6. Journalism and Authorship

A further aspect of Eliza Orme’s public life in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s was her eloquent, engaged, authorship—some of it signed but much of it published anonymously. This chapter situates her as a journalist and editor as well as a lawyer and politician. In more or less chronological order, sections include: ‘Contributions to The Examiner, Englishwoman’s Review and Longman’s (and an index)’ (these comprised her important essays ‘Sound-Minded Women’ and ‘How Poor Ladies Live’ as well as a work of legal scholarship that took the form of indexing Savill Vaizey’s book on marriage settlements); ‘Leaders for the Weekly Dispatch’ (an important aspect of Orme’s life that puts her among a handful of powerful women journalists, but still awaits further research); The Women’s Gazette and the Royal Commission (whatever the political or official purposes of these activities, the editing of the Women’s Gazette was journalism and the several reports of the Royal Commission report constituted authorship); ‘A Trial in India, a literary labour of love, and more’ (Orme’s editing of The Trial of Shama Charan Pal and her biography, Lady Fry of Darlington); ‘National Biography’ (Orme’s three contributions to the 1901 supplementary volume of the Dictionary of National Biography).

This chapter is shaped significantly by Leslie Howsam’s research interests in the history of the book, and of the periodical press, in nineteenth-century Britain.