Emma Cons

Emma Cons (1838 – 24 July 1912) was a British social reformer, educationalist and theatre manager.

Early life

She trained as an artist and joined the Ladies’ Co-operative Art Guild, London, run by Caroline Hill, mother of the future housing reformer and founder of the National Trust, Octavia Hill. As Cons’s father Frederick Cons was suffering from ill health, she needed to work and the Guild helped her get work as an illuminator as well as restoring manuscripts for John Ruskin. Cons also tried working as a watch engraver, and as a stained glass designer but experienced harassment from men who resented a woman working amongst them.

From 1864, Cons worked for Octavia Hill as a rent collector, starting work at Barrett’s Court, Oxford Street. Later Cons moved to South London, and in 1879 she established the "South London Dwellings Company" around Surrey Lodge, Lambeth, near to Waterloo Station.

Political career

In 1889 Cons became the first ever woman alderman on the London County Council (LCC), working alongside the first elected women members Jane Cobden (elected for Bow and Bromley) and Lady Sandhurst (elected for Brixton). The elections were challenged by anti suffragists, but as Cons had not been elected, she had been asked by the LCC Progressives to become an alderman, it was difficult to challenge her position.

When she voted, however, she became liable for a fine: De Souza v. Cobden, which reached the Court of Appeal in 1891, ruled Cobden and Cons could legally be members of the council but they could not vote. After this Cons’s commitment to the cause of women’s suffrage was energetic and she served on the Committee for the Return of Women as Councillors, became Vice-President of The Women’s Local Government Society, and Vice President of the Women's Liberal Federation.

Educationalist

Cons also helped found Swanley Horticultural College, in 1892, the first such college for women, and she founded Morley College for working men and women, aided by money donated by Bristol based millionaire and philanthropist, Samuel Morley.

Cons also founded the Working Girls Home, a hostel in Drury Lane, London, and she established various crèches and clinics for women including what was described as 'the Home for Feeble-Minded girls’ at Bodmin.

Cultural heritage

In 1880, Emma Cons, re-opened what is now the Old Vic Theatre in Lambeth, south London, as the "Royal Victoria Coffee and Music Hall". It was 'a cheap and decent place of amusement on strict temperance lines'. Through this initiative, she brought the plays of William Shakespeare and also opera to working class people.

In 1896, Cons devoted her autumn holiday in Cyprus to trying to help refugee Armenians, who had fled from persecution in Turkey. In 1908, Cons became the first woman to speak at the Institute of Directors, on behalf of the "South London Dwellings Company".

Personal life

Emma Cons died on 24 July, 1912, of a cerebral haemorrhage, at Chippen’s Bank, Hever, Kent, home of her friend, Ethel Everest.

Her niece, Lilian Baylis (1874–1937), assisted in running the Old Vic.

Plaques to Emma Cons

Plaques honouring Emma Cons are displayed outside the Old Vic on the corner with Waterloo Road and in the basement area bar.

External links

* [http://www.oldvictheatre.com/history.php Old Vic history]
* [http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/lambeth/lambeth-north/morton-place-1965.htm Morton Place, Lambeth] (home)

References

* Cicely Hamilton and Lilian Baylis, "The Old Vic", London, Cape, 1926.

* Elizabeth Schafer, "Lilian Baylis: A Biography", Hatfield, University of Hertfordshire Press, 2006. ISBN 1902806638

* [http://web.ukonline.co.uk/m.gratton/Ladies%201st%20-%20E.htm Ladies First information]