'Re-Thinking Victorian Women at West Norwood Cemetery'

‘Re-Thinking Victorian Women’

Join Dr Jane Jordan to discover the histories of C19th women who defied social convention, and whose careers took them into the public sphere. Highlights include the graves of Mrs Beeton, a Pre-Raphaelite model-turned-artist, the first woman to take a law degree, a world-famous equestrienne, Florence Nightingale’s most trusted nurse during the Crimean War and the pioneering ceramic designers employed at Doulton’s Lambeth Art Pottery.

The Victorian period (1837-1901) saw the emergence of distinct gendered spheres for men and women―the woman’s sphere of influence being entirely domestic, an innately caring role supporting her husband and children (this, in a nutshell, was ‘woman’s mission’). Such patriarchal attitudes underpinned matrimonial law, so that married women had no legal identity: men had absolute rights over their wives’ property, earnings, their children, even their bodies. Yet, decades before the Suffragettes called for equal voting rights, Victorian women in all walks of life resisted the idea that only marriage and motherhood offered fulfilment. Perhaps the most famous Victorian woman in West Norwood Cemetery is Isabella Beeton, whose Book of Household Management (1861) provided married women with household advice, recipes and menus, yet for someone like Florence Nightingale making dinner into ‘a sacred ceremony’ prevented women from having the time to develop other spheres of action (‘If she has a knife and fork in her hands during three hours of the day, she cannot have a pencil or brush’). We have tended to think of women like Nightingale, who transformed military and civilian nursing, as remarkable one-offs who went against the grain. ‘Re-Thinking Victorian Women’ reminds us that there were in fact many women who contested the ways in which women’s lives were constrained by social attitudes of the day and who chose careers that proved they were the equals of men.

Dr Jane Jordan

We will meet at the arched (main) entrance for a prompt start at 2pm. If you have any mobility concerns, please get in touch with me and I can advise. Unfortunately, dogs (even on leads) are not allowed in the cemetery.

West Norwood Cemetery (SE27 9JU) is located next to St Luke's Church and West Norwood Library. Buses: 2, 68, 196, 315, 322, 432 and 468 (several of these routes go via Brixton Tube Station: 2, 196, 322, 432) or West Norwood Station (trains to and from London Bridge/Victoria). Limited off-street parking is available.

This tour is being offered on behalf of The Friends of West Norwood Cemetery. Your donation will help us to continue to preserve this very special space. Please note that due to a quirk of the system each ticket has to be booked separately - something to bear in mind if you are coming as a couple or a member of a group.

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Host or Publisher Friends of West Norwood Cemetery