Elisabeth van Dedem Lecky
Elisabeth Lecky | |
---|---|
Born | Catharina Elisabeth Boldewina Baroness van Dedem Deventer |
Died | London |
Nationality | Dutch Irish |
Spouse | William Edward Hartpole Lecky |
Elisabeth van Dedem Lecky (15 April 1842 – 23 May 1912; née Catharina Elisabeth Boldewina Baroness van Dedem) was a Dutch-Irish writer, historian and suffragist.
Background
Elisabeth Lecky van Dedem was born in Deventer, Netherlands. She was a member of the Dutch aristocratic Van Dedem family, who were prominent in the industrial development of the Netherlands. In her youth she served as lady-in-waiting to Sophie of Württemberg.[1]
In 1871, she married William Edward Hartpole Lecky, an Irish historian, essayist, political theorist, and provost of Trinity College Dublin.
Her husband's mother, Isabella Wilmot, was the niece of eighteenth-century travellers Martha and Katherine Wilmot.[2] Lecky formed a friendship with Martha's daughter, Catherine Anne Daschkaw Brooke (née Bradford), who bequeathed her several of the Wilmot sisters' manuscripts.[3] Lecky donated these manuscripts to the Royal Irish Academy in 1903, which now form the Library's Wilmot-Dashkova Collection.[4]
Career
Lecky was a prolific writer, contributing travel writing, political essays and editorial commentary to English periodicals including the British Medical Journal,[5] The Nineteenth Century,[6] and Living Age.
She actively campaigned for human rights. She joined prominent suffragists in petitioning for the extension of Parliamentary suffrage alongside Millicent Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in 1897.[7] She raised funds and agitated on behalf of the Irish Distressed Ladies Fund,[8] as well as for the higher education of women in Ireland through her support of Alexandria College, Dublin.[9]
Lecky also engaged in biographical and historical writing. In 1900, she edited and introduced the military autobiography of her ancestor, Anton Boudewijn Gijsbert van Dedem van Gelder.[10] Following her husband William Lecky's death she wrote his biography, A Memoir of the Right Honourable William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Member of the French Institute and of the British Academy (1909),[11] and edited a posthumous collection of his essays, Historical and Political Essays (1908).[12]
References
- ^ "Obituary: Mrs. Lecky". The Times. May 25, 1912.
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(help) - ^ Wilmot, Martha; Wilmot, Catherine (1934). Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Edith Helen Marchioness of Londonderry; Hyde, Harford Montgomery (eds.). The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot: Being an Account by Two Irish Ladies of Their Adventures in Russia as Guests of the Celebrated Princess Daschkaw. Macmillan and Company. p. 274.
- ^ Royal Irish Academy Library SR 12 L 26-28, August 1882.
- ^ Byrne, Angela (2009). Cunningham, Bernadette; Fitzpatrick, Siobhán (eds.). Treasures of the Royal Irish Academy Library. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. ISBN 9781904890546.
- ^ Br Med J. 1896 Feb 22; 1(1834): 502.
- ^ Houghton, Walter E., ed. (2013). The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. London: Routledge. ISBN 1135795495.
- ^ Horowitz Murray, Janet; Stark, Myra, eds. (2016). The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions: 1897. Vol. 29. London: Routledge. ISBN 1315396521.
- ^ Lecky, Elisabeth (March 18, 1901). "Exhibition Of Irish Industries". The Times.
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(help) - ^ Cadogan, Beatrix (4 May 1899). "Alexandra College, Dublin". The Times.
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(help) - ^ van Dedem van Gelder, Anton Boudewijn Gijsbert (1900). Lecky, Elisabeth (van Dedem) (ed.). Mémoires du général Baron de Dedem de Gelder, 1774-1825: un général hollandais sous le Premier Empire. Paris: E. Plon-Nourrit et cie.
- ^ Lecky, Elisabeth (van Dedem) (1909). A Memoir of the Right Honourable William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Member of the French Institute and of the British Academy. London: Longmans, Green, and co.
- ^ Lecky, William Edward Hartpole (1908). Lecky, Elisabeth (van Dedem) (ed.). Historical and Political Essays. London: Longmans, Green, and co.