Edith Simcox

Abstract is: Edith Jemima Simcox (21 August 1844 – 15 September 1901) was a British writer, trade union activist, a proto-feminist suffragist. She began her writing career as a reviewer, publishing criticism under the pseudonym "H. Lawrenny," including an important review of the Memoir of Jane Austen (1870). In 1875 she and Emma Paterson became the first women to attend the Trades Union Congress as delegates. In 1872, when she was preparing a book review of Middlemarch, Edith Simcox met and fell in love with the female novelist known by her pseudonym, George Eliot. Although this "love-passion" was not reciprocated, Simcox was determined "to love rather than be loved" and continued to be a devoted friend to Eliot. For Simcox's complete journal, see Fulmer and Barfield, eds., Autobiography of a Shirtmaker. Simcox lived at 60 Dean Street, London. From 1879-1882 she was a member of the London School Board representing Westminster.