Day 91- Josephine Butler (1828-1906) was a champion of women’s rights and lived in a house overlooking Wimbledon Common. She was born into a wealthy but radical family and married the educationalist George Butler in 1852. In 1863 her young daughter died in an accident and this was the trigger for her involvement in social reform. To try to assuage her grief she plunged herself into charitable work and campaigned for women’s rights. She was a leading figure in the movement to extend women’s educational opportunities but became a controversial figure in Victorian Britain because of her advocation that prostitutes had rights. Her focus became the Contagious Diseases Act , a blatantly discriminatory piece of legislation that targeted and scapegoated women who were often forced into prostitution and and an existence rife with disease. She highlighted the plight of teenage girls and in 1885 a parliamentary act raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen.

- Took car to have it’s MOT, belatedly, and service
- cycled though Home Park and saw the swans who still have six cygnets, the swans with no cygnets and a young heron. The scent from the ,one flowers on the lime trees was lovely.
-had our first Gusto delivery and a nice fish curry evening meal