Emily Hobhouse

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Emily Hobhouse, 1902
The Open Christmas Letter , published for the First Christmas of World War I, was a public Christmas message for peace "to women in Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British suffragettes , first and foremost Emily Hobhouse
Hobhouse published the case of Lizzie van Zyl , who died in 1901 at the age of seven in a British concentration camp during the Second Boer War, in her English homeland

Emily Hobhouse (born April 9, 1860 in St Ive , Cornwall , † June 8, 1926 in London ) was a British human rights activist .

Life

Hobhouse cared for her ailing father until he died in 1895. She moved to Minnesota to do some social work. She bought a ranch in Mexico with her fiancé, but the engagement was broken and she returned to the UK. In 1899, after the Second Boer War broke out in South Africa , she asked MP Leonard Courtney of the Liberal Party to become secretary of the women’s section of the South African Conciliation Committee (for example: "South African Reconciliation Committee"). In this position she traveled to the Cape Colony in December 1900 and visited numerous concentration camps that had been set up there by the British for interning Boer women and children. In her home country she reported on the inhumane conditions in the camps. While the government was disinterested, their report found some public response, including reference to the fate of seven-year-old Lizzie van Zyl . The government set up the Fawcett Commission , the resolutions of which ultimately improved conditions in the camps. Hobhouse traveled to South Africa again in October 1901, but was deported by the British authorities. In 1903 and 1905–1908 she traveled again to South Africa. She founded 27 schools where Boer women could learn spinning and weaving in order to make a living. In 1913 she was supposed to unveil the National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein , but she had to break off her trip. Later Hobhouse's poor health did not allow long journeys.

With donations from the Boers, she was able to purchase a house at her birthplace. After her death in 1926, the largest memorial service ever held for a foreigner was celebrated in South Africa. Her ashes were buried in the Women's Monument .

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse , a Liberal Party politician and sociologist , was her younger brother.

Honors

  • The South African city of Hobhouse in what is now the Free State Province was named after her during Hobhouse's lifetime. A submarine of the South African Navy also said Hobhouse, but was after the end of apartheid in Umkhonto renamed.
  • In 1976 the South African Post issued a commemorative stamp on the 50th anniversary of her death.

Works

  • The brunt of the war and where it fell. Methuen & Co., London 1902.
  • Emily Hobhouse: The Boer War Letters. Published by Rykie van Reenlisteden. Cape Town and Pretoria 1984.

literature

  • Birgit Susanne Seibold: Emily Hobhouse and the reports on the Concentration Camps during the Boer War 1899–1902. Two different perspectives. Stuttgart, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8382-0320-1 (dissertation; digitized version )
  • Jennifer Hobhouse Balme: To Love One's Enemies: The Work and Life of Emily Hobhouse. Compiled from Letters, Writings, Newspaper Clippings and Official Documents . Stuttgart, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8382-0441-3 .
  • Elsabe Brits: Rebel Englishwoman. Remarkable Life of Emily Hobhouse , London: Little, Brown Book Group 2019, ISBN 978-1-4721-4092-0 .

Web links

Commons : Emily Hobhouse  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Ruhrmund: Rich tribute to 'that bloody woman' (English) . In: The Cornishman , June 19, 2008. 
  2. ↑ Women & Children in White Concentration Camps during the Anglo-Boer War ( English ) In: White Concentration Camps: Anglo-Boer War: 1900-1902 . South African History Online. Retrieved October 25, 2010.
  3. ↑ a b c Biography on anglo-boer.co.za ( memento from April 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on October 10, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Hobhouse, Emily
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH St Ive
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1926
Place of death London