Emily Townshend

Emily Caroline Townshend (; 1849 – 1934) was a British social reformer and suffragette. Townshend was one of the first five students at Hitchin College (present-day Girton College, Cambridge).

Early life and education Emily Gibson was born in 1849. In 1869, Townshend was one of five women to enroll at Hitchin College Townshend left Hitchin College without obtaining a qualification.

In 1907, age 57, Townshend spent two weeks in Holloway Prison for her part in a suffragette protest. In 1909, her daughter Rachel Townsend spent two months imprisoned there for similar activities.

Her daughter Caroline Townshend (1878–1944) was a leading stained glass artist and followed her mother in membership of the Fabian Society and interest in women's suffrage. Joan talked about Emily’s career, household arrangements, relationship with her daughter Rachel and with the suffrage movement. Joan was the daughter of Emily’s daughter Rachel, who married social reformer Frederic Keeling (known as Ben) in 1909. Although the couple later divorced, Keeling kept in touch with his former mother in law. After Frederic’s death in the trenches of the First World War in 1916, Townshend edited and published his letters in a 1918 volume titled Keeling Letters & Recollections, with a foreword by H. G. Wells.