Elizabeth Surr

Elizabeth Surr (1820 – 1901) was a British educational reformer. She was successful in getting elected to the London School Board where she led the exposure of mistreatment of children in industrial schools. Early life Surr was born in Rochford, Essex. She was one of at least eleven children born to Sarah (born Fry) and John Grabham. She had at least three sisters and four of her brothers went into medicine including George Wallington Grabham and Michael Comport Grabham. Elizabeth married a silk manufacturer named Joseph Surr on 26 October 1852 and they had at least four children. London School Board activism Surr was one of the women who put themselves forward as candidates for the London School Board (LSB). The LSB, at the time of its creation in 1870 had one of the broadest mandates of any elected body in Britain. Unusually, women were permitted to vote on the same terms as men for the school boards and also to stand for election. She came fourth of the six members required for Finsbury in London, where she campaigned emphasising that girl students needed support from women and that the students should receive a non-denominational bible class. Four years later she stood again for election and came first and served on the LSB industrial schools' committee, at first named the "incorrigible truants committee". In 1876, Florence Fenwick Miller, Helen Taylor and Alice Westlake also won election. In 1877 Surr published a children's book Good Out of Evil. She had written some children's books before. In 1882 she published Stories about Cats.