Florence Balgarnie
{{Use British English|date=January 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Portrait album of who's who at the International Congress of Women - Miss Florence Balgarnie.jpg
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1856|08|19|df=y}}
| birth_place = Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1928|03|25|1856|08|19|df=y}}
| death_place = Florence, Kingdom of Italy
| burial_place = Cimitero degli Allori, Florence, Italy
| occupation = Suffragette, speaker and temperance activist
}}
Florence Balgarnie (19 August 1856 – 25 March 1928) was a British suffragette, speaker, pacifist, feminist, and temperance activist. Characterised as a "staunch Liberal", and influenced by Lydia Becker, Balgarnie began her support of women's suffrage from the age of seventeen.{{sfn|Crawford|2003|p=30-31}}
Early years
Florence Balgarnie was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, on 19 August 1856. Her parents were Rev. Robert Balgarnie (1826–1899), a well-known Nonconformist minister{{sfn|Cassell limited|1896|p=182}} of the South Cliff Congregational Church, and his wife, Martha Rooke. The family included two younger sisters,{{Cite ODNB|first=Lilian |last=Lewis Shiman|title=Balgarnie, Florence|id=55095}} including one named Mary.{{sfn|Crawford|2003|p=31}}
Career
Balgarnie was elected to the Scarborough School Board in 1883.{{sfn|Crawford|2013|p=56}} It was here that Balgarnie developed her skills as a speaker. In her native town, she aroused high anticipations for her future career. Since coming to London, in 1884,{{sfn|Crawford|2003|p=31}} or 1886, temperance was the subject which interested her the most, and the one on which she spoke with the greatest frequency. It was around 1884 that, with some fear, Balgarnie first began public speaking, but it became a source of pleasure. A great temperance meeting at Derby, England during a general election,{{which|date=January 2025}} found her addressing several thousand people in the open air. It was to her "a crowded hour of glorious life"; and it was characteristic of her power of repartee that a dissident in the crowd who set himself to interrupt Balgarnie's speech became converted to her view.{{sfn|Cassell limited|1896|p=182}} In 1885, she also addressed crowds at Brigg, Gainsborough, Grantham, Horncastle, Louth, and Sleaford in Lincolnshire.{{sfn|Crawford|2013|pp=71-72}}
By 1889, she was the secretary of the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage,{{sfn|Crawford|2013|p=56}} but this position was given up to become the organising secretary, under Lady Henry Somerset, of the British Women's Temperance Association. Balgarnie held this appointment till 1895, and thereafter made time for speaking and writing on behalf of temperance and other causes.{{sfn|Cassell limited|1896|p=182}} Balgarnie was the author of A plea for the appointment of police matrons at police stations (1894).{{sfn|Balgarnie|1894|p=1}}
In 1902, in Washington, D.C., she represented the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies at the First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.{{sfn|Crawford|2003|p=31}} She was also affiliated with the International Arbitration & Peace Association, the British Anti-lynching League, the London Anti-lynching Comittee,{{cite book |last1=Minnen |first1=Cornelis A. van |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ny6s76vHPKgC&dq=Florence+Balgarnie&pg=PT122 |title=The U.S. South and Europe: Transatlantic Relations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries |last2=Berg |first2=Manfred |date=28 November 2013 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-4318-7 }} the Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors, Personal Rights Association, Moral Reform Union, and the Men and Women's Club. She was a co-founder of the executive committee of the People's Suffrage Federation.{{sfn|Crawford|2003|pp=31-32}} She was later fired from employment at Women's Signal for her exposure of issues in the WCTU's stance on state colour lines, before being supported by Frederick Douglass' widow Helen Pitts Douglass in her stance.{{Cite book |last=Ware |first=Vron |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pm3nDwAAQBAJ&dq=Florence+Balgarnie&pg=PT280 |title=Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism, and History |date=9 June 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78478-013-5 }}
She died in Florence, Italy,{{sfn|Crawford|2003|p=32}} 25 March 1928,{{cite web |title=Florence Balgarnie |url=https://www.womeninpeace.org/b-names/2017/6/13/florence-balgarnie |website=Women In Peace |date=30 July 2017 |access-date=10 January 2019}} and was buried at Cimitero degli Allori, in Florence.
Works
- {{cite Q|Q107121322}}
References
=Citations=
{{reflist|30em}}
=Attribution=
- {{source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Balgarnie|first=Florence|title=A Plea for the Appointment of Police Matrons|url=https://archive.org/details/pleaforappointme00balg|edition=Public domain|year=1894|publisher=White Ribbon Company for the National British Women's Temperance Association}} }}
- {{source-attribution| {{cite book|author=Cassell limited|title=The Quiver|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w-9MAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA182|edition=Public domain|year=1896|publisher=Cassell limited.}} }}
=Bibliography=
- {{cite book|last=Crawford|first=Elizabeth|title=The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a2EK9P7-ZMsC&pg=PA30|date=2 September 2003|publisher=Routledge|isbn=1-135-43402-6}}
- {{cite book|last=Crawford|first=Elizabeth|title=The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8uoe5GSopaUC&pg=PA56|date=15 April 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-01062-0}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balgarnie, Florence}}
Category:People from Scarborough, North Yorkshire