Private Means

53

Married

30 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5DJ

MLWS

Complies

Stanton George Coit was born in 1857 in Columbus, Ohio. He was educated at Amherst College, Columbia College and received his doctorate from Berlin University. His mother was friends with US women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony. He became a minister of the ethical church before moving to London in 1888 and eventually becoming a naturalised citizen. Stanton assisted in founding 40 ethical societies in Britain and became the leader of the ethical movement in England. He became a member of the Women's Franchise League in 1890. In 1903, he was an executive member of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage. He was a delegate of the 1904 conference in Berlin, which, with his wife Adela, formed the International Women's Suffrage Alliance. Dr Stanton Coit helped prepare an edition of J.S. Mill's Subjection of Women, which was published in 1906. He used notes lent by Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, which detailed changes since 1869 when single women become eligible to vote in local town elections. She was acknowledged in his work. However, she wrote in a 1904 letter that "he will undoubtedly make a real hash of the whole matter, and him, like others of his "calibre", stop progress from happening in the movement. He became treasurer of the MLWS when it was formed in 1907 but had no official position in the movement by 1913. He complied with the 1911 census, living at 30 Hyde Park Gate with his wife Adela, 5 of their children and 8 servants. In 1912, he subscribed to the NUWSS fighting fund. During September 1912, he spoke at a meeting in Ryde on the Isle of Wight organised by his wife Adela. He called the women's exclusion from the suffrage a 'most ancient prejudice'. The meeting held at the now demolished St Clare Castle was instrumental in forming the Ryde Branch of the NUWSS on the Island. He retired from the ethical movement in 1935, and he died on the 15th of February 1944. Sources: Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 18661928 (London, 1999). Contributed by Becca Aspden, URSS student researcher, History Dept., Warwick University.