EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: JANE SMEAL WIGHAM P/78

                               Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Jane Smeal Wigham. She lived from 1801 - 1888. Jane was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Her family resided in Edinburgh but later moving to Aberdeen. They belonged to the Society of Friends, or Quakers.

Jane became the leader and secretary of the Glasgow Ladies Emancipation Society. In 1838, she published an important pamphlet with Elizabeth Pease of Darlington, titled "Address to the Women of Great Britan." This document called for British women to speak in public and to form anti-slavery organisations for women. 

In 1840, Jane became the second wife of the Quaker John  Wigham, who was a tea merchant and an active abolitionist in Glasgow. Their marriage took place in the same year as the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London.

After the Ladies Emancipation Socety ceased activity, Jane, along with some other friends, set up the Edinburgh chapter of the National Society of Women's Suffrage. She established the Edinburgh society as one of the leading British groups supporting the view of American abolitionist and social reformer William Lloyd Garrison.

Jane died in 1888.

Read Part Seventy-Nine HERE