Temperance lives and landscape: Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, Lady Henry Somerset, and late nineteenth-century Ledbury

Abstract

Abstract This article considers the relationship of two prominent leaders of British women’s temperance, Lady Henry Somerset and Lady Elizabeth Biddulph. They were noteworthy for taking opposing sides when the British Women’s Temperance Association divided on the question of the political reach of its work. Somerset and Biddulph were elite women, daughters of earls and near neighbours around Ledbury, a centre of cider apple and hop cultivation in Herefordshire. Both made their first temperance pledge in the area. We examine their geographical proximity and consider the importance of local agricultural labour and landscapes to their temperance work.