Annie Kenney, Mary Blathwayt and Emmeline Pankhurst, 1910, Planting Cedrus Deodara in the garden of Eagle House Batheaston, home of refuge for suffragettes.
It is hard to remember that, up until the 20th century, the opinions of women were considered irrelevant by almost everybody in any intellectual or scientific areas. Between 1918 and 1952 women finally got the vote in Europe and the USA, but only through the tireless work of the Suffragettes, who went to extreme lengths, endangering their own lives through hunger strikes and the insanitary jails in which they were incarcerated and force fed. Emily Davison died after throwing herself under the hooves of the King’s horse at the Derby in Epsom. We owe a lot to these women’s conviction and courage.
Mary Delany - Centaurea Cyanus, 1779.
For the preceding centuries women were expected to solely involve themselves in the running of the home. After that, if they were remotely well born, they had little more to do, other than read, draw or paint, sing, play musical instruments, look decorative, speak French and make exquisite embroidery. They were largely uneducated and their opinions counted for little, essentially they were considered, in both law and practise, to be the chattels of their husbands. Unmarried women had to remain at home with their parents and act as unpaid carers, as it was not considered respectable for unmarried ladies to live alone. There were, therefore, very few opportunities for women to express their intelligence and individuality.
Botany was one of the areas where a woman could break the glass ceiling and slip through the back door into the world of science. What could be less provocative than a woman picking and pressing flowers from the garden?
Wood Anemone, collected in 1864 by Lydia Becker, Secretary of the Manchester National Society for Womens’ Suffrage from 1867 until her death in 1890.
Pressed Auriculas from the herbarium of Mary Somerset (the Duchess of Beaufort) © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
As an all female company we want to celebrate and share our botanical heroines who used the flower press and botanical exploration as an outlet for their creativity and scientific curiosity, starting next week with Beatrix Potter.
Further stories of our Botanical Heroines can be found in our book The Modern Flower Press. Published by William Collins, 2022.