Priscilla Wakefield - High Road, Tottenham Hale, London, UK
N 51° 35.258 W 000° 04.220
30U E 702945 N 5719242
This plaque, to Priscilla Wakefield, is on the west facing wall of the High Cross United Reformed Church on the east side of the High Road in Tottenham Hale.
Waymark Code: WMJ0GQ
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/05/2013
Views: 1
The plaque is cast metal that has been painted green with white lettering.
Sadly, the paintwork is in poor condition and is hard to read but it says:
Historic Buildings of the
Priscilla
Wakefield
1751 - 1832
Quaker author and
founder of the Penny
Savings Bank lived
near here
London Borough of Haringey
The
Haringey Council website tells us:
Priscilla Wakefield (born Priscilla Bell) (1751-1832)
Quaker author who wrote a number of travel and science books for children
and was actively involved in the abolition of slavery and prison reform. She
was a founder of the Lying-in Charity for Women and the Penny Savings Bank.
She lived in Ship Inn Yard near High Cross United Reform Church, 310 High
Road, Tottenham, N15. (Plaque unveiled on 2nd May 2008)
Wikipedia tells
us about Priscilla Wakefield:
Priscilla Wakefield, nee Priscilla Bell (1751–1832)
was an English Quaker, educational and feminist economics writer, and
philanthropist.
Priscilla Bell was born into a family in Tottenham, then a village north of
London. Her father was Daniel Bell of Stamford Hill, Middlesex, his wife
Catharine was the granddaughter of the Quaker theologian Robert Barclay. She
married Edward Wakefield (1750–1826), a London merchant, and had three
children. Writing to support her family financially, she wrote seventeen
books in two decades. She was one of many female English writers at the end
of the eighteenth century who began to demand a wider life for women.
Charities which she founded included a maternity hospital, a Female Benefit
Club, and a Penny Bank for children, which developed into England's first
savings bank.
Mrs. Wakefield died at the house of her daughter, Mrs. Head, on Albion Hill,
Ipswich, on 12 September 1832, and was buried on 20 December in the Friends'
burial-ground at the New Meeting House, Ipswich. A portrait of Mrs.
Wakefield and her sister, Mrs. Gurney, painted by Thomas Gainsborough, was
exhibited at South Kensington in 1868.
A portrait in lithograph is in the London Friends' Institute. She was a
member of the Society of Friends, and conformed to their religious practice,
but did not observe their restrictions in regard either to dress or to
abstinence from amusements. Mrs. Elizabeth Fry was her niece. She had two
sons and a daughter. Two sons were Edward Wakefield (1774-1854) and Daniel
Wakefield. The daughter, Isabella (d. 17 Oct. 1841), married Jeremiah Head
of Ipswich. Edward Gibbon Wakefield was her grandson.
Wakefield wrote books on a range of subjects, including natural science,
feminism, and children's literature consisting of moral tales.
Wakefield published a book on feminism in 1778, Reflection on the Present
Condition of the Female Sex; with Suggestions for its Improvement, which was
published by the radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Wakefield examined
women's prospects for employment in the modern world in light of Adam
Smith's writings, and supported broader education for women.
Mrs. Wakefield was widely known as a writer of children's literature. Her
early publication, Juvenile Anecdotes, founded on Facts, was successful, and
she went on to publish other books of the same nature, and of a more
advanced character, dealing with science and travel.
Wakefield had considerable knowledge of botany and natural history, and in
1796 she published An Introduction to Botany, in a Series of Familiar
Letters, London, 12mo, which was translated into French in 1801, and reached
an eleventh edition in 1841. It was followed by An Introduction to the
Natural History and Classification of Insects, in a Series of Letters,
London, 1816, 12mo.
-
Mental Improvement: Or, the Beauties and Wonders
of Nature and Art, 1794
-
Juvenile Anecdotes, Founded on Facts, 1795-8 Two
well received volumes that went through to an eighth edition in 1825.
-
Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female
Sex, With Suggestions for Its Improvement, 1798
-
The Juvenile Travellers: Containing the Remarks of
A Family During a Tour Through the Principal States and Kingdoms of
Europe, 1801. Her most popular work, a book of imaginative fiction that
reached the nineteenth edition in 1850.
-
Domestic Recreation: Or, Dialogues Illustrative of
Natural and Scientific Subjects, 1805
-
An Introduction to Botany, in a Series of Familiar
Letters, London, 12mo
-
An Introduction to the Natural History and
Classification of Insects, in a Series of Letters, London, 1816, 12mo.
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