Rachel Speght

Rachel Speght was born in London, England, the daughter of James Speght, a Calvinist minister. She received a classical and unusually broad education for a woman of her time. Her father encouraged her writing, and in 1617, at age 19, she published A Mouzell for Melastomus, followed by Mortalities Memorandum (1621), both religious defenses of women's rights based on interpretation of the Bible. She's believed to have been the first Englishwoman to publish a feminist work under her own name. Her other known writings consist of two poems, pamphlets, and petitions. In 1621, she married William Procter, also a minister, at St. Mary Woolchurch Haw in London. They moved to a parish in Suffolk and had three children. She probably died between 1647 and 1661.