ABSTRACT
The 1890s was allegedly the era of the 'new woman', but while women's educational opportunities did expand in that decade, Margery Fry and Eleanor Rathbone both acknowledged that their employment prospects remained circumscribed. While touring North America, Margery stayed with some missionaries she had met in China. Margery’s childhood, education, career in higher education, committee work and wartime service all contributed to making Margery a successful activist. In the twentieth-century battle between science and religion, Margery decisively placed herself in the former camp. During Margery's childhood, marriage was considered to be the only proper career for a woman, and there is some evidence that she genuinely wanted to become a wife and mother. In policy terms, Margery's work has enjoyed perhaps surprising longevity. Margery's interest in victim compensation towards the end of her life presaged many developments – not only the criminal injuries compensation scheme, on which she was working when she died, but more recent developments in restorative justice.
