Helena Shearer
Helena Paulina Shearer | |
---|---|
Born | Helena Paulina Downing c. 1842 Dublin, Ireland |
Died | 8 March 1885 Stoke Newington, England | (aged 42–43)
Nationality | Irish |
Spouse |
John Ronald Shearer (m. 1881) |
Helena Paulina Shearer (née Downing; c. 1842 – 8 March 1885) was an Irish socialist and suffragist in England.
Life
Shearer was born in Dublin around 1842, the daughter of Washington Downing, a journalist, and Mary Frances Downing.[1][2] She and her family moved to London by 1848.[3] Her family was Catholic.[4]
In 1875 she was on the executive committee of
In 1879, she stood for election to the Tower Hamlets School Board. She proposed free non-religious education and more democratic control. Despite some good supporters she finished last and her critics blamed her over-confidence.[3]
In 1881, she was speaking on a suffrage platform in Leicester.[5] The same year on 24 November she married an accountant, John Shearer, in Bradford, Yorkshire,[6] and she may well have served on the executive committee of the Married Women's Property Committee.[3] She stood to be a Poor Law Guardian in Islington and she was elected which made her one of first five or six women to be elected to this role. This was a job traditionally done by men of property[7] but she was later disqualified. She had identified that she needed to be a rate-payer and to enable this she had her home placed in her name. However the authorities refused her payment for rates which meant that she failed to qualify.[3]
Shearer died in Stoke Newington in 1885 of tuberculosis.[3]
References
- ^ 1851 England Census
- ^ 1871 England Census
- ^ a b c d e f Jane Martin, ‘Shearer , Helena Paulina (1839x47–1885)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 26 Nov 2017
- ^ Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655-1915
- ISBN 978-1-136-01062-0.
- ^ England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915
- ISBN 978-1-135-96493-1.