Margaret "Maye" Dilke born Margaret Mary Smith became "Mrs. William Russell Cooke" (4 September 1857 – 19 May 1914) was a British writer and campaigner for women's rights.
Life
Dilke was born in 1857. Her parents were Martha Mary (born Dalrymple) and Thomas Eustace Smith. Her father owned Newcastle shipping interests and he was a Liberal MP for Tynemouth (1868–85). Her parents travelled widely and they were patrons of the arts and this included particularly the Pre-Raphaelites. She had five other sisters and they were educated at home as well as in Lausanne in Switzerland. Margaret also went to Orleans, where she qualified herself as a French teacher.
Margaret married in 1876 Ashton Wentworth Dilke. Her sister Virginia who had a talent for languages married a Scottish lawyer named Donald Crawford who become MP for North-East Lanarkshire on 27 July 1881. In 1878 Margaret joined the National Society for Women's Suffrage as sat on its executive.
Dilke's husband resigned his seat in parliament in 1883 as he had tuberculosis. He died that year in Algiers. Her husband's brother Charles became the guardian of their children. In 1885 her sister, Virginia, told her husband, Donald, that she had an affair with Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet, Margaret's brother-in-law. The divorce destroyed her reputation, that of Sir Charles Dilke and eventually involved her mother Ellen Dilke and her sister's real lover. The divorce led to two court cases which attracted much interest.
