ELIZA KING

The Lady Who Wore Pants

Eliza Mary Richardson, better known as Mrs E M King. married William Cutfield King[2] in 1855.  In 1861 King, who was a captain in the Rifle Volunteers, was ambushed and killed in the Taranaki Wars, leaving Mrs King a widow with two infant daughters.  She never remarried. Her father died in the same year as her husband.  These bereavements left Mrs King with sufficient inherited wealth to enable her to devote her life to a succession of reformist causes.  In 1863, while still living in New Plymouth, she wrote Truth. Love. Joy. or The Fruits of the Garden of Eden, a feminist critique of the Old Testament and the gospel of St Paul.  It was a radical attack on biblical literalism and the use of scripture to subject women to masculine domination. It was promoted by the atheist George Holyoake and drew hostile reviews in the colonial and English press.

In 1870 Eliza King returned to England with her two daughters Alice and Constance where, amongst other causes, she became active in the campaign for prostitution law reform and rational dress reform. In 1886 she settled in Florida where, with her companion Nellie Glen, she established one of the states first women's clubs. In 1907 she returned to Taranaki. She died in Omata in 1911.

Eliza campaigned in England and the United States for repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, world peace, co-operative housekeeping, rational dress reform and implementation of the agrarian policies of the US Farmers’ Alliance.[1]