Emily, a country girl of "good breeding", was sent at an early age to an educational establishment for young ladies in Kensington, but grew bored with upper-class frivolities and secured an appointment as secretary to SPEW ( the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. She also attended meetings of the NAPSS (the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science), with other women interested in improvement of women's social standing. She became part of the new Women's Movement. However, Emily was not a militant, she was more interested in a pragmatic approach to enable women to be employed in areas hitherto the domains of men only. One must remember that those were the days without voting rights for women, and it was not until 1918 that they secured even a modified franchise. In 1860, Emily organised a printing concern, mainly for women, in Bloomsbury, having previously studied the trade, from her own funds and those of G.W.Hastings and Emily Davies (later founder of Girton College). Her Victoria Press employed 19 women compositors and one output was the Victoria Magazine, used to propagate views about the rights of women, particularly in employment. The printers union was opposed to the use of these female apprentices. Male employees resorted to putting ink on their stools to spoil dresses and mixing up the letters in their compositing boxes. Queen Victoria in 1862 appointed Emily "Printer and Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. More details of her output of writing and those related to her are in FAMILY WRITING. In 1872-3, 1881-2, 1883-4 she went on lecture tours to America.