Emily Langton Massingberd

Emily Caroline Langton Massingberd (19 December 1847 – 28 January 1897), known as Emily Langton Langton from 1867 to 1887, was a women's rights campaigner and temperance activist. Her husband, Edmund Langton, died in 1875. In 1877, Emily built and lived in the Red House in Bournemouth. Since the 1940s, the house has often been erroneously associated with Lillie Langtry and Bertie, the Prince of Wales. Upon her father's death in 1887, she inherited Gunby Hall. In 1892, she founded the Pioneer Club, with the object of the political and moral advancement of women. It was one of the first, and one of the most powerful and well known, of progressive women's clubs in the UK, and was particularly influential while she remained alive. Her birth surname was Massingberd, and her married surname was Langton. After her father's death, she re-assumed the surname Massingberd by royal licence on 20 May 1887, and went by "Mrs. Massingberd" rather than "Mrs. Langton".