Emma Cons

Emma Cons (4 March 1838 – 24 July 1912) was a British social reformer, educationalist and theatre manager.

Born in St. Pancras, London, she trained as an artist and joined the Ladies' Co-operative Art Guild in London, run by Caroline Hill, mother of the future housing reformer and founder of the National Trust, Octavia Hill. As Cons's father Frederick Cons was suffering from ill health, she needed to work and the Guild helped her get work as an illuminator as well as restoring manuscripts for John Ruskin. Cons also tried working as a watch engraver, and as a stained glass designer but experienced harassment from men who resented a woman working amongst them.

From 1864, Cons worked for Octavia Hill as a rent collector, starting work at Barrett's Court, Oxford Street. Later Cons moved to South London, and in 1879 she established the South London Dwellings Company around Surrey Lodge, Lambeth, near to Waterloo station.

In 1889 Cons became the first female alderman on the London County Council (LCC), working alongside the first elected women members Jane Cobden (elected for Bow and Bromley) and Lady Sandhurst (elected for Brixton). The elections were challenged by anti-suffragists, but as Cons had not been elected, she had been asked by the LCC Progressives to become an alderman, and it was difficult to challenge her position.

When she voted, however, she became liable for a fine: De Souza v. Cobden, which reached the Court of Appeal in 1891, ruled Cobden and Cons could legally be members of the council but could not vote. After this, Cons's commitment to the cause of women's suffrage was energetic, and she served on the Committee for the Return of Women as Councillors, became Vice-President of the Women's Local Government Society, and Vice President of the Women's Liberal Federation.

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