Editing Frances Power Cobbe (section)

==Life==
[[File:Frances Power Cobbe's canine companion.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Hajjin was Frances Power Cobbe's canine companion and traveled with her and her partner, Mary Lloyd, to Wales after Cobbe and Lloyd moved there]]

Frances Power Cobbe was a member of the prominent [[Cobbe family]], descended from Archbishop [[Charles Cobbe]], [[Primate of Ireland]]. She was born in [[Newbridge Estate|Newbridge House]] in the family estate in present-day [[Donabate]], County Dublin.<ref>{{cite book|author=Cobbe, Frances Power, with [[Blanche Atkinson]] |title=Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by herself |year=1904|location=London|publisher=S. Sonnenschein & co|page=[https://archive.org/details/lifefrancespowe02atkigoog/page/n119 74]|url=https://archive.org/details/lifefrancespowe02atkigoog}}</ref>

Cobbe was educated mainly at home by governesses with a brief period at a school in [[Brighton]]. She studied English literature, French, German, Italian, music, and the Bible. She then read heavily in the family library especially in religion and theology, joined several subscription libraries, and studied Greek and geometry with a local clergyman. She organised her own study schedule and ended up very well educated.<ref>{{citation |last=Mitchell|first=Sally|title=Frances Power Cobbe|year=2004|publisher=University of Virginia Press|pages=28–46}}</ref>

In the late 1830s, Cobbe went through a crisis of faith. The humane theology of [[Theodore Parker]], an American transcendentalist and abolitionist, restored her faith (she went on later to edit Parker's collected writings).<ref>{{citation |last=Williamson|first=Lori|title=Power and Protest: Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Society|year=2004|publisher=Rivers Oram|pages=20–24}}</ref> She began to set out her ideas in what became an ''Essay on True Religion''. Her father disapproved and for a while expelled her from the home. She kept studying and writing anyway and eventually revised the Essay into her first book, the ''Essay on Intuitive Morals''.<ref>{{citation |last=Williamson|first=Lori|title=Power and Protest: Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Society|year=2004|publisher=Rivers Oram|pages=25–29}}</ref> The first volume came out anonymously in 1855.

In 1857, Cobbe's father died and left her an annuity. She took the chance to travel on her own around parts of Europe and the Near East.<ref>{{citation |last=Williamson|first=Lori|title=Power and Protest: Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Society|year=2004|publisher=Rivers Oram|pages=36–44}}</ref>  This took her to Italy where she met a community of similarly independent women: [[Isa Blagden]] with whom she went on briefly to share a house, the sculptor [[Harriet Hosmer]], the poet [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]], the painter [[Rosa Bonheur]], the scientist [[Mary Somerville]] and the Welsh sculptor who became her partner, [[Mary Lloyd (sculptor)|Mary 
Lloyd]].<ref>{{Citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oSmBAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA782 |title=Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures |editor-last=Zimmerman |editor-first=Bonnie |publisher=Routledge |year=2013|isbn=9781136787508}}</ref> In letters and published writing, Cobbe referred to Lloyd alternately as "husband," "wife," and "dear friend."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sFRWylXaAtAC&pg=PA51|title=Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England |first=Sharon |last=Marcus|access-date=13 August 2012|isbn=978-1400830855 |date=10 July 2009 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref> Cobbe also formed a lasting attachment to Italy and went there regularly. She contributed many newspaper and journal articles on Italy, some of which became her 1864 book ''Italics''.

Returning to England, Cobbe tried working at the [[Red Lodge Museum, Bristol|Red Lodge Reformatory]] and living with the owner, [[Mary Carpenter]], from 1858 to 1859. The turbulent relationship between the two resulted in Cobbe leaving the school and moving  out.<ref>Saywell, R J, ''Mary Carpenter of Bristol'', The University of Bristol, 1964 (2001 reprint).</ref>

{{Feminism sidebar |expanded=Waves}}

Cobbe now focused on writing and began to publish her first articles in Victorian periodicals. She quickly became very successful and was able to support herself by writing. She and Lloyd began to live together in London.<ref>{{citation |last=Mitchell|first=Sally|title=Frances Power Cobbe|year=2004|publisher=University of Virginia Press|pages=101–138}}</ref>
Cobbe kept up a steady stream of journal essays, many of them reissued as books. She became a leading writer for the London newspaper [[The Echo (London)]]. Cobbe became involved in feminist campaigns for the vote, for women to be admitted to study at university on the same terms as men,<ref>Lynn McDonald, ed. 1998 ''Women Theorists on Society and Politics'' Wilfrid Laurier university Press, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; {{ISBN|0-88920-290-7}}</ref> and for married women's property rights. She was on the executive council of the London [[National Society for Women's Suffrage]]. Her 1878 essay ''Wife-Torture in England'' influenced the passage of the 1878 Matrimonial Causes Act, which gave women of violent husbands the right to a legal separation.<ref>{{citation |last=Hamilton|first=Susan|title=Making History with Frances Power Cobbe|year=2001|journal=Victorian Studies|issue=43|pages=437–460|doi=10.2979/VIC.2001.43.3.437 }}</ref>

Cobbe became very concerned about the rise of animal experimentation or [[vivisection]] and founded the Victoria Street Society, which later became the [[National Anti-Vivisection Society]], in 1875. The organisation campaigned for laws to regulate vivisection. She and her allies had already prepared a draft bill, Henniker's Bill, presented to parliament in 1875.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=susan-hamilton-on-the-cruelty-to-animals-act-15-august-1876|title=Susan Hamilton on the Cruelty to Animals Act}}</ref> They proposed regular inspections of licensed premises and that experimenters must always use anaesthetics except under time-limited personal licences. In response [[Charles Darwin]], [[Thomas Henry Huxley]], [[John Burdon Sanderson]] and others drafted a rival Playfair's Bill which proposed a lighter system of regulation. Ultimately the [[Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876]] introduced a compromise system. Cobbe found it so watered-down that she gave up on regulation and began to campaign for the abolition of vivisection.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.43991/page/n285/mode/2up?q=dashed|title=Cobbe, Life of Frances Power Cobbe}}</ref> The anti-vivisection movement became split between the abolitionists and the moderates. Cobbe later came to think the Victoria Street Society had become too moderate and started the [[British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection]] in 1898.

In 1884, Cobbe and Lloyd retired to [[Hengwrt]] in Wales. Cobbe stayed there after Lloyd died in 1896. Cobbe continued to publish and campaign right until her death. However her friend, the writer [[Blanche Atkinson]], wrote, “The sorrow of Miss Lloyd's death changed the whole aspect of existence for Miss Cobbe. The joy of life had gone. It had been such a friendship as is rarely seen – perfect in love, sympathy, and mutual understand.”<ref>Shopland, Norena 'Frances and Mary' from ''Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales'' Seren Books (2017)</ref> They are buried together at Saint Illtyd Church Cemetery, [[Llanelltyd]], [[Gwynedd]], Wales.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mitchell|first=Sally|title=Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer|year=2004|publisher=University of Virginia Press|pages=139–147|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eAaC5cVOuuoC|isbn=9780813922713}}</ref>

In her will, Cobbe bequeathed all the copyrights of her works to Atkinson .<ref>{{cite news |title=The Late Miss Power Cobbe |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004550/19040825/096/0007 |access-date=1 July 2024 |work=Newspaper: Welsh Gazette County |date=25 August 1904 |location=Cardiganshire, Wales |page=7|url-access=subscription}}</ref>