Jane Cobden

Jane Cobden (18511947) was a BritishLiberal politician and

radical activist. An early proponent of women's rights, she was
one of two women elected to the inaugural London County
Council in 1889, although legal challenges prevented her from
being a councillor. Throughout her life she sought to protect and
develop the legacy of her father, the Victorian reformer Richard
Cobden, in particular the causes of land reform, peace, social
justice and women's suffrage. She was also a consistent
advocate for Irish independence. In the 1890s she extended her
interests to advancing the rights of the indigenous
populations within colonial territories. She opposed the Boer
War of 18991902, and after the establishment of the Union of
South Africa in 1910 she attacked its segregationist policies.
Before the First World War she spoke out against Joseph
Chamberlain's tariff reform crusade on the grounds of her
father's free trade principles, and was prominent in the Liberal
Party's revival of the land reform issue. In 1928 she presented the
old Cobden family residence, Dunford House, to the Cobden
Memorial Association as a centre dedicated to the issues and
causes that had defined "Cobdenism".