Frances Power Cobbe

Frances Power Cobbe
Photograph from Life of Frances Power Cobbe, 1894
Born	(1822-12-04)4 December 1822 Newbridge House, Donabate, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Died	Hengwrt, Wales
Nationality	Irish
Occupation	Writer, social reformer, philosopher
Known for	Founder of the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (1875); British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (1898); member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage

Frances Power Cobbe (4 December 1822 – 5 April 1904) was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, religious thinker, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist and leading women's suffrage campaigner. She founded a number of animal advocacy groups, including the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) in 1875 and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) in 1898, and was a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage.

She was the author of a large number of books and essays, including An Essay on Intuitive Morals (1855), The Pursuits of Women (1863), Cities of the Past (1864), Essays New and Old on Ethical and Social Subjects (1865), Darwinism in Morals, and other Essays (1872), The Hopes of the Human Race (1874), The Duties of Women (1881), The Peak in Darien, with some other Inquiries touching concerns of the Soul and the Body (1882), The Scientific Spirit of the Age (1888) and The Modern Rack: Papers on Vivisection (1889). She also published dozens of essays in most of the leading heavy-weight periodicals of the time, as well as an autobiography and a substantial amount of more popular journalism.

Life

File:Frances Power Cobbe's canine companion.jpg

Hajjin was Frances Power Cobbe's canine companion and traveled with her and her partner, Mary Lloyd, to Wales after Cobbe and Lloyd moved there

Frances Power Cobbe was a member of the prominent Cobbe family, descended from Archbishop Charles Cobbe, Primate of Ireland. She was born in Newbridge House in the family estate in what is now Donabate, Co. Dublin.

Cobbe worked at the Red Lodge Reformatory and lived with the owner, Mary Carpenter, from 1858 to 1859, but a turbulent relationship between the two meant that Cobbe left the school and moved out.

Cobbe formed a lesbian relationship with the Welsh sculptor Mary Lloyd (1819-1896), whom she met in Rome in 1861 and lived with from 1864 until Lloyd's death. That death, in 1896, affected Cobbe badly. Her friend, the writer Blanche Atkinson, writing, “The sorrow of Miss Lloyd’s death changed the whole aspect of existence for Miss Cobbe. The joy of life had gone. It had been such a friendship as is rarely seen – perfect in love, sympathy, and mutual understand.” Around 1891 and in danger of losing their home at Hengwrt, in which Lloyd had inherited a share on the death of her parents, the couple were relieved by a legacy of over £25,000 from the widow of Richard Vaughan Yates. They are buried together at Saint Illtud Church Cemetery, Llanelltyd, Gwynedd, Wales. In letters and published writing, Cobbe referred to Lloyd alternately as "husband," "wife," and "dear friend."

Cobbe founded the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (SPALV) in 1875, the world's first organisation campaigning against animal experiments, and in 1898 the BUAV, two groups that remain active. She was a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and writer of editorial columns for London newspapers on suffrage, property rights for women and opposition to vivisection. Around 1880, with Louise Twining, she founded Homes for Workhouse Girls.

Cobbe's name on the lower section of the Reformers memorial, Kensal Green Cemetery

Cobbe met the Darwin family during 1868. Emma Darwin liked her, "Miss Cobbe was very agreeable." Cobbe persuaded Charles Darwin to read Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Ethics. She met him again during 1869 in Wales, and apparently interrupted him when he was quite ill, and tried to persuade him to read John Stuart Mill—and indeed Darwin had read Cobbe's review of Mill's book, The Subjection of Women. She then lost his trust when without permission she edited and published a letter he had written to her. Her critique of Darwin's Descent of Man, Darwinism in Morals was published in The Theological Review in April 1871.

In philosophy, Cobbe was a proponent of intuitionism in ethics. She thought that morality and religion were inseparably connected: moral obligations depend on a moral law, which requires a divine legislator. She was an opponent of utilitarianism. Her philosophical views were wide-ranging and she addressed a huge range of philosophical topics including the nature of action and moral knowledge, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, history, pessimism, the possibility of life after death, and many more. Her philosophical contribution is now beginning to be rediscovered as part of the recovery of women in the history of philosophy.

Cobbe's activism for women's rights included advocating for women to be allowed not only to attend university but also to take university examinations, following the same curricula as men and held to the same academic standards, and to graduate with degrees. She presented an influential paper at the Social Science Congress in 1862 to argue the case

Posthumous recognition

A portrait of her is included in a mural by Walter P. Starmer unveiled in 1921 in the church of St Jude-on-the-Hill in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.

Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.

Her name is listed on the south face of the Reformers Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

The Animal Theology professorship at the Graduate Theological Foundation is named after Cobbe.

See also

• Brown Dog affair
• Lizzy Lind af Hageby
• Caroline Earle White
• List of animal rights advocates
• Women and animal advocacy

Further reading

• Frances Power Cobbe, The Modern Rack: Papers on Vivisection. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1889.
• Buettinger, Craig. "Women and antivivisection in late nineteenth century America", Journal of Social History, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Summer, 1997), pp. 857–872.
• Caine, Barbara. Victorian feminists. Oxford 1992
• Hamilton, Susan. Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
• Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press, 2004.
• Rakow, Lana and Kramarae, Cheris. The Revolution in Words: Women's Source Library. London, Routledge 2003 ISBN 0-415-25689-5
• Stone, Alison. Entries on Cobbe's philosophical thought, Encyclopedia of Concise Concepts by Women in Philosophy [1]
• Lori Williamson, Power and protest : Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian society. 2005. ISBN 978-1-85489-100-6. A 320-page biography.
• Victorian feminist, social reformer and anti-vivisectionist, discussion on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, 27 June 2005
• State University of New York – Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904)
• The archives of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (ref U DBV) are held at the Hull History Centre. Details of holdings are on its online catalogue.

External links

• Works by Frances Power Cobbe at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Frances Power Cobbe in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Frances Power Cobbe archives at the National Library of Wales