Background
Eliza Wigham was born on 23 February 1820 in Edinburgh to John Tertius Wigham, a cotton and shawl manufacturer, and Jane (née Richardson).
abolitionist president treasurer
Eliza Wigham was born on 23 February 1820 in Edinburgh to John Tertius Wigham, a cotton and shawl manufacturer, and Jane (née Richardson).
She was involved in several major campaigns to improve women"s rights in 19th-century Britain, and has been noted as one of the leading citizens of Edinburgh. The family grew to include six children, residing at 5 South Gray Street in Edinburgh. The Wighams were a part of a network of leading Quaker anti-slavery families of the period operating in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and Dublin.
In 1840 her father remarried to Jane Smeal.
Wigham was the treasurer of the Edinburgh Ladies" Emancipation Society. Unlike other suffragist organisations which splintered, the Edinburgh organisation was still running in 1870.
Also in attendance at this event were British activists like Lucy Townsend and Mary Anne Rawson and also American activists including Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The female delegates were obliged to sit separately.
In 1863 Wigham served on the committee of Clementia Taylor"s Ladies" London Emancipation Society with Mary Estlin.
In the same year, she wrote The Anti-Slavery Cause in America and its Martyrs, a short book intended to influence the British government. At the time it was feared that Britain might side with the Confederates in the American Civil War and thus would be supporting slavery. Wigham was also involved with the campaign to repeal acts of Parliament which aimed to contain prostitution.
The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was formed in response to these acts, and was successful in its aims. as a carer
She cared for Jane until the latter died in November 1888 following months of ill health.
After her brother"s death in 1897, Eliza sold the property to enable her to move to Dublin, where she could in turn be cared for by her relatives. Wigham died in Foxrock near Dublin in 1899.
A memorial book for Wigham was published in 1901. In 2015, four of the women associated with suffragist and abolitionist campaigns in Edinburgh were the subject of a project by local historians.
The group aims to gain recognition for Eliza Wigham, Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Priscilla Bright McLaren, and Jane Smeal – the city"s "forgotten heroines".