Catherine Isabella Barmby
{{Short description|English socialist and feminist writer (1817–1853)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{Use British English|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Catherine Isabella Barmby
| birth_name = Catherine Isabella Watkins
| birth_date = c. 1816/17
| death_date = {{Death date|1853|12|26|df=y}}
| death_place = Topsham, Devon, England
| spouse = {{Marriage|Goodwyn Barmby|4 October 1841}}
| pseudonym = Kate
| occupation = Writer
| notable_works = The Religion of the Millennium (1836)
The Demand for the Emancipation of Women, Politically and Socially (1843)
}}
Catherine Isabella "Kate" Barmby (née Watkins; c. 1816/1817 – 26 December 1853) was an English utopian socialist and feminist writer on women's emancipation. She wrote for the New Moral World journal and covered topics including women's reduced access to employment, millennialism, and women's suffrage.
Early life
Barmby was the second daughter of Bridstock Watkins and belonged to the lower-middle class.{{Cite book |last=James |first=Gregory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1eeKDwAAQBAJ&dq=Catherine+Isabella+Barmby&pg=PA266 |title=The Poetry and the Politics: Radical Reform in Victorian England |date=2014-10-10 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-0-85772-495-3 |pages=266 |language=en}} Little is known of her early life or education, but her instruction allowed her to become a writer and lecturer.Taylor, Barbara. (23 September 2004) {{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/41339|title=Oxford DNB article: Barmby, Catherine Isabella|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/41339|accessdate=8 March 2017}}
Career
The New Moral World was the official journal of the Owenite radical socialist movement and was first issued in December 1834 after its predecessor The Pioneer ceased publication in July 1834. Watkins was first published in the New Moral World in 1835 under the pen-name "Kate."{{Cite book |last1=Frow |first1=Ruth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zUwFAQAAIAAJ&q=Catherine+Isabella+Barmby |title=Political Women, 1800-1850 |last2=Frow |first2=Edmund |date=1989 |publisher=Pluto Press |isbn=978-1-85305-053-4 |pages=118 |language=en}} She continued writing for this journal for more than five years.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9W4ucbBfkoQC&q=New+Moral+World+Kate+barmby&pg=PR8|title=Women and Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century: Specific controversies|last=Sanders|first=Mike|date=2001-01-01|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9780415205269|language=en}}
Barmby's articles for the New Moral World covered feminist demands and the general Owenite concerns of the time, such as women's reduced access to employment and the danger that private property supposes for family life, as well as explanations and reflections on Robert Owen's views.
Her 6 February 1836 journal article titled The Religion of the Millennium also reflected her Millennialist beliefs, predicting a future socialist faith founded on "moral purity and moral liberty" with "an unremitting love and practice of the truth." She also evoked the figure of an emancipated female Messiah who would end sex-based oppression.
She married the utopian socialist thinker Goodwyn Barmby in 1841 at Marylebone in London. Barmby gave birth to their son Moreville Watkyns Barmby in 1844 and their daughter Maria Julia Barmby in 1846. Barmby's husband launched the Central Communist Propaganda Society, which became the Communist Church by 1844, and is credited with the first use of the word communist in the English language.{{Cite ODNB |last=Lee |first=Matthew |title=Barmby, (John) Goodwyn (1820–1881), Chartist and socialist |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-1445 |access-date=2025-04-23 |language=en |publication-date=26 May 2005 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/1445}} Barmby herself became a central figure in the Communist Church movement.{{Cite book |last=Lucas |first=Edward |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hg28EAAAQBAJ&dq=Catherine+Isabella+Barmby&pg=PA101 |title=Early British Socialism and the 'Religion of the New Moral World' |date=2023-04-26 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-031-23940-3 |pages=101 |language=en}}
After the demise of the Communist Church, Barmby resumed her writing. With her husband, Barmby published A Declaration of Social Reform, which called for "unsexual Chartism" and demanded that the People's Charter of 1838 include the vote for women.{{Cite book |last=Crawford |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth Crawford (historian) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a2EK9P7-ZMsC&dq=Catherine+Barmby&pg=PA34 |title=The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 |date=2003-09-02 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-43402-1 |pages=34 |language=en}} Her 1843 tract The Demand for the Emancipation of Women, Politically and Socially was an early work arguing the case for women's enfranchisement. She also attempted to set up an independent feminist journal or magazine, but died before this could be realised.{{Citation |last=Gleadle |first=Kathryn |title=Agendas for Change |date=2002 |work=Radical Writing on Women, 1800–1850: An Anthology |pages=42–51 |editor-last=Gleadle |editor-first=Kathryn |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230286702_3 |access-date=2025-04-23 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230286702_3 |isbn=978-0-230-28670-2|url-access=subscription }}
Death
Barmby died of asthma and consumption on 26 December 1853 at Bridge Hill, Topsham, Devon. Her husband survived her and died in 1881.
References
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Category:19th-century women writers
Category:English women non-fiction writers
Category:English feminist writers