Legitimation League

The Legitimation League was an English advocacy organisation in the 1890s, which campaigned for the legitimation of illegitimate children and free love.

February 1898 edition of the Legitimation League's journal The Adult

History

The association was founded in Leeds, in 1893, by a group of individualist anarchists, who were close to Benjamin Tucker and his magazine Liberty. Founding members included John Badcock, Joseph Hiam Levy, Greevz Fisher,[1] Wordsworth Donisthorpe, as well as Gladys and Oswald Dawson.[2] Prominent advocates for the organisation included the poet and socialist Edward Carpenter and the sexologist and social reformer Havelock Ellis.[3]

In 1897, the League moved its headquarters to London, where its meetings commanded larger audiences.[4] In the same year, the anarchist and women's rights activist Lillian Harman became President of the League.[5] Originally, the League's main focus was the legitimacy and equality of children from non-church or state-sanctioned connections, now sexual liberation became the main goal. At this time Donisthorpe (President since 1893) and Fisher (Vice President) left the association.[2]

The League's journal, The Adult was published from 1897 to 1899, with the subtitles "A Journal for the Advancement of Freedom in Sexual Relationships" and "A Crusade Against Sex-Enslavement".[3] Lillian Harman wrote multiple articles for the journal.[5] It was originally edited by League's secretary George Bedborough, whose wife Louie was treasurer,[6] before his arrest in 1898 for selling a copy of Havelock Ellis' Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 2.[7] The League as a suspected anarchist organisation, had been under surveillance by Scotland Yard who used Bedborough's arrest as an opportunity to successfully destroy the League.[4] After pleading guilty to the charge of obscenity, Bedborough agreed to no longer be associated with the League.[8] Henry Seymour replaced Bedborough as editor until its last issue in March 1899.[8]

Publications
  • The Rights of Natural Children: Verbatim Report of the Inaugural Proceedings of the Legitimation League. London, Leeds: WM. Reeves, Geo. Cornwell. 1893.
  • Donisthorpe, Wordsworth (1894). Love and Law: An Essay on Marriage. London: WM. Reeves.
  • Dawson, Oswald, ed. (1895). The Bar Sinister and Licit Love: The First Biennial Proceedings of the Legitimation League. London, Leeds: WM. Reeves, Geo. Cornwell.
  • Dawson, Oswald (1897). Personal Rights and Sexual Wrongs. London, Leeds: WM. Reeves, Geo. Cornwell.
  • Dawson, Oswald (1897). The Legitimation League Meeting Announcement. London: Legitimation League.
  • Dawson, Oswald (1898). The Outcome of Legitimation: A Lecture Delivered at the Holborn Restaurant, London, 6th December, 1897, under the Auspices of the Legitimation League, Mrs. Louie Bedborough in the Chair. London: Legitimation League.

References
  1. Slaughter, Kevin I. (2021-04-25). "A biographical sketch of Greeves Fisher, individualist anarchist, mechanical and linguistic innovator, cycling and health enthusiast". Union Of Egoists. Retrieved 2022-04-28.
  2. Watner, Carl (Winter 1982). "The English Individualists as They Appear in Liberty" (PDF). The Journal of Libertarian Studies. 6 (1): 76.
  3. Jeffreys, Sheila (1997). The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880-1930. North Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-875559-63-3.
  4. Hunt, Karen (2002). Equivocal Feminists: The Social Democratic Federation and the Woman Question 1884-1911. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-521-89090-8.
  5. Passet, Joanne Ellen (2003). Sex Radicals and the Quest for Women's Equality. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-252-02804-5.
  6. Dawson, Oswald (1897). Personal Rights and Sexual Wrongs. London, Leeds: WM. Reeves. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  7. Goldman, Emma (2008). Falk, Candace (ed.). Emma Goldman, Vol. 2: A Documentary History of the American Years, Volume 2: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-252-07543-8.
  8. Brake, Laurel; Demoor, Marysa, eds. (2009). Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. Gent: Academia Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-90-382-1340-8.
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