Feminist Networks Connecting Dublin and London: Sarah Atkinson, Bessie Rayner Parkes, and the Power of the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press

Abstract

The couple had one son, who died in his fourth year. Inconsolable with grief, Atkinson lapsed for a time into complete retirement. Around this time, Catholic philanthropist and social worker Ellen Woodlock (1811-84) came to live in the Atkinsons' neighbourhood, and taking the grieving Mrs. Atkinson "by the hand," she "[hurried] her into a bustle of helpfulness." 5 As a result of "their persistent efforts, they obtained access to the female pauper inmates of the South Dublin Workhouse. To effect this they had given evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons for inquiry into such matters." 6 The Atkinsons were genial and "travelled hosts." 7 Recalling social gatherings at their home, Katharine Tynan wrote that "these two loved to bring intellectual society about them. They had several friendships at the English Universities as well as the Irish. The dinner-parties they gave were very quiet, but the few guests were always distinguished in one way or another. There used to be very good music in the drawing-room after those dinners, and the conversation was worth listening to." 8 The friendship with Parkes appears to have begun when "Mrs. Atkinson made the acquaintance of Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes, now Madame Belloc" on a visit to London circa 1859. 9 Taking nineteenth-century periodicals as an archive, it is possible to piece together, or at least strongly speculate, as to how this visit came about. In the October 1858 number of the English Woman's Journal, a letter was published under the heading "St. Joseph's Industrial Institute: From a Correspondent." St. Joseph's Industrial Institute was established by Ellen Woodlock and Sarah Atkinson in Dublin in the mid-1850s. The letter, pseudonymously signed "Eblana," detailed the institution's "object . . . to provide a home for girls of the most destitute class, who would be supported by washing done in the establishment; and likewise with the view of collecting together very poor children, and enabling them to pay the rent, or support themselves at home, by