Abstract
The London West End in more than one way served as a hub for the professionalization of women’s work and the burgeoning women’s movement in general. In March 1860, the young women’s rights activist, lecturer and publisher Emily Faithfull set up a women-staffed printing firm there as part of the broader efforts of the recently founded Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW). In a paper read at the Glasgow meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS) in August and published shortly afterwards in the English Woman’s Journal, she announced that the Victoria Press, as the establishment was styled in honour of the Queen, employed as compositors sixteen girls and women of varying ages and levels of experience. They had all ‘devoted themselves to their new occupation with great industry and perseverance’ and ‘accomplished an amount of work which I did not expect untrained hands could perform in the time’,1 she enthused, ensuring her audience that the girls received excellent treatment in terms of wages, working conditions and hours of work. Large wood engravings in the Illustrated London News and the Lady’s Newspaper showed the spacious printing office at 9 Great Coram Street, described by Matilda Hays as ‘two light airy rooms thrown into one with triple rows of compositors’ cases’ and ‘young women and girls sitting or standing before them, busy working’.2
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Notes
Emily Faithfull, ‘Victoria Press’, English Woman’s Journal 6.32 (1860), 124.
Emily Faithfull, ‘Preface’, in The Victoria Regia. A Volume of Original Contributions in Poetry and Prose, ed. Adelaide A. Procter (London: Emily Faithfull and Co., 1861), vii.
Emily Faithfull, ‘Women Compositors’, English Woman’s Journal 8.43 (1861), 38.
Frances Robertson, Print Culture. From Steam Press to Ebook ( London: Routledge, 2013 ), 55–56.
Emily Faithfull, Three Visits to America ( Edinburg: Douglas, 1884 ), 24–25.
W. H. W., ‘Provincial Notes’, Printers’ Journal (5 August 1867 ), 352.
William E. Fredeman, ‘Emily Faithfull and the Victoria Press: An Experiment in Sociological Bibliography’, Library 5th Series 29 (1974), 140.
Michelle Tusan, Women Making News: Gender and Journalism in Modern Britain ( Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005 ), 43
Michelle Tusan, ‘Reforming Work: Gender, Class, and the Printing Trade in Victorian Britain’, Journal of Women’s History 16.1 (2004), 106.
Jennifer Phegley, Educating the Proper Woman Reader: Victorian Family Literary Magazines and the Cultural Health of the Nation ( Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004 ), 194
Maria Frawley, ‘The Editor as Advocate: Emily Faithfull and The Victoria Magazine’, Victorian Periodicals Review 31.1 (1998), 90.
Pauline A. Nestor, ‘A New Departure in Women’s Publishing: “The English Woman’s Journal” and “The Victoria Magazine”’, Victorian Periodicals Review 15. 3 (1982), 102.
Hilary Fraser, Stephanie Green and Judith Johnston, Gender and the Victorian Periodical ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 ), 161.
Emily Davies, Emily Davies: Collected Letters, 1861–1875, ed. Ann B. Murphy and Deirdre Raftery ( Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2004 ), 100.
William Wilfred Head, ‘Employment of Women in Printing Offices’, Printers’ Journal (19 August 1867 ), 382.
Emily Faithfull, ‘To the Editor of the Times’, Times (12 October 1867), 7.
William Wilfred Head, ‘To the Editor of the Times’, Times (14 October 1867), 9.
William Wilfred Head, ‘To the Editor of the Times’, Times (16 October 1867), 5.
Jane Flindell [as Matilda Alexander], ‘The Victoria Press. To the Editor’, Standard (2 November 1867), 2.
Emily Faithfull, ‘The Victoria Press. To the Editor’, Standard (5 November 1867), 3.
Emily Faithfull, ‘The Victoria Press. To the Editor’, Standard (13 November 1867), 6.
William Wilfred Head, ‘The Victoria Press. To the Editor’, Standard (14 November 1867), 6.
Eliza Hughesdon, Sarah Oliver, Agnes Harrop, Rebecca Isaacs, Lucy Mothersole, Emma Reid, Sarah Davies, Blanche Restieaux, Marion Martin, Mary Nunn, Isabella Inwards and Julia Griffin, ‘To the Editor’, Standard (14 November 1867 ), 6.
Emily Faithfull, ‘The Victoria Press. To the Editor’, Standard (15 November 1867), 5.
Barbara Onslow, Women of the Press in Nineteenth-Century Britain ( Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000 ), 149–150.
See George Jacob Holyoake, The Last Days of Mrs. Emma Martin ( London: Watson, 1851 ), 2–3.
Bessie R. Parkes, ‘The Balance of Public Opinion in Regard to Woman’s Work’, English Woman’s Journal 9. 53 (1862), 342
Emily Faithfull [as E. W. F.], ‘Open Council’, English Woman’s Journal 10. 55 (1862), 70.
Jessie Boucherett, ‘How to Provide for Superfluous Women’, Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture. A Series of Essays, ed. Josephine E. Butler ( London: Macmillan, 1869 ), 31.
Emily Faithfull, ‘Woman’s Work: With Special Reference to Industrial Employment’, Journal of the Society of Arts (31 March 1871), 382.
Jane Holyoake, ‘To the Editor of the Times’, Times (10 August 1869), 8.
Rebecca Isaacs, Lucy Maria Mothersole and Annie Ellen Davis, ‘Literary Intelligence’, Publishers’ Circular (1 September 1869 ), 529–530.
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© 2015 Marianne Van Remoortel
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Van Remoortel, M. (2015). Back-Room Workers Stepping Forward: Emily Faithfull and the Compositors of the Victoria Press. In: Women, Work and the Victorian Periodical. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137435996_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137435996_7
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