author
Barbara H. (Barbara Henry) Farquhar
1815–1875
A Scottish essayist from working-class roots, she became known for a prize-winning defense of the weekly day of rest and for arguing that women and men were intellectually equal. Her writing drew on personal experience and turned everyday social questions into clear, forceful prose.
1 Audiobook
The pearl of days : or, The advantages of the Sabbath to the working classes
by Barbara H. (Barbara Henry) Farquhar
About the author
Born in 1815 in Peterculter, Aberdeenshire, Barbara Henry Farquhar was a Scottish essayist who grew up in a large working-class family with little formal schooling. That background shaped both her sympathy for ordinary laborers and the practical, accessible style of her writing.
She is best known for The Pearl of Days: or, The Advantages of the Sabbath to the Working Classes, an award-winning essay first published under the name "A Labourer's Daughter." In it, she argued that a regular day of rest mattered deeply for the health, dignity, and moral life of working people.
Farquhar also wrote in support of the intellectual equality of the sexes, making her part of a wider 19th-century conversation about women's education and social standing. She died in London on March 12, 1875, but her best-known work continued to circulate long afterward in many editions.