Edith Lanchester

Edith 'Biddy' Lanchester (28 July 1871 – 1966) was an English socialist, feminist and suffragette. She garnered notoriety in 1895 when her family had her incarcerated in a lunatic asylum for planning to marry an Irish, working-class labourer. She later became secretary to Eleanor Marx.

Lanchester was born in Hove, Sussex on 28 July 1871, the fifth child of a family of eight. Her parents were Henry Jones Lanchester, an established architect, (1834-1914) and Octavia Ward (1834-1916). Following in their father's footsteps of bourgeois success, three of Edith's brothers became successful in the fields of architecture and engineering.

Her eldest brother, Henry Vaughan Lanchester, became a distinguished architect and town planner who was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1934. Her immediately older brother, Frederick William Lanchester [pseud. Paul Netherton-Herries] (1868–1946) was a car and aircraft designer and engineer who invented the first all-British four-wheel petrol car. Following its success he, along with three other brothers, formed the Lanchester Engine Company

Her younger brother, George, was also successful as an engineer and car designer working alongside his brother Frederick. When Frederick retired from the business George became chief designer. His first post-war car, the Lanchester hp 40 limousine, was considered to be 'the finest car in the world'.

After attending the Birkbeck Institution and the Maria Grey training college, Edith first worked as a teacher and then a clerk-secretary working for a firm in the City of London. By 1895 Edith was a confirmed socialist and member of the Social Democratic Federation.

In 1895 Edith announced that she intended to live with her working-class lover and fellow Battersea SDF member, Shamus (aka James) Sullivan. Their "free love union" was scheduled to begin on 26 October 1895.

Incensed by his daughter's apparent immorality, Lanchester père recruited George Fielding Blandford, who, along with three of Edith's brothers, interrogated Edith at her lodgings on the night before her "marriage". Edith was pronounced mad at the scene and, when she physically tried to resist and fight back, was handcuffed by her father. Blandford justified his action by describing Edith's planned action as an act of 'social suicide.

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