Amber Reeves

Amber Blanco White [née Amber Reeves] (1 July 1887 – 26 December 1981) was a British feminist writer and scholar.

Reeves was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, the eldest of three children of Fabian feminist Maud Pember Reeves (née Robison; 1865–1953) and New Zealand politician/social reformer William Pember Reeves.

The family moved to England in 1896, where her father became New Zealand's agent-general. Her widowed aunt, cousins, 'and attendants' joined the household in Cornwall Gardens, Kensington, London. 'London was hateful after New Zealand', she said. 'No freedom. No seashore. Streets, streets, streets. Houses, houses' (Harrison and White, 10267).

Amber Reeves attended Kensington High School until 1904, and then travelled to Europe to become fluent in French. Her father was not fully converted to the higher education of women; when he gave her the choice between being presented at court and going to the University of Cambridge, she chose Cambridge. Reeves then began studying at Newnham College in 1905. It is unlikely her father raised further opposition as he always spoke highly of her academic achievements.

While at Cambridge Reeves began to associate with other young women who shared her intellectual enthusiasms and socialist political leanings, forming a lifelong friendship with Eva Spielmann (later Eva Hubback), who became an educationalist. She became involved in a number of societies, including the debating society. In 1907 she led the inter-collegiate debate with Girton, arguing that "the socialist conception of life is the most noble and the most fruitful, both for the state and the individual".

In 1906 she founded the Cambridge University Fabian Society (CUFS) with Ben Keeling, a member of the (somewhat inactive) existing Fabian society in the town. CUFS was the first society at Cambridge to enlist women from its founding. Young women met regularly with men as equals and discussed everything from religious beliefs to social evils to sex, which would have been impossible in the conventional atmospheres of their homes.

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