Turner in Tottenham
  • About
    • Background
    • John Ruskin & Windus Collection >
      • Two Turner Collectors; Friends of Ruskin
    • Visitors to the Collection
    • Auctions >
      • Christie's June 1842
      • Christie's June 1853
      • Christie's March 1859
      • Christie's July 1862
      • 1868 Sale after Windus death
    • Images and credits
    • Thanks
  • JMW Turner
    • The Windus Turner Collection >
      • Picturesque views >
        • England and Wales >
          • Charles Heath
          • Carisbrooke Castle
          • Richmond from the moors
          • Straits of Dover
        • Southern Coast >
          • Brighthelmston, Sussex
      • The Epicurean
      • Finden's Lord Byron
      • The Keepsake
      • Walter Scott >
        • Abbotsford
      • Later large watercolours
      • Marine Views (unpublished series)
    • Turner collection recreated >
      • Frames
      • Still framed?
      • The Windus Commissions
    • Turner oil paintings in the Collection >
      • Calais sands
      • The Tondos
      • Going to the ball
      • Later paintings
    • Letters to Windus
    • Turner Bequests: Henry Vaughan
    • Twickenham home
    • The Eccentric Mr Turner
    • Talks on Turner in Tottenham
  • PRB
    • Ford Madox Brown
    • Holman Hunt
    • Millais
    • Rossetti
    • Ruskin and the PRB
  • & Others
    • Blake
    • Thomas Girtin
  • BG Windus
    • Family & inheritance >
      • Ansley Windus
      • Thomas Windus
    • Landowner
    • Places >
      • All Hallows
      • Holy Trinity
      • Tottenham High Cross
      • Rodmell, East Sussex
    • People >
      • EH Baily RA
      • John Constable
      • Rowland Hill
      • William Hobson
      • Luke Howard
      • Priscilla Wakefield
  • About
    • Background
    • John Ruskin & Windus Collection >
      • Two Turner Collectors; Friends of Ruskin
    • Visitors to the Collection
    • Auctions >
      • Christie's June 1842
      • Christie's June 1853
      • Christie's March 1859
      • Christie's July 1862
      • 1868 Sale after Windus death
    • Images and credits
    • Thanks
  • JMW Turner
    • The Windus Turner Collection >
      • Picturesque views >
        • England and Wales >
          • Charles Heath
          • Carisbrooke Castle
          • Richmond from the moors
          • Straits of Dover
        • Southern Coast >
          • Brighthelmston, Sussex
      • The Epicurean
      • Finden's Lord Byron
      • The Keepsake
      • Walter Scott >
        • Abbotsford
      • Later large watercolours
      • Marine Views (unpublished series)
    • Turner collection recreated >
      • Frames
      • Still framed?
      • The Windus Commissions
    • Turner oil paintings in the Collection >
      • Calais sands
      • The Tondos
      • Going to the ball
      • Later paintings
    • Letters to Windus
    • Turner Bequests: Henry Vaughan
    • Twickenham home
    • The Eccentric Mr Turner
    • Talks on Turner in Tottenham
  • PRB
    • Ford Madox Brown
    • Holman Hunt
    • Millais
    • Rossetti
    • Ruskin and the PRB
  • & Others
    • Blake
    • Thomas Girtin
  • BG Windus
    • Family & inheritance >
      • Ansley Windus
      • Thomas Windus
    • Landowner
    • Places >
      • All Hallows
      • Holy Trinity
      • Tottenham High Cross
      • Rodmell, East Sussex
    • People >
      • EH Baily RA
      • John Constable
      • Rowland Hill
      • William Hobson
      • Luke Howard
      • Priscilla Wakefield

Priscilla Wakefield: writer, economist and philanthropist

Priscilla Wakefield was a writer, feminist economist and philanthropist who lived in Ship Inn Yard just off the High Road at Tottenham Green during BG Windus’s childhood and youth.

She recognised the importance of the economic independence of women at a time when women lost all rights to their inheritance and fortune on marriage.  In Reflection on the Present Condition of the Female Sex: with suggestions for its Improvement published in 1798 she argues that all useful labour is productive labour, and that the work of women, whether in the home or in the public sphere, is useful and productive.  Adam Smith had disqualified women’s labour as non-productive since it provided services rather than material goods.

She is credited with inaugurating the savings bank movement with the ‘Frugality Bank’ which she established in 1798 encouraging and enabling children, then their parents, to save their earnings.  As a result Priscilla Wakefield has been referred to as the ‘Mother of Microfinancing’ by David Roodman of the Center for Global Development.

A Quaker she wrote a number of travel and science books for children and was actively involved in the abolition of slavery and prison reform. She made frequent references in her diary to financial difficulties which resulted from unsound investments and ventures of her husband, on 14 October 1799 she wrote Necessity obliges me to write.

She was a founder of the Lying-in Charity for Women in 1791 and established a School of Industry for Girls, close to Bruce Grove station in 1792.

She was the aunt of the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry.

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For more information on forgotten heroine - Priscilla Wakefield
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