Black, Clementina |
| NOVELIST, SUFFRAGETTE (GREAT BRITAIN) |
|
BORN 27 -- 1854, Brighton, East Sussex - DIED 19 Dec 1922, Barnes, Middlesex: 22 Westmoreland Road GRAVE LOCATION Richmond, Greater London: East Sheen Cemetery, Sheen Road (Section A, grave 231 (near Sheen Road entrance)) |
|
Clementina Black was the daughter of the solicitor David Black and portrait painter Maria Patten. She was educated at home in Brighton and learned to spead French and German fluently. In 1875 her mother died after trying to lift her invalid father. Although she had to take care of her father and her younger brothers and sisters, she started writing fiction. In 1877 her novel "A Sussex Idyll" was published. After her father died she moved to London. In 1886 she befriended Eleanor Marx, a daughter of Karl Marx. She joined the Women's Trade Union League and became its honorary secretary. In 1888 she demanded equal pay for women at the Trade Union Congress. In 1889 she was involved in the formation of the Women's Trade Union Association and became the president of its successor, the Women's Industrial Council. In 1907 she published " Minimum Wage" (1907). In 1913 she became a vice president of the London Society for Women's Suffrage. Apart from her political work she continued to write novels until failing eyesight prevented her from writing. Her last novel "The Agitator" (1894) was based on her work for the trade unions. Her most successful novel was "The Linleys of Bath" (1911). She never married and died in 1922 in her house in Barnes. Related persons • was a friend of Marx, Eleanor |
| Images |
 The grave of Clementina Black at East Sheen Cemetery, London. Picture by Androom (27 Jun 2009) |
