Florence I. Nicholson

Early life

Nicholson was born in 1866 at Barleythorpe, Rutland, to Thomas Nicholson and Isabella Nicholson.^[1][2]

Vegetarian activism

Nicholson originally intended to pursue a literary career, but became a vegetarian after she was appointed assistant secretary of the London Vegetarian Society.^[3]

In the 1890s, Nicholson worked in the office of the London Vegetarian Association. According to Charles W. Forward's Fifty Years of Food Reform, May Yates suggested that Nicholson should be appointed to assist her after the association's work increased. Forward stated that Nicholson had previously worked with Yates on an exhibition and that, although she was not then a vegetarian, she was appointed. After Yates resigned, Nicholson became secretary of the association.^[4]

Hilda Kean writes that Nicholson established a children's dinner fund for underfed children, distributing cheap meals of vegetable soup, wholemeal bread and wholemeal currant bread.^[5]

By 1907, Nicholson was secretary of the Vegetarian Federal Union. In October that year, Good Health named her, with C. Herman Senn and the magazine's editor, as a judge for a Christmas cookery competition.^[6]

Writing and editing

In 1897, Nicholson published The Jubilee Cookery Book: Vegetarian Recipes, with a preface by Arnold Hills. The book gave weekly menus and recipes for vegetarian meals, including soups, savouries, puddings and pies.^[7]

In 1898, Nicholson published early recipes for vegetarian sausages and a vegetarian shepherd's pie in The Vegetarian.^[8][9]

Nicholson was the first editor of The Children's Realm, a monthly vegetarian magazine for children founded in 1906 and published by the Vegetarian Federal Union. She was later succeeded by A. M. Cole.^[10]

Personal life and death

Nicholson married Arthur C. Field at Godstone, Surrey, in 1919.^[11][12] He was a vegetarianism activist and a member of the council of the London Vegetarian Society.^[13]

Nicholson died on 13 January 1931 in Godstone, aged 64.^[14][15]