Élise Pelgrom

Élise Pelgrom (18 May 1864 – 25 January 1910) was a Belgian passementerie worker and illegalist anarchist. She is best known for her role in the birth and development of illegalism, being part of the Schouppe gang and linked to the Intransigents of London and Paris, some of the first illegalist groups. Pelgrom and her husband, Placide Schouppe, were also close to Vittorio Pini, one of the main founders of this anarchist tendency.

Born in Belgium and having married Schouppe in Paris, the couple began to integrate into the nascent illegalist anarchist circles in the second half of the 1880s. She associated with a number of figures from the anarchist movement of that period, such as Vittorio Pini, and seemed to be involved in the Intransigents' burglaries, leading to her being denounced as one of the group's main members by an anarchist. Arrested with Pini and Schouppe, she denied any participation or knowledge of anything, while her husband was sentenced to ten years of deportation to a penal colony. This situation plunged her into deep poverty, especially as she had two children to support. She then began a relationship with and moved in with a sculptor named Strauch.

Following Schouppe's escape from the Cayenne penal colony in 1891, she either feared for her life or returned to live with him with satisfaction, depending on the media accounts of the time. Strauch refused to return the furniture she had brought to his home, so she burglarized his residence with Schouppe and probably Léon Ortiz and Antoinette Cazal from the Ortiz gang. The furniture they recovered was more extensive than what she had brought to his place, but the group managed to avoid French authorities. The anarchist was suspected by them of having planted the bomb during the Carmaux-Bons Enfants bombing, but Émile Henry—who was her neighbor—declared he barely knew her and was solely responsible.

Pelgrom died in 1910 in Paris.

One of her police mugshots is part of the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET).