Dilke , Emilia Frances , 1840-1904 , nee Strong, art historian and trade unionist

Emilia Frances Dilke: Born Ilfracombe, Devon, 2 Sep 1840, daughter of Major Henry Strong; educated privately; married firstly Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College Oxford (d 1884) in 1862, secondly Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke Bt, MP, in 1885; contributed articles and reviews on art history to many periodicals including to The Westminster Review, The Saturday Review, Academy, The Art Journal and the Gazette des Beaux Arts.
In 1876 she joined the Women's Protective and Provident League (later the Women's Trade Union League) which had been founded by Emma Patterson in 1874. She spoke at annual meetings of the League in 1877 and in 1880, when she urged the need for technical education for women. She founded a branch in Oxford and was also an active member of the Women's Suffrage Society at Oxford. From 1889-1904 she attended the Trades Union Congress as a representative of the League, and frequently spoke at meetings throughout the country on labour questions affecting women, particularly the cause of unskilled workers in dangerous trades. She died at Pyrford Rough, Woking, 24 Oct 1904.
Publications: Renaissance of Art in France (1879); a critical biography of Lord Leighton in the series Dumas' Modern Artists (1881); Art in the Modern State or the Age of Louis XIV , (1884); Claude Lorrain, d'apres des documents inedits (1884); French Painters of the Eighteenth Century(1889); French Architects and Sculptors of the Eighteenth Century (1900); French Engravers and Draughtsmen of the Eighteenth Century (1902) and two volumes of short stories The Shrine of Death, and other Stories (1886) and The Shrine of Love, and other Stories (1891).