In the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland is a large black ledger, heavily worn, of a type which might have been used by some hosiery manufacturer or Leicester shopkeeper. But this ledger is bursting with letters, drawings, poems and ephemera: it is a record not of business transactions but of female connection, creativity and activism in Leicester in the early nineteenth century. Owned by Susanna Watts (c. 1768–1842), it bears witness to her own intellectual interests and to her friendships with other women writers and campaigners. Her closest friend was the activist Elizabeth Heyrick (1769–1831), a member of the influential Coltman family, and together they formed part of an extensive network of other remarkable women including the novelist Catherine Hutton (1756–1846), the composer, pianist and organist Martha Greatorex (1759–1829), and the needlework artist Mary Linwood (1755–1845), as well as others who were clearly influential but who have left less trace of their own individual voices, such as Mary Reid (1769–1839) and Heyrick's sister, Mary Ann Coltman (1778–1871), who collaborated with Heyrick and Watts on an anti-slavery periodical which bears some resemblance to the scrapbook itself. Looking at the productions of such networks provides an insight into the rich culture of provincial women: from the ground-breaking scientific experiments of the Lunar Men to Victorian industrial innovation and social reform, the Midlands have long been recognised as one of the great hubs of Enlightenment and nineteenth-century creativity. Yet the role of women in this male-dominated community still remains to be fully explored. This chapter aims to restore a range of female voices to our understanding of Midlands society, religion, literature and reform, and to trace some threads of connection which bound together provincial society at a key point in history. It also shows some of the tensions and difficulties faced by these women as they conceptualised their activist role in society, examining their participation in abolitionist discourse against a larger context of friendship and women's writing in the period.

This group of women is at once extraordinary, and typical. Extraordinary, because of their wide output of campaigning publications, poetry and other literature, and their vigorous intellectual and philanthropic activities.