born Emily Caroline Langton Massingberd on 19 December 1847 in East Stonehouse, Devon. She was the eldest daughter of Charles Langton Massingberd of Gunby Hall and Harriet Anne Langford.

She married her second cousin, Edmund Langton, in 1867. Edmund was the son of Rev. Charles Langton and Charles Darwin's sister-in-law Charlotte Wedgwood Langton. After Charlotte died Rev. Langton married Darwin's sister Emily Catherine Darwin in 1863.

Emily and Edmund had four children, a son and three daughters: Charlotte Mildred (1868–1941), Stephen (1869–1925), Mary (1871–1950), and Diana (1872–1963).

Her husband Edmund died, aged 34, in November 1875, at Eastwood, East Cliffe Road, Bournemouth, the home of his father Rev. Charles Langton. Her son Stephen became a Major and married Vernon Lushington's daughter Margaret. Her daughter Mary married General Hugh Maude de Fellenberg Montgomery. Her daughter Diana married Hugh's brother Field Marshal Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd. Emily was great-grandmother to Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (1946–2007), via her daughter Mary's son John Michael Montgomery.

Emily died in 1897. In 1944 her daughter Diana and husband Field Marshal Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd gave the Gunby Hall estate to the National Trust during World War II, when it was threatened with demolition to make way for an airfield.

Activist years After marriage in 1867, Emily and Edmund Langton lived mainly in Bournemouth. The foundation stone for the house, which includes a large assembly room, is inscribed "E.L.L. 1877".

A portrait of Emily painted in 1878 by Theodore Blake Wirgman shows her with a violin, and in December 1880 she was one of the instrumentalists for the Congregational Band of Hope in the Richmond Hill Congregational School-room, Bournemouth. In January 1881 she held a notable fancy dress dance "at the Assembly Room of the Red House, Bournemouth". In September 1882 she held a "fashionable concert" at the Red House in aid of funds for the Bournemouth Dispensary.

By 1881, she was staying in Kensington, London. Emily Langton is listed at the Red House in Kelly's Directory of Hampshire for 1885.

Illness and death Following a long illness, Emily Langton Massingberd underwent a serious operation at Llandudno in Wales, but a few weeks later died on 28 January 1897. She was 49 years old. In it she writes of the protagonist: