Concepción Arenal Ponte[1][2][3] (Ferrol, 31 January 1820 – Vigo, 4 February 1893) was a graduate in law, thinker, journalist, poet and Galician dramatic author within the literary Realism and pioneer in Spanish feminism.

[4] Her father, Ángel del Arenal y de la Cuesta, was a liberal military officer who was often imprisoned for his ideology and opposition to the regime of Ferdinand VII.

She moved to Armaño (Cantabria) with her mother, María Concepción Ponte Mandiá Tenreiro, and then to Madrid in 1834, to attend the school of the Count of Tepa.

Penniless she was forced to sell all her possessions in Armaño and moved into the house of violinist and composer Jesús de Monasterio in Potes, Cantabria, where in 1859 she founded the feminist group Conference of Saint Vincent de Paul in order to help the poor.

In 1868 she was named Inspector of Women's Correctional Houses and in 1871 began fourteen years of collaboration with the Madrid-based magazine The Voice of Charity.

Concepción Arenal died the morning of 4 February 1893 of chronic bronchitis in Vigo, where she was buried a day later.

In 1882 Arenal participated-although she was not present- in the Congreso Pedagógico Hispano-Portugués-Americano [Congress of Hispanic-Portugues-American Pedagogy] hold in Madrid and led by Rafael Mª de Labra.

A monument to Concepción Arenal was erected in 1934 in Madrid,[8] and the Library of Law, Political Sciences and Labour Relations of the University of Santiago de Compostela bears her name.