C. C. Stopes

Charlotte Brown Carmichael Stopes (née Carmichael; 5 February 1840 – 6 February 1929), also known as C. C. Stopes, was a British scholar, author, and campaigner for women's rights. She also published several books relating to the life and work of William Shakespeare. Her most successful publication was British Freewomen: Their Historical Privilege (published 1894), a book which influenced and inspired the early twentieth century British women's suffrage movement. She married Henry Stopes, a palaeontologist, brewer and engineer. They produced two daughters, the eldest of whom was Marie Stopes, known for her advocacy of birth control.

Early life

Charlotte Stopes was born in Edinburgh on 5 February 1840 to Christine Brown Graham Carmichael and James Ferrier Carmichael, a landscape painter, who died of tuberculosis when Stopes was fourteen. She had the desire to become a writer, devising stories for her brothers and sisters when she was a child and at twenty-one publishing a collection, Alice Errol and Other Tales. On completing the only schooling a young woman could then receive, she took posts as a governess, one of the few careers available to her, throughout the 1860s and early 1870s.

University education

In 1865 Sarah Mair founded the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, which published a regular writing journal, The Attempt. Charlotte Carmichael had become a member by 1866 and published sundry pieces in The Attempt. In a meeting of the society in 1867 Mary Crudelius presented her initiative of creating classes for women at a university level under the auspices of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association. Charlotte Carmichael was present at the meeting. She pledged her willingness to attend such classes and guaranteed another twelve interested persons. The first classes began in 1868, taught by Professor David Masson, professor of English literature at Edinburgh University, "at a time when the University was not open to women and courses were given to them privately by the male Professors". Although women were not permitted to take a degree, she achieved the highest certificate then available to a female student, in subjects as diverse as literature, philosophy and science, achieving first class honours. In fact, she "was the first woman in Scotland to gain a Certificate of Arts". She used her education for the advancement of women and pursued scholarly interests in English Renaissance, particularly Shakespearean, literary history.