Scrapbook 'given by Miss Frances Power Cobbe to Annie Leigh Browne' with later additions...

This scrapbook consists of press cuttings.

Pages 1-29 form the original Frances Power Cobbe / Annie Leigh Browne scrapbook of cuttings dating from 1893 to 1913. They begin with a few press cuttings and ephemera relating to demonstrations re the Direct Veto Bill, 1893 [for reforming the liquor traffic], but relate mainly to the suffrage campaigns of 1910-1913. The latter include many cartoons from the Daily Herald.

Pages 30-115 are comprised of press cuttings [collected by Eunice Murray] from the national and regional press relating to the suffrage campaigns and dating from 1908 to 1914. There are some sub-headings that give an indication of the scope of the material and these include: 'Scottish women's appeal before the House of Lords: Miss Crystal Macmillan, 1908'; 'Suffrage (general), 1908'; 'Suffrage Mar to the Albert Hall', 13 Jun 1908; 'Suffragette Rally in Hyde Park', 21 Jun 1908; 'Suffrage work in Scotland and the North', 1908; 'Suffrage (general)', 1909; 'Suffrage (general), 1910; 'Scottish campaign', 1910.

• <persname>Browne, Annie Leigh, 1851-1936, educationist and suffragist</persname>
• <persname>Murray, Eunice Guthrie, 1878-1960, suffragist and author</persname>
• <persname>Cobbe, Frances Power, 1822-1904, writer and campaigner for women's rights</persname>

This collection is available for research. Readers are advised to contact The Women's Library in advance of their first visit.

The scrapbook is annotated on the inside cover: 'This book was given by Miss Frances Power Cobbe to Annie Leigh Browne'. However, it is unclear whether the gift was of an empty volume or the scrapbook complete with press cuttings. Since many of the cuttings date from after the death of Frances Power Cobbe, the former seems most likely. Inside the flyleaf a further annotation indicates that additions were made at a much later date, probably by staff of the Fawcett Library: 'News cuttings collected by Eunice Murray (see her picture album) ... pasted in this album in 1968.' It does indeed seem likely that the cuttings in the second part of the album were originally collected by Murray because of the Scottish connection and may have been donated by her to the Library and then pasted into the volume.

Both Cobbe and Browne were involved in the nineteenth-century women's movement, whilst Eunice Murray was of a slightly later generation of women activists.

Biographies:

Annie Leigh Browne (1851-1936) was a friend of Frances Power Cobbe with whom she shared anti-vivisection views. Browne was also friend with Mary Stewart Kilgour (1851-1955). Browne was a founding member of the Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors (est. 1888). Browne was a member of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and its successor, the London Society for Women's Suffrage. In her early life she was a member of the Women's Protective and Provident League whilst by the 1890s she was involved in the Paddington Women's Liberal Association.

Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904) was a traveller and journalist, who was also a keen promoter of the emancipation of women. Cobbe was an early member of the Kensington Society, the Enfranchisment of Women Committee and later a founder of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and a member of the executive committee of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage. She was also a member of the Married Women's Property Committee. She had strong religious and ethical beliefs on which she also wrote. For some years she was also joint secretary of the National Anti-vivisection Society and was a founding member of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. She visited Italy frequently and spent several seasons at places such as Rome and Florence. She died in 1904.

Eunice Guthrie Murray (1877-1960) was born in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, the youngest daughter of David Murray, a Glasgow lawyer, and Frances Porter Stoddard. She was educated at St Leonard's School, St Andrews and was active in local charitable and temperance activities. Along with her mother and her sister, Sylvia Murray, she joined the Women's Freedom League and by 1913 was President of the League in Scotland. In 1918 she became the first woman to stand in a parliamentary election in Scotland, as an independent candidate in Glasgow, although she was unsuccessful. Eunice was the author of many works including 'Scottish Women of Bygone Days' (1930); 'A Gallery of Scottish Women' (1935) and a novel, 'The Hidden Tragedy' (1917). Eunice Murray was awarded an MBE in 1945. She died in 1960.