Princess Louise, The Feminist And Artist
Public DomainSeveral of Princess Louise’s sculptures are still on display across Britain today.
Princess Louise was born on March 18, 1848. She was the only one of Queen Victoria’s children not to have kids of her own, and she worked as an artist and supported the burgeoning suffrage movement.
As a child, Louise naturally gravitated toward the arts. She attended the National Art Training School and received private lessons from sculptor Mary Thornycroft.
After Prince Albert’s death, Louise became her mother’s unofficial secretary, but she was bored by life at the British court. Despite this, Victoria refused to let her marry a foreign prince, so she ultimately wed John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, in 1870.
Public DomainPrincess Louise never had children of her own.
Eight years later, Lorne was appointed Governor General of Canada, and he and Louise moved across the Atlantic, where they remained until 1883. Back in England, it’s believed the couple drifted apart, possibly due to their lack of children. There were even rumors that Louise was having affairs.
Still, when Lorne fell ill in 1911, Louise devotedly cared for him until his death three years later. As a widow, she mostly retired from public life.
Besides her art, Louise is perhaps best known for her feminism and support for the women’s suffrage movement. She corresponded with Josephine Butler and met with Elizabeth Garrett, the first woman in Britain to qualify as a surgeon and physician.
Louise died in 1939 at age 91.
