In September 1882 Georgina bought copies of two Acts of Parliament. One was the Newspaper Libel Act of 1882, which was relevant to her ongoing battles in the wake of the ‘Birmingham Affair’. The other was the Married Women's Property Act, also of 1882. At first she found the latter ‘very puzzling’, but after discussing it with one of her new acquaintances in Birmingham it gradually began to dawn on her that changes in the law might enable her to take revenge on her enemies. On 2 January 1883 she wrote in her new diary, ‘Hail 1883! Married Women's Property Act comes into force, so I suppose my reputation is now become my own property, and that I shall be able to sue for damages to any extent if libelled or insulted from henceforth.’ At last she had the opportunity to ‘clear off old scores’. ‘I am no longer an outlaw’, she told her mother. Inside the front cover of the book she wrote the motto, ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’ [nobody wounds me with impunity]. It was a declaration of war.

The Married Women's Property Act, which came into force on 1 January 1883, gave a wife the right, for the first time, to enter into contracts and sue or be sued with respect to her separate property. Before this date, everything belonged to her husband and she had no legal identity apart from him, and no property under her own control. If, like Georgina, she was separated from her husband and had little or no contact with him, she was utterly powerless. Now, however, she could attack her persecutors, whether Harry liked it or not.

Whilst she was deciding on a plan of action, Georgina continued to attend meetings of the Magna Chartists, Salvation Army and other campaigning groups. At the beginning of March she went to Bow Street to ask Frederick Flowers for a summons for libel against Dr Forbes Winslow, as a result of the publication of a series of letters to the British Medical Journal in 1878 and 1879.