Letters from Elizabeth Ann (Eliza) Bostock

Bostock’s letters show the challenges of balancing care-work in the home and her work reforming women’s education; alongside her commitments to Bedford College, she cared for elderly and ill relatives and friends. As such, they illustrated how the public work and private work of upper-middle-class female reformers both interacted and conflicted.

There are also several letters in which Bostock explains her opinions on the best forms of education for women, and on how to best secure the future of the College. Beyond higher education for women, she also speculates on how sewing machines will affect women labourers, and expresses fears that hosting abolitionist speakers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, at College will jeopardize its future. She was particular concerned that all women have a means of maintaining themselves indpendently. In other letters, she discusses cultural pursuits, including dicussions of new novels and biographies. 

While the collection consists mostly of letters from Bostock, there are also a few letters to her from relatives, and one from the artist and women’s rights activist, Barbara Bodichon, a leading member of the Langham Place circle.

Upon her death, Elizabeth Jesser Reid made Bostock a trustee of Bedford College, charged with managing its finances and securing its future, on the condition that Bostock remain unmarried. Bostock remained central to the development of the College through the 1860s and 1870s, becoming regarded by some as its honorary principle. She died in 1898. 

Further Information on Bostock
Badham, Sophie. "Bostock, Elizabeth Anne [Eliza] (1817–1898), promoter of women's education." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  September 23, 2004. Oxford University Press,. Date of access 11 Jul. 2019.

• Barbara Bodichon, Frances Martin, Harriet Bostock