This book provides the first full-length biography of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy (1833-1918) - someone referred to among contemporaries as the grey matter in the brain of the late-Victorian womens movement. A pacifist, humanitarian free-thinker, Wolstenholme Elmy was a controversial character and the first woman ever to speak from a public platform on the topic of marital rape. Lauded by Emmeline Pankhurst as first among the infamous militant suffragettes of the Womens Social and Political Union, Wolstenholme Elmy was one of Britains great feminist pioneers and, in her own words, an initiator of many high-profile campaigns from the nineteenth into the twentiethth century. Wright draws on an extensive resource of unpublished correspondence and other sources to produce an enduring portrait that does justice to Wolstenholme Elmys momentous achievements.