Ellice Hopkins
Biography and Correspondence
Jane Ellice Hopkins (Oct. 30, 1836-Aug. 21, 1904) was born in Cambridge and raised in an intellectual environment by her father, a geologist and mathematician and her mother, a musician. She was raised in a firm Church of England household and was quite religious. In the 1850’s she worked as an evangelist and held Bible classes, but on the death of her father in 1866, she became involved in rescue work.
In her rescue work, Hopkins became involved with the Albion Hill Home for prostitutes and also met the medical doctor James Hinton, whose radical views on sexuality and his concern for women within the society influenced her. (She even edited a book on the Life and Letters of James Hinton.) In the process she was disturbed by Victorian sexual double standards, where women were blamed for “seducing” men and men were seen as incapable of self-restraint. She became a social reformer involved in the Purity Movement. In her early work she established the Soldier’s Institute at Portsmouth in 1874, and worked to recruit women to the Ladies Association for the Care of Friendless Girls in 1876. She became an vital part of the promoting and passing of the Industrial Schools Amendment Act of 1880 to relocate children in brothels to approved reform schools, and the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the age of sexual consent for girls from 13 to 16 years of age. She also wrote A plea for the wider action of the Church of England in the prevention of the degradation of women (1879) to confront this double standard, arguing the men needed to take responsibility for their own chastity.
In this work, she co-founded the White Cross Army in 1883 with Bishop Joseph Lightfoot of Durham, an organization of men committed to sexual purity before marriage and faithfulness in marriage. With this platform she eloquently addressed mass meetings of men about personal chastity and the sanctity of marriage and the Christian family. Her final book, The Story of Life (1902), was an innovative attempt to introduce early sex education. She also wrote poetry English Idylls (1865) and Autumn Swallows (1883), a novel, Rose Turquand (1876) and works to elevate the roles of women and emphasize purity: An Englishwoman’s Work among Workingmen (1875), Christ the Consoler, A Book of Comfort for the Sick (1879), True Manliness (1884), and The Power of Womanhood (1899). She also wrote Work in Brighton, or Women’s Mission to Women (1878) with Florence Nightingale.
2 Belle Vue Gardens, Brighton
April
Dear Mrs. Pearsall Smith,
Alas, some one has told you false. Mrs. Conklin is the Lecturer and Organizer of the W.C.T.U. generally, was unanimously reelected as such last autumn and yet they pursue her with their awful accusations and actually got her not placed on the list of speakers at the Purity Congress that year at Chicago. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark where these things are possible. And I have just heard from Dutton that she has made no effort to pay the £12 remaining of her debt to him because last August when she paid a small sum the whole money owing to him dashing pieces into his hands nearly a year and a half ago. The book having been bought at meetings and the ready money has gone into her own pocket instead of being forwarded to him!!
O, my dear friend it has given me such bitter pain. I have always as a matter of course maintained direct integrity in money matters and now to find myself involved in debt to my delightful publishers to whom I am indebted already for such wonderful kindness is a most bitter heartache.
Of course I must pay the debt as I have the whole of our empire to work this […] rather his own use.
For the present, I agree with you the best thing to do is to keep silence and wait. But in the end I shall have to speak in order to disassociate myself from her, as she uses my name everywhere and speaks of herself as my agent. And yet I have such intense reluctance to injure her W. X. [White Cross?] work though there again she is said to have pocketed fees given her for the month.
They never looked at her accounts or compared these with the accounts of the Y.M.C.A. who employed her. No attempt has been made to repay the accusation against her. The American work has been in […] heartache and acts of others. At present keep silence. I will write when I feel I must speak out.
Most affectionately yours,
Ellice Hopkins
