Elisabeth van Dedem Lecky

Elisabeth van Dedem Lecky (15 April 1842 – 23 May 1912; née Catharina Elisabeth Boldewina Baroness van Dedem) was a Dutch-Irish writer, historian and suffragist.

Elisabeth Lecky
BornCatharina Elisabeth Boldewina Baroness van Dedem
(1842-04-15)April 15, 1842
Deventer
DiedMay 23, 1912(1912-05-23) (aged 70)
London
NationalityDutch Irish
SpouseWilliam Edward Hartpole Lecky

Background

Elisabeth Lecky van Dedem was born in Deventer, Netherlands. She was a member of the Dutch aristocratic Van Dedem family, who were prominent in the industrial development of the Netherlands. Her parents were lieutenant general Willem Karel Jan baron van Dedem and Anna Philippina Catharina baroness Sloet van Hagensdorp. Her brother was the lawyer and politician Willem Karel van Dedem. In her youth she served as lady-in-waiting to Sophie of Württemberg.[1]

In 1871, she married William Edward Hartpole Lecky, an Irish historian, essayist, political theorist, and provost of Trinity College Dublin. She endowed the Lecky Chair of History at Trinity College, Dublin in her husband's honour.

Her husband's mother, Isabella Wilmot, was the niece of early nineteenth-century travellers Martha and Katherine Wilmot.[2] Lecky formed a friendship with Martha's daughter, Catherine Anne Daschkaw Brooke (née Bradford, and named after the sisters' host Princess Dashkova), who bequeathed her several of the Wilmot sisters' manuscripts.[3] Lecky donated these manuscripts to the Royal Irish Academy in 1903, which now form the Library's Wilmot-Dashkova Collection.[4]

Career

Lecky was a prolific writer, contributing travel writing, political essays and editorial commentary to English periodicals including the British Medical Journal,[5] The Nineteenth Century,[6] and Living Age.

She actively campaigned for human rights. She joined prominent suffragists in petitioning for the extension of Parliamentary suffrage alongside Millicent Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in 1897.[7] She raised funds and agitated on behalf of the Irish Distressed Ladies Fund,[8] as well as for the higher education of women in Ireland through her support of Alexandra College, Dublin.[9]

Lecky also engaged in biographical and historical writing. In 1900, she edited and introduced the military autobiography of her ancestor, Anton Boudewijn Gijsbert van Dedem van Gelder.[10] Following her husband William Lecky's death she wrote his biography, A Memoir of the Right Honourable William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Member of the French Institute and of the British Academy (1909),[11] and edited a posthumous collection of his essays, Historical and Political Essays (1908).[12]

References
  1. "Obituary: Mrs. Lecky". The Times. May 25, 1912.
  2. Wilmot, Martha; Wilmot, Catherine (1934). Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Edith Helen Marchioness of Londonderry; Hyde, Harford Montgomery (eds.). The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot: Being an Account by Two Irish Ladies of Their Adventures in Russia as Guests of the Celebrated Princess Daschkaw. Macmillan and Company. p. 274.
  3. Royal Irish Academy Library SR 12 L 26-28, August 1882.
  4. Byrne, Angela (2009). Cunningham, Bernadette; Fitzpatrick, Siobhán (eds.). Treasures of the Royal Irish Academy Library. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. ISBN 9781904890546.
  5. Br Med J. 1896 Feb 22; 1(1834): 502.
  6. Houghton, Walter E., ed. (2013). The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1135795498.
  7. Horowitz Murray, Janet; Stark, Myra, eds. (2016). The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions: 1897. Vol. 29. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1315396521.
  8. Lecky, Elisabeth (March 18, 1901). "Exhibition Of Irish Industries". The Times.
  9. Cadogan, Beatrix (4 May 1899). "Alexandra College, Dublin". The Times.
  10. van Dedem van Gelder, Anton Boudewijn Gijsbert (1900). Lecky, Elisabeth (van Dedem) (ed.). Mémoires du général Baron de Dedem de Gelder, 1774-1825: un général hollandais sous le Premier Empire. Paris: E. Plon-Nourrit et cie.
  11. Lecky, Elisabeth (van Dedem) (1909). A Memoir of the Right Honourable William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Member of the French Institute and of the British Academy. London: Longmans, Green, and co.
  12. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole (1908). Lecky, Elisabeth (van Dedem) (ed.). Historical and Political Essays. London: Longmans, Green, and co.
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