Ladies Of Langham Place Group-a Feminist Group Of Britain In Second Half Of19th Century

In the second half of19th century, the great industrial era and "liberal era" of Britain had gone to itsheyday. British society, economy, politics, ideology and social structure had been undergoing overallrestructuring and reform. Capitalist economy, democratic constitutional government, the social classstructure interwined and created multiple effect: diverse new classes, social groups borned continuouslyand formed their social power and influence which featured Britain "industrial empire","liberalism empire","middle class empire". And the female group was always ignored and despised by British society. And itbecame the obviously serious lagging part in the climax of British modernization course.Industrial revolution had liberated many women from heavy domestic work. However, economic andpolitical achievements accompanied with the constantly development of capitalist economy did not benefitwomen. Women remained under the domination and oppression of the patriarchal society. On the otherhand, the spirit and atmosphere of political tolerance constructed by political pluralism in "liberal times"extended to whole British society which provided soil for the rise and development of British feministthoughts and movements.In the first half of the19th century, the problem of women’s rights had not really gone into the publiceye. The social influence of feminist trend is very small. However, after the middle of19th century, alongwith the more and more severe social code and increasingly stringent control against women, the problemsof women emerged collectively. The gradually rise of feminist thoughts greatly promoted the formation offeminist power and movement. Many feminists and women activists sprung up and feminist powerpresented a joint trend. At this point, there were real women’s movements in Britain in its true sense. Theleading role of the movement is Ladies of Langham Place Group. Its name came from the meeting place ofthe early sponsors such as Barbara Leigh Smith.1850s, Barbara Leigh Smith, Emily Davis, Bessie Rayner Parkes and other companies initiated "Langham " rally, aiming at discussing how to unite necessary female power to achieve their reform goals. Itinitial focused on issues about women’s education, employment and marriage law, and contributed to theestablishment of many women organizations, such as marriage property committee, women employmentpromotion association, the national association of anti infectious diseases, etc. Since then, the scope and scale of its activity expanded unceasingly.Some domestic scholars defined Ladies of Langham Place as a simple women "association". In fact,its attribute has been far beyond the scope of "association". It evolved gradually from early feminist rallies,successively showed the characteristics of political pressure group and community. It almost hadrelationship with all the feminists and the feminist movements. Though, the feminist movement participantshad different motives, opinions which often caused many sharp antagonisms. In addition, most of thewomen’s movements and organizations of the period were associated with Ladies of Langham Place Group.They were derived from it or supported by it. As in the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts,which showed rare highly unity of feminist power, its members emerged a strong appeal and cohesion.Its members mainly come from middle-class. The identity give them rich material life, good culturalcultivation and a large amount of leisure time and also made them reveal racial and class prejudice byinstinct. Ladies of Langham Place Group paid more attention to the common interests of the people whichcame from circumstances similar to their own which showed the complexity of Langham. Finally, Itsdevelopment shows that the British feminist forces began to become mature and systematical.