Posts Tagged Millicent Fawcett

The Garretts And Their Circle: UPDATED: Even More Annie Swynnerton Revelations

Posted by womanandhersphere in Art and Suffrage, The Garretts and their Circle on March 30, 2023

Excellent News: Millicent Garrett Fawcett has now entered Parliament. A portrait of Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Annie Swynnerton, acquired by The Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, was ‘unveiled’ on 27 March 2023. The event, chaired (vivaciously) by Jess Phillips MP, was notable for talks on the sitter and the artist by Prof. Melissa Terras and Dr Emma Merkling.

UPDATE

I wrote a long post earlier this month – revealing the existence of previously unknown collection of Swynnerton portraits, the existence of which enhances our knowledge of the artist. Since then I have tracked down one further associated portrait. Rather than merely issuing a short post with the new information, I thought it best, for completeness, to update the existing post. The ‘new’ portrait is discussed towards the end of this article, the main body of which has been amended where necessary.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Annie Swynnerton (Courtesy of The Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art)

It was in July 2022 that I noticed the portrait had appeared in an art dealer’s listing and immediately alerted Melanie Unwin, who until recently was Deputy Collector of the Palace of Westminster Collection – exclaiming, ‘Now, wouldn’t this be an excellent addition to the Parliamentary Collection?’ And – it has come to pass. Public recognition of Millicent Fawcett is something in which I have taken a personal interest – for ten years ago I posted on this website a plea – ‘Make Millicent Fawcett Visible’. And now, lo – the veil has been lifted – she now has a statue in Westminster Square, her portrait, by Annie Swynnerton, is on show in the Tate,[i] and this other version will now hang in Parliament.

 This version, which presumably was painted around the same time (1910) as that bought for the Tate by the Chantrey Bequest in 1930 (the year after Fawcett’s death), remained, for whatever reason, in Annie Swynnerton’s studio and was sold in the February 1934 posthumous sale of her ‘Artistic Effects’. After that it passed through the auction rooms on several occasions but since the early 1970s has remained out of sight. However, thanks to the fact that the National Portrait Gallery archive holds a black-and-white photograph, Melissa Terras and I were able to include this image in Millicent Fawcett: selected writings.[ii]

In Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle I hazarded a guess that the Tate’s portrait might have been painted in a first-floor back room at Fawcett’s home, 2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury. However, I’ve now discovered, in a recently-digitised newspaper (the wonder of our age), that ‘Mrs Swynnerton told a Daily Herald representative that half of the portrait was painted in the garden of Dame Millicent’s house in Gower Street and the other half at her own home’.[iii]

Which leads me neatly to the bland, but intriguing, observation  that a narrative is shaped by the available information. Thus, in biography, an author takes ‘facts’ about a subject and turns them into a ‘life’. If the ‘facts’ comprise primary sources, such as letters, diaries, newspaper articles, society minutes, oral interviews etc, so much the better  – or, at least, easier. But if the subject has left no written trace, information must be wrung from whatever material comes to hand.

And, thus, I leap to the particular. For, in the case of the artist Annie Swynnerton (née Robinson), although there is very little documented information about her early life, serendipity – in the shape of a previously unrecorded collection of family portraits – has recently allowed me to focus the biographical lens on one connection made at the start of her career, that ran as a thread through its entirety, ensured her a place in the canon, and effected the link between the artist and the sitter of Parliament’s latest acquisition.

We know Annie Louisa Robinson was born in Manchester in 1844, the eldest of seven daughters. Her father, Francis Robinson (1814-89), the son of a Yorkshire carpenter,[iv] had risen from what one assumes were relatively humble beginnings, to become a solicitor, with  a practice in central Manchester. By the mid-1850s he was sufficiently successful to be able to move his growing family from inner Manchester to a newly-built, detached house in leafy Prestwich Park, 5 km north of the city.[v]  In fact Robinson was one of the first house-owners in this development which, guarded by two entrance lodges and with fine views, was intended to appeal to the burgeoning Manchester middle-class.[vi]  For some years Robinson involved himself in Manchester affairs; in 1863 he was vice-president of the Manchester Law Association and from at least 1861 was a councillor for St Ann’s Ward and by 1868 its chairman. However, in 1869 disaster struck; he was declared bankrupt. The effect on the family was momentous. In March the entire contents of the home – from a ‘Splendid Walnutwood Drawing-Room Suite, ‘’a sweet-toned cottage pianoforte’, ‘stuffed Australian birds under glass shade’ to a ‘patent coffee percolator’, ‘large brass preserving pans’, and ‘300 choice greenhouse and other plants’ – were all sold at auction.[vii] Stripped from the walls were oil paintings by, among others, Sam Bough, John Brandon Smith, and David Cox, and, from the bookshelves, about 500 volumes, among which were Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.

In June the house itself, with its drawing-room, two dining rooms, breakfast room, library, nine bedrooms, bathrooms, pantries, sculleries, and about half an acre of land, was sold.[viii] The family was then split up. The 1871 census shows Annie (27, Artist), living with her sisters Emily (26, Artist), Julia (24, Artist), Mary (Scholar 16) and Frances (Scholar, 14) in lodgings at 28 Upper Brook Street, back in central Manchester, while Sarah (22) and Adela (19) were visiting with Mrs Sarah Robinson, an elderly widowed relation, and their aunt Mary on the other side of the same street, at number 13.[ix] There is no trace of the Robinson parents in the census but, wherever they were, on census night at least, they were not living with any of their daughters. We must assume that the older sisters now had responsibility for the younger two, who were still at school.

We have no information as to where or how Annie and her sisters were educated. The 1861 Robinson household census does not include a governess, so we can probably conclude that the girls attended a school.[x] Published 30 years later, a brief biographical article in The Queen gives us a rare insight into the Robinson sisters’ early life.[xi]

‘Curiously enough, whilst neither parent had any taste in that direction, Mrs Swynnerton’s two sisters Emily and Julia, were, like herself, born artists, and are both practising their profession in Manchester. When of the tender age of from eleven to thirteen years, Miss Annie used to delight her playfellows, visitors to the house, and the servants with exhibitions of specimens of her very juvenile skill in the shape of water-colour drawings. These primitive works were produced without the advantage of any instruction, and were simply the spontaneous efforts of an inborn, absorbing love of art.’

The Queen commends Francis Robinson for recognising his eldest daughter’s talent and states that ‘she was early placed in the art school at her native city, Manchester’, making no mention of the family’s financial disaster that probably necessitated, or, at least, precipitated, this development. Bankruptcy was unlikely to have struck suddenly and Annie and her sisters may well have been aware of impending disaster. That may be why, from sometime from 1868, Emily, Annie and Julia  enrolled as students at the Manchester School of Art. Sensible young women knew a training was necessary if a living was to be earned. Certainly by 1870/1871, with the security they had once enjoyed swept away, the three oldest Robinson sisters were all attending classes at Manchester School of Art.[xii] Here Annie excelled and in 1873 was awarded one of the 10 national gold medals and a Princess of Wales scholarship worth £11 for ‘Group in oils’.[xiii] Julia was presented with a bronze medal and Emily a book prize.[xiv]

In tracing Annie’s developing career I will continue with the known facts and return later to suppositions. Thus, the narrative runs that in 1874 Annie Robinson travelled to Rome with her friend Isabel Dacre to study and paint, returning to Manchester in 1876. We do not know exactly when in 1874 they left Manchester, nor exactly when in 1876 they returned. But we do know that Annie exhibited a painting at the Manchester exhibition in March 1877.[xv]

Mrs Louisa Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Kenneth Northover)

Annie was again successful the following March (1878) in having another painting selected to hang in the Manchester exhibition. Most importantly, this was the first of her works to which the name of the subject was attached, a name that was then included in the press reports. [xvi] The painting was a full-length portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson and is the first, dated, evidence of Annie’s lifelong friendship with the Wilkinson family, about which I write in Enterprising Women. When researching and writing that book, I guessed that the Wilkinsons, a leading Manchester family, were likely to have been the conduit through whom Annie entered the Garrett Circle, but until recently I had no material proof of when the connection might first have been made.

Revelation struck in June 2022 on a particularly serendipitous occasion, held to mark the installation, on her one-time Bloomsbury apartment, of an English Heritage Blue Plaque to Fanny Wilkinson (1855-1951), Britain’s first professional woman landscape gardener. It was my research on Fanny, published in Enterprising Women, that directed attention to her work, and I was delighted to listen as a descendant of her youngest sister gave a talk about the Wilkinson family – and was astounded when a portrait of Fanny, by none other than Annie Swynnerton, appeared on the accompanying Powerpoint. During the reception that followed I was thrilled to discover that a South African branch of the family held other portraits of family members painted by Annie, both before and after her marriage. This cache of paintings, previously unknown to the art world, presents us with a key to unlock more information about Annie’s career.

 For among these family portraits is the painting of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson (1823-89) that was exhibited in Manchester in 1878. Here she is, fashionably attired  in satin, lace, and jewels, her dress, with its swagging, rosettes, ruches, and train, affording Annie every opportunity of displaying a bravura technique.  The Wilkinsons were wealthy and philanthropic; there is no doubt that Annie would have been well paid for the portrait. In addition, by permitting her portrait to be exhibited and allowing herself to be named, Mrs Wilkinson was furthering Annie’s cause by advertising her skill. To attract clients from Manchester’s prosperous middle-class an artist had to be able to display their work. Were the Wilkinsons Annie Robinson’s first significant clients?

 It may be that Annie received similar portrait commissions at this time but because they were not exhibited by name (or, indeed, have subsequently passed through the auction rooms with no name attached) they are now unknown. The one portrait by Annie that did receive attention in the late 1870s was that of the Rev. W. Gaskell, widower of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, which was commissioned by the Portico Library. It was the Rev. Gaskell himself who in 1879 chose to be painted by Annie, remarking ‘My daughters tell me that she has painted a portrait which they like very much.’[xvii] Could it have been the portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson to which they were referring?[xviii]

For the Gaskells and Wilkinsons must surely have known each other. Dr Matthew Eason Wilkinson (1813-78) was Manchester’s leading doctor and his wife, although born in the US, was descended from a radical Manchester family. The Wilkinsons took an interest in art; Fanny, the eldest, put an artistic ‘eye’ and practical ability to good use in forging a novel career, while both Louisa (1859-1936) and Gladys (1864-1957) studied art in London and had works exhibited.

But, to return to the portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson. To have been exhibited in March 1878, this portrait must have been painted sometime earlier, which places Annie firmly in Manchester for at least some of 1877 and, probably, part of 1876. It so happens that the ‘manly, intellectual head’ of Mrs Wilkinson’s husband, Dr Matthew Eason Wilkinson, was, in the autumn of 1877, on display in the studio exhibition of a sculptor, Joseph Swynnerton.[xix] I think, therefore, we can be certain that, whether or not they had known each other previously (and surely they had), the artist and the sculptor must have encountered each other at this time, as they each immortalised Wilkinson père and mère, a pattern repeated the following year when they both produced portraits of the Rev. Gaskell, one in oils and one in marble.

Louisa Wilkinson – second daughter of the Wilkinson family (credit Kenneth Northover)

It was another eleven years before another Annie Swynnerton portrait of a fully-named member of the Wilkinson family was exhibited – and that is this full-length portrait of Louisa Mary Wilkinson, shown at the New Gallery in April/May 1889 . The change of style is remarkable. Louisa was described in the Pall Mall Gazette as ‘a slim figure with an old-fashioned face out of a Dutch picture standing among bluebells and clasping an illuminated missal,[xx] while the Birmingham Daily Post considered it a ‘very original and unconventional portrait, which we found a great deal more human and interesting than the silk and satin gowns with long trains, the feather-fans ad bric-a-brac, with figure-heads attached’.[xxi]

It is now possible to insert a biographical ‘fact’ that may give a slight narrative depth to this picture. For when it was painted, 1888/9, although renting a studio at 6 The Avenue (76 Fulham Road), Annie and Joseph were actually living in Bedford Park, the ‘Queen Anne’, ‘Sweetness and Light’, suburb so popular with artists, their house, 18 St Anne’s Grove, having a purpose-built studio on the top floor.[xxii]  At the same time, Mrs Louisa Wilkinson was also a resident of Bedford Park. Although Fanny was living in Bloomsbury, it’s likely that Louisa and her younger sisters lived, at least some of the time, with their mother.[xxiii] I don’t think it too fanciful to suggest that the younger Louisa Wilkinson may have been painted in Bedford Park – standing amongst bluebells (the image I reproduce is, perforce, cropped) either in the garden of Annie’s house or that of her mother.

A few years earlier Louisa had been recorded in the 1881 census as an art student, exhibited that year in the Dudley Gallery and in 1882 at the Walker Gallery, and later turned her hand to book binding. Thus, it’s fitting she’s depicted wearing Artistic Dress, her loose linen garment, with tucks, shoulder embroidery and bodice smocking, cinched by an embroidered belt,  hinting at an artist’s smock. She wears no necklace or earrings, the illuminated missal offering sufficient jewelled colours. Perhaps she had bound the missal herself.

In 1894 Annie exhibited the portrait again, including it in a Society of Lady Artists exhibition. Fortunately, the review in The Queen allows us to identify this as the same portrait, by including a description of ‘Portrait of Miss Louisa Wilkinson’: ‘a finely executed picture of a lady facing the spectator, holding, apparently, an illuminated missal in her hands. There is a strong sense of harmony in the scheme of colour, in which a reddish-brown costume plays a not inconspicuous part’. [xxiv] The Manchester Evening News described the portrait as a ‘very “new English” full-length study’.[xxv] Although Annie was not elected a member of the New English Art Club until 1909, she had long been responsive to works by such earlier members as George Clausen.

The two paintings, so different in style – that of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson exhibited in 1878 and her daughter, Louisa, in 1889 – are the only two of Annie’s Wilkinson portraits that were exhibited by name. But they are not the only family portraits by her still held by Wilkinson  descendants. As I’m keen to keep supposition separate from known facts, I’m now discussing these separately, rather than inserting them into the known Annie Robinson/Swynnerton chronology.

Jean (on the left) and Gladys Wilkinson (credit Kenneth Northover)

It is possible that the above portrait could have been the first that the Wilkinson family commissioned from Annie. The biographical article published in The Queen mentions that Annie’s ‘.. first picture was a profile picture of a girl’s head, and this she followed with a group, two half-length portraits, called “Gladys and Jean”, which was in the Manchester exhibition.’ 

Gladys and Jean were the youngest members of the Wilkinson family, born in 1863 and 1876. How old do you think they look in this painting? To me it doesn’t seem possible they could be older than 11 and 7 respectively and that, if so, the double portrait must have been painted no later than 1873/1874, before Annie’s departure abroad.[xxvi] Even in this imperfect photo, we can see that the girls’ satin and lace dresses – and the fashionable Japanese fan held by Gladys – have been lovingly detailed by Annie. It seems plausible that the Wilkinson parents would have commissioned a smaller portrait of their youngest daughters, as a test run, before incurring the expense of a full-length painting of their mother.   If The Queen journalist was correctly informed and the painting was indeed exhibited in Manchester, it could have been included in the 1875 Royal Manchester exhibition, the first for which ‘lady exhibitors’, of whom Annie was one, were eligible.[xxvii] Or could it even have been the ‘group in oils’ (which is an echo of  the term used of ‘Gladys and Jean’ in The Queen)for which Annie won her Princess of Wales scholarship in 1873? But that is probably too fanciful – and an illustration of how dangerous it is to view a ‘biography’ through a single  lens.

Fanny Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Kenneth Northover)

Here, now, is the portrait of a demure Fanny Wilkinson that put me on the trail of the cache of ‘Wilkinson’ paintings. Although it probably does carry a date, that cannot be seen at the moment, and, although it’s possible to gauge the age of young children such as Gladys and Jean, it’s more difficult to do so for a young woman. Although I cannot decide whether it was painted before or after Annie’s stay in Rome (1874-6), I think we can be certain that the portrait was painted before the death of Dr Wilkinson in Autumn 1878 and the family’s consequent move from Manchester to Middlethorpe Hall in Yorkshire.

Fanny is depicted as decidedly ‘Artistic’, the sleeves of her dress bound in a quasi-medieval style, a lace fichu flowing  over the bodice, complementing the frothing cuffs. Although we cannot see the whole shape of her dress, it certainly appears more relaxed than her mother’s ruched and flounced costume.  The peacock feathers were, of course, the height of Aesthetic accessorizing. The accomplished painting of the yellow satin and the lace once again advertised the artist’s skill.  I wonder if the portrait was ever exhibited? I don’t think it can be the  ‘profile picture of a girl’s head’ mentioned in the 1890 Queen article – as it’s so much more than ‘a head’.

Louisa Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Kenneth Northover)

This is the last of this particular collection of Wilkinson portraits – a sketch of Louisa in a sun bonnet. It is signed ‘A.L. Swynnerton’ and so can be dated to no earlier than 1883 – and her marriage to Joseph – but could perhaps be any time after 1887 (for in that year she was still signing paintings as ‘Robinson’) but before Louisa’s marriage to George Garrett in 1900 (because the  title on the frame refers to her as ‘Wilkinson’).[xxviii]  

This marriage merely formalised the link between the Garrett and Wilkinson families, the women having already been bound for over two decades in friendship and shared enterprises, with Annie as their preferred portraitist. However, besides the portraits noted above, I knew that Annie Swynnerton had painted another portrait of Louisa Garrett/Wilkinson because I had, very much in passing, seen it when researching Enterprising Women, well over 20 years ago. It was then hanging in a house in Aldeburgh, the home of the widow of a descendant of the wider Garrett family who had inherited ‘Greenheys’ (the Snape home of George and Louisa Garrett). I was there attempting to track down information on the work of Rhoda and Agnes Garret and, although noting the portrait with interest, did not, at the time, record it in any way. But, its existence, if not its form, remained in my memory and in very early 2020, shortly before Covid descended, I set out to try and track it down – and yesterday succeeded.

Louisa Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Peter Wood)

The portrait of Louisa Wilkinson is particularly interesting for having Annie Robinson’s monogram prominently displayed in the top left corner. Moreover, I believe it is the painting, catalogued as ‘Louise’, that Swynnerton exhibited at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, in September 1878. The critic in the Liverpool Mercury (23 September 1878) praised it as ‘A very pleasing and clever picture, unassuming in character of both work and individual; no ostentation, no gilding of nothingness, but a really fine painting. A young and thoughtful face, neat costume, chaste subdued colouring, and good workmanship, make it a work of beauty and promise much to be admired.’

I think, too, that this is ‘Portrait of a Lady’ that Swynnerton exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1879. I make this deduction from an intriguing comment made in the course of an article about Swynnerton that appeared in the 1890 Queen article. In it the writer remarks of her work that ‘An excellent picture, “Louise”, was placed on the line at the RA, this being succeeded by “The Tryst”.’  

It is difficult to interpret this remark. Although ‘The Factory Girl’s Tryst’ was shown at the RA in 1881, preceded in 1879 by ‘Portrait of a Lady’ and in 1880 by ‘Portrait of Miss S. Isabel Dacre’, Annie doesn’t appear ever to have exhibited any ‘Louise’ (or ‘Louisa’) at the RA. Unless, of course, the Queen journalist was told that the 1879 ‘Portrait of a Lady’ was that of a particular ‘Louise’ (or ‘Louisa’), in which case it must surely be the portrait exhibited in Liverpool the previous year.

In 1879 The Athenaeum’s reviewer described the RA portrait as of a ‘lady in a grey citron dress, standing against a grey background [which] shows profitable studies of old Italian portraiture with Dutch vraisemblance, and is the first-rate example of the harmonious treatment of low tints and tones in a manner that is not decorative ‘[xxix] What do  you think? Could this accord with what you see in the portrait of Louisa Wilkinson? After Liverpool in 1878, was she re-shown at the RA in 1879? As we can see, from the three known portraits, Louisa Wilkinson/Garrett was one of Swynnerton’s favourite subjects. If this was the first, Louisa would have been c 19 in 1878, an age consonant with the sitter of ‘Louise’, Knowing that Swynnerton had also recently painted her mother and three of her sisters, it seems entirely credible that this portrait of Louisa would have been painted in 1878 and, hence, that it is the portrait exhibited at the Walker Gallery and the Royal Academy.

I also know that, over the years, Swynnerton painted Louisa Garrett Anderson (daughter of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and niece of Millicent Fawcett) and Rhoda Garrett (cousin and partner of Agnes Garrett), although their whereabouts is not now known. However, in the course of researching this article I think I have made one discovery.

Agnes Garrett by Annie Swynnerton (courtesy of Lacy Scott and Knight)

For, on Jonathan Russell’s excellent website, under details of the paintings shown at the 1923 exhibition of Annie’s works,  I came across this – described as ‘Portrait of a lady standing by flowering ivy’. It was sold, unframed, at auction twice, in quick succession, in 2014.[xxx] I am certain that this is the portrait that Annie painted of Agnes Garrett – at Agnes’ holiday home in Rustington, in the summer of 1885. The subject not only looks like Agnes, but I can see Sussex knapped flints in the wall behind her. This painting was included in the 1923 Manchester exhibition of Annie’s works – and I know that Agnes’ portrait was also there, in Room 7, lent by her sister-in-law, Louisa Garrett. This must surely be it.

In Enterprising Women I describe in detail how the Wilkinsons, the Garretts, and other members of their circle did so much – through their ‘matronage’ – to ensure Annie Swynnerton’s presence on art gallery walls. And she, in turn, has ensured that her friends and associates, as they hang on the walls of family homes, are still known to their descendants.

You can find other posts about Annie Swynnerton on this website by putting ‘The Garretts and their Circle’ into the Searchbox.

For International Women’s Day 2023 the Pre-Raphaelite Society invited me to talk about Annie Swynnerton. You can find the resulting 2 podcasts here.

[i] When, c. 2000, I was researching Enterprising Women:the Garretts and their circle (Francis Boutle, 2002) the I had to visit the Tate storage facility in order to view the Swynnerton portrait of Millicent Fawcett. It was subsequently shown in Wales, at Bodelwydden Castle, but returned to London for the suffrage centenary in 2018.

[ii] M. Terras and E. Crawford (eds), Millicent Garrett Fawcett: selected writings, UCL Press. Free to download https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10149793/1/Millicent-Garret-Fawcett.pdf p 315.

[iii] Daily Herald, 7 May 1930, 1. Swynnerton’s home and studio in 1910 was 1a The Avenue, 76 Fulham Road, London W.

[iv] Information from Francis Robinson’s Articles of Clerkship, 1836 via Ancestry.

[v] I note that the two youngest Robinson daughters were both born in Prestwich. The elder, Mary, was baptised at St Mary’s, Prestwich, on 3 March 1856.

[vi] For something on the history of Prestwich Park see https://www.bury.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=5382&p=0. In the advertisement for the sale of the Robinsons’ household goods in the Manchester Courier, 6 March 1869, the house was described as ‘the second house from the Bottom Lodge, Prestwich Park.

[vii] Manchester Courier,6 March 1869.

[viii] Manchester Courier, 5 June 1869.

[ix] C. Allen and P. Morris, Annie Swynnerton: painter and pioneer, Sarsen Press, 2018, identifies the widowed relation as Francis Robinson’s stepmother

[x]  In 1861 Miss Hannah Dickinson’s Ladies’ College opened at Hill-side House, in Prestwich Park, close to the Robinsons’ home. Although Annie would have been then too old, it’s unlikely that even her younger sisters were pupils, as Its fees, even for day girls, were high, 16-20 guineas per annum. Miss Dickinson stressed that she had chosen Prestwich Park for its ‘beautiful scenery, its rural glens, its retired walks, and salubrious breezes – as well as ‘its kind-hearted inhabitants’. Miss Dickinson, Thoughts on Woman and Her Education, Longman Green, 1861, p2

[xi] The Queen, 15 March 1890.

[xii] No firm, primary, evidence has come to light as to when exactly the sisters – either individually or together – enrolled at the School of Art. However, Allen and Morris (p. 19) have established very persuasively that Emily ‘was certainly there from at least autumn 1868’ and that Annie, too, had probably been enrolled in 1868, and Julia certainly by 1869-70.

[xiii] Manchester Evening News, 20 August 1873.

[xiv] Manchester Courier, 13 July 1874.

[xv] It was only in 1875 that  9 ‘Lady exhibitors’ were elected for the first time – among whom were Annie Robinson and Isabel Dacre.

[xvi] ‘Miss Annie L. Robinson has a large full-length portrait of Mrs. Eason Wilkinson … and although defective in some respects, gives promise of better work in the future.’ (The Manchester Courier, and Lancashire General Advertiser, 8 March 1878.)

[xvii] Rev. Gaskell quoted in B. Brill, William Gaskell, 1805-84: a portrait, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Publications, 110-11.

[xviii] The portrait of the Rev. Gaskell now hangs in the Gaskells’ former home – see https://elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk/

[xix] Manchester Times, 6 October 1877. Dr Wilkinson was that year president of the British Medical Association, whose meeting had been held that summer in Manchester. The portrait bust may have been intended to mark this achievement. I have no knowledge of what has become of it. Swynnerton’s studio was at 35 Barton Arcade. In 1880 the address of the Manchester Society for Women Painters was 10 Barton House, Deansgate, which must have been close to the Arcade.

[xx] Pall Mall Gazette, 1 May 1889. At this time both artist and sitter had moved from Manchester; Annie had a London base at the Avenue Studios, 76 Fulham Road, W. and Louisa Wilkinson was living, with her sister Fanny, at 15 Bloomsbury St, WC.

[xxi] Birmingham Daily Post, 18 May 1889.

[xxii] Annie gave th e St Anne’s Grove address when she submitted work in 1888 to the Society of Women Artists and the Swynnertons were still living there in 1891. However, it is only Annie’s name – and that of her Aunt Mary and their one servant – that appears on the census because the previous page, which must include Joseph as the last entry, is missing – or has been missed when scanning. The page reference that shows Annie’s presence at 18 Queen Anne’s Grove is RG12/1038 folio 8 page 33 schedule 193. Information on the Swynnertons’ occupation of these addresses can be found in the London Electoral Register via Ancestry.

[xxiii] Mrs Wilkinson was living in Bedford Park from at least 1886 and died there in 1889. Her house is only referred to as ‘The Chestnuts’ and I have been unable to discover the exact address.

[xxiv] The Queen, 28 April 1894.

[xxv] Manchester Evening News, 21 April 1894.

[xxvi] The double portrait of ‘Gladys and Jean’ may be dated, but at the moment that information is not accessible.

[xxvii] Alas, I have not yet been able to consult the catalogue for this exhibition. If anyone does know if a portrait by Miss Robinson of two young girls was included do, please, let me know.

[xxviii] For information about the change of signature see  https://annielouisaswynnerton.com/ordered-by-date/ .

[xxix] Thanks to Julie Foster for pinpointing the Liverpool Mercury reference. The Atheneum, 5th and concluding notice of RA Summer Exhibition, 7 June 1879,734.

[xxx] . Unfortunately, neither of the East Anglian auction houses who sold the painting holds records as far back as 2014 and I’ve been unable to discover any more information about the painting, or its current whereabouts.

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Books And Ephemera By And About Women For Sale: Catalogue 208

Posted by womanandhersphere in Books And Ephemera For Sale on March 23, 2023

Woman and her Sphere

Catalogue 208

See # 12

Elizabeth Crawford

5 Owen’s Row

London EC1V 4NP

elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com

This catalogue includes, in the final section, a particularly extensive ‘Women and the First World War’ list.

Index to Catalogue

Suffrage Non-fiction: Items 1-4

Suffrage Biography: Items 5-8

Suffrage Fiction: Items 9-10

Suffrage Ephemera: Items 11-54

Suffrage Postcards: Real Photographic: Items 55-92

Suffrage Postcards: Commercial Comic: Items 93-94

General Non-fiction: Items 95-190

General Biography: Items 191-262

General Ephemera: Items 263-280

General Postcards: Items 281-282

General Vaudeville Sheet Music: Items 283-290

General Fiction: 291-299

Women and the First World War: Non-fiction: Items 300-324

Women and the First World War: Biography & Autobiography 325-339A

Women and the First World War: Ephemera 340

Women and the First World War: Fiction 341-345

Suffrage Non-fiction

1.         CRAWFORD, Elizabeth Art and Suffrage: a biographical dictionary of suffrage artists  Francis Boutle 2018

Discusses the lives and work of over 100 artists, each of whom made a positive contribution to the women’s suffrage campaign. Most, but not all, the artists were women, many belonging to the two suffrage artists’ societies – the Artists’ Suffrage League and the Suffrage Atelier. Working in a variety of media – producing cartoons, posters, banners, postcards, china, and jewellery – the artists promoted the suffrage message in such a way as to make the campaign the most visual of all those conducted by contemporary pressure groups. Mint – NEW

[15387]                                                                                                                        £20

2.         FRIEZE MASTERS Women in Art History   Frieze Masters 2018

Magazine published to coincide with the Frieze Masters Fair, 2018 – the entire issue devoted to ‘women in art history’. Among the several articles is one by Jessica Lack on ‘the role of women artists in promoting the cause of women’s suffrage’. Soft covers – large format – very good – corners a little rubbed

[15215]                                                                                                                          SOLD

3.         KENT, Susan Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860-1914   Princeton University Press 1987

Fine in d/w (which has one slight nick)

[1361]                                                                                                                         £20

4.         STRACHEY, Ray The Cause: a short history of the women’s movement in Great Britain  G. Bell 1928

This copy belonged to Lord McGregor – author of ‘Divorce in England’, a book that includes a very useful bibliography of works on women’s rights. He has laid in the book a collection of newspaper cuttings, from the 1950s to 1970s, relating to the position of women. The copy of the book is in good condition – but he had bought it as an ex-library copy and has added a few pencilled notes on the back pastedown. An interesting association copy.

[12059]                                                                                                                        £55

Suffrage Biography

5.         (DUNIWAY) Ruth Barnes Moynihan Rebel for Rights: Abigail Scott Duniway  Yale University Press 1983

Abigal Scott Duniway (1834-1915), American suffragist, journalist, and national leader.  Fine in d/w

[1205]                                                                                                                           £5

6.         (MILL) John Stuart Mill Autobiography   Longmans, Green 1873

First edition in original green cloth. Internally very good – a little wear at top and bottom of spine

[14974]                                                                                                                        £75

7.         (PANKHURST) David Mitchell Queen Christabel: biography of Christabel Pankhurst   MacDonald and Jane’s 1977

Good in d/w – ex-library, free front end paper removed

[11623]                                                                                                                          £6

8.         (WEBB) Richard Harrison Richard Davis Webb: Dublin Quaker Printer (805-72)   Red Barn Publishing 1993

Webb was a committed anti-slavery campaigner, whose family were very involved in the Irish women’s suffrage campaign. A brief biography. Soft covers – very good condition

[15066]                                                                                                                          £8

Suffrage Fiction

9.         GRAY, LESLEY The King’s Jockey   Solis Press 2013

A novel centring on the life of the jockey who was riding the King’s Horse at the 1913 Derby, colliding with Emily Wilding Davison. Soft covers – fine condition

[15065]                                                                                                                          £5

10.       LUCAS, E.V. Mr Ingleside   Methuen, 15th ed, no date 1910/1912?)

A novel with suffrage scenes.  Only a reading copy – cloth worn – backstrip loose

[14132]                                                                                                                          £4

Suffrage Ephemera

11.       CAZALET, Thelma Mrs Pankhurst    

An article about Mrs Pankhurst by Thelma Cazalet (MP for Islington East) in ‘The Listener’ (6 Nov 1935) in a series ironically titled ‘I Knew A Man’. See also item ??. A 4-pp article – including photographs. The late-lamented ‘The Listener’ was a substantial journal in those days – this issue is 55 pages – in goodish condition – the front page is present but detached.

[14454]                                                                                                                        £28

12.       CERAMIC GEESE MATCH HOLDER      

Three white geese, yellow beaks wide open, the chorus ‘We Want Our Votes’ inscribed on the green base. As described on page 109 of my Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide. Very rare – I think this is the first time I have had this piece in stock this century – and I can find no evidence of another passing through the salerooms in that time. In fine condition

[15382]                                                                                                                   SOLD

13.       DYSON, Will Cartoons   The Daily Herald 1914

A Second Collection of cartoons drawn by the celebrated Australian cartoonist, Will Dyson (1880-1938), and published in ‘The Daily Herald’. Among the 40 are 6 directly related to the suffrage campaign. In fair condition  the middle 2pp have come loose from the staples and the edges are a little rubbed. Could be broken up and the prints framed individually. Large format – 36 x 26 cm – paper covers

[13801]                                                                                                                        SOLD

14.       INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE CONGRESS      

Budapest June 15-20 1913. This is a small advertising paper label/stamp (it has a sticky back) for the Congress – showing two graceful women stretching their arms, to hold hands across the globe. The type-face is very 1913. A pretty and interesting memento of the last pre-war international women’s gathering. Fine -amazingly ephemeral – and  unusual. With the background printed in blue

[14505]                                                                                                                        £85

#15 ‘Les Droits de la Femme en 1900’ cotton scarf

15.       ‘LES DROITS DE LA FEMME EN 1900’      

Commemorative cotton scarf, design originally printed by E. Renault, Rouen – packed with numerous delightful vignettes showing women occuping the man’s sphere. While the men mind the children, women are soldiers (from the lowest ranks to chief of the army), sailors, astronomers, financiers etc etc – and, of course, President of France. Originally printed c 1880, this ‘Reproduction d’un Document du Musée de l’impression de Mulhouse’ (ie Mulhouse Textile Museum) was  issued c. 1970. There has been no reproduction for sale since then.  Approx 80 x 68cm (31.5 x 27ins). Printed in black on white cotton, with border and internal bands in red. A rare piece, even in reproduction, of French ‘Women’s Rights’ ephemera. In fine condition.

[15381]                                                                                                                     SOLD

16.       MARY PHILLIPS ARRESTED IN CHESTER      

She is being frog marched by a policeman as the thronged crowd looks on,  having thrown a bag of flour at a cavalcade of cars, in one of which Asquith was riding. Although sentenced, her fine was paid, against her will, by a local Liberal sympathiser. On the reverse of the photograph is written ‘Please return to S. W. Newsome, 26 West End Lane, NW6’. Stella Newsome was hon sec of the Suffragette Fellowship and this photograph, a good deal battered and still bearing traces of blu tack, was once part of the display in the Suffragette Museum. 16.5 cm x 21 cm – the central image is unimpaired but the edges are frayed and parts of the crowd have lost some surface  – fair only – but interesting

[15343]                                                                                                                        £50

17.       MEMENTO OF WOMEN’S CORONATION PROCESSION TO DEMAND VOTES FOR WOMEN:  Order of March and Descriptive Programme  The Women’s Press 1911

This is the official programme for the spectacular march that was held in London on Saturday June 17 1911. ‘From the Introduction: ‘The March through London of 40,000 women has been arranged to show the strength of the deman to win Votes for Women in Coronaton year. The Procession will form up on Westminster Embankment, starting at 5.30pm and marching seven abreast in a line some five miles long, through Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall, Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, to Kensington. At the close of the march a great meeting will be held by the Women’s Social and Political Union in the Albert Hall…’ The programme lists all the suffrage societies taking part and describes in detail the different sections – such as the Prisoners’ Pageant and the Historical Pageant. The ‘Order of March’ is inset. The decorative cover is printed in greeen on good quality thick paper, In good condition – with a little rusting at the staples- a very scarce item.

[15320]                                                                                                                   SOLD

18.       MISS EMILY FAITHFULL      

studio photograph by W & D Downey, 57 & 61 Ebury Street, London, together with a printed brief biography.

[14029]                                                                                                                        £40

19.       MISS MORGAN, OF BRECON The Duties of Citizenship   Women’s Local Government Society c 1912

Extracts reprinted from a paper read at the Annual Conference of the National Union of Women Workers, Manchester, October 27th 1896. By the time this leafet was issued Miss Morgan had been Mayor of Brecon, 1911-12. 4-pp – good – withdrawn from the Women’s Library

[13833]                                                                                                                          £5

20.       MRS DESPARD      

portrait photograph by Lena Connell, 50 Grove End Road, NW – mounted on stiff brown card – published by The Suffrage Shop, the card embossed with the shop’s monogram. This once belonged to Joan Wickham (Mrs Pankhurst’s secretary).. Fine

[15159]                                                                                                                      £120

21.       PUNCH CARTOON      

21 January 1912 – full page – ‘The Suffrage Split’. Sir George Askwith (the charismatic industrial conciliator), as ‘Fairy Peacemaker’, has tamed the dragon of the Cotton Strike – and Asquith, wrestling to keep a seat on the Cabinet horse turns to him ‘Now that you’ve charmed yon dragon I shall need ye to stop the strike inside this fractious gee-gee.’

[14323]                                                                                                                        £12

22.       PUNCH CARTOON      

30 Nov 1910, scene is a suffragette demonstration, ‘Votes for Women’ flags flying. Two young street urchins observe and comment.  Caption is ‘Man of the World (lighting up), “Well ‘ave to give it ’em, I expect, Chorlie”‘. Half-page illustration

[14324]                                                                                                                        £12

23.       PUNCH CARTOON      

18 April 1906. ‘A Temporary Entaglement’ – a scene from ‘Vanity Fair’. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman as Josh Sedley holds the wool as The Suffragette (aka Becky Sharp) winds it into a ball. The allusion is to the news that ‘The Prime Minister has promised to receive a deputation on the subject of Female Suffrage after Easter’. Full-page cartoon by Bernard Partridge

[14333]                                                                                                                        £12

24.       PUNCH CARTOON      

5 October 1927. As a young woman takes her gun from the ghillie an elderly gentleman (the Conservative Party) looks concerned and remarks ‘I hope she’s got enough ‘intuition’ not to let it off in my direction’. The remark is explained: ‘The question of extended suffrage for women [ie for those between 21 and 30] [in whose ‘intuition’ Mr Baldwin reposes so much confidence will be raised in the approaching Conference of the Conservative Party]. Full page

[14334]                                                                                                                        £12

25.       PUNCH CARTOON      

23 May 1928. A gentleman identified as Lord Banbury kneels in a ring (it’s an allusion to the Royal Tournament which was doubtless on at the time) and opens his umbrella to defend himself against the horde of cloche-hatted women who are rushing towards him carrying their flag for the ‘Equal Franchise Bill’. In the debate on the Representation of the People Act on 21 May 1928 Lord Banbury had attempted to move its rejection. Full-page cartoon – good – one corner creased

[14335]                                                                                                                        £12

26.       PUNCH CARTOON      

26 March 1913. ‘Burglary Up-To-Date’. Burglar has taken his swag from a safe and now writes ‘Votes for Women’ across the jemmied door. Half-page cartoon – good condition

[14343]                                                                                                                        £10

27.       PUNCH CARTOON      

19 March 1913. At a railway wayside halt the stationmaster asks the signalman to keep an eye on ‘the ole gal on the platform’ while he has his dinner. The signalman doesn’t think she’ll come to any harm but the stationmaster explains ‘I’m not thinkin’ of ‘er ‘ealth. I’m thinkin’ about my station. She might want to burn it down.’ Half-page cartoon – very good

[14344]                                                                                                                        £10

28.       PUNCH CARTOON      

5 March 1913. ‘The child is daughter to the woman’ is the caption. Suffragette mother returns after a strenuous day and is expecting some important correspondence. Her daughter, however, reveals she has torn up the letters to provide a paperchase for her dolls. Mother expostulates: ‘..Haven’t I often told you that letters are sacred things?’ A comment on suffragette attacks on post-boxes. A half-page cartoon – very good

[14345]                                                                                                                        £10

29.       PUNCH CARTOON      

5 February 1913. ‘How Militant Suffragettes Are Made’. A cheeky caddie explains to a visiting golfer that the old green they are passsing gets flooded and ‘so they’ve give it up to the lydies.’ A half-page cartoon – very good

[14347]                                                                                                                        £10

30.       PUNCH CARTOON      

29 January 1913. ‘Rag-Time in the House’ is the caption. Members of the government are enjoying the ‘Suffrage Free & Easy Go As You Please’ dance.  Asquith, with an ‘Anti’ label, is keeping an eye on Lloyd George (wearing a ‘Pro’ armband) jitterbugs with Sir Edward. The sub-text is ‘Sir Edward Grey’s Woman Suffrage Amendment produces some curious partnerships’. Full-page cartoon – very good

[14349]                                                                                                                        £12

31.       PUNCH CARTOON      

23 June 1912. ‘Votes for Men and Women’ is the caption. John Bull is sitting comfortably and turns round as Nurse Asquith enters carrying a baby labelled ‘Franchise Bill’. In answer to JB’s query ‘she’ replies: ‘Well, Sir, it’s certainly not a girl, and I very much doubt if it’s a boy’. The government’s Franchise and Registration bill was given its first Reading on 18 June 1912. Full-page cartoon – very good

[14350]                                                                                                                        £12

32.       PUNCH CARTOON      

27 March 1912. A young suffragette is standing on a table addressing a crowd: ‘I defy anyone to name a field of endeavour in which men do not receive more consideration than women!’ A Voice from the Crowd retorts: ‘What about the bally ballet!’  A half-page cartoon – very good

[14351]                                                                                                                        £10

33.       PUNCH CARTOON      

7 December 1910. ‘Voter’s Vertigo’ is the caption. It is the second general election of 1910 and the voter is all in a tizz..muddling up all the campaign slogans..(e’g. ‘don’t tax the poor man’s dreadnought’ and ‘home rule for suffragettes’). A quarter of a page cartoon – very good

[14352]                                                                                                                          £8

34.       QUESTIONS TO LLOYD GEORGE ASKED BY THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION      

11 questions concerning his behaviour re introducing a Government measure for Manhood Suffrage in 1913…Among the many other pertinent questions ‘Why do you expect us to accept your personal and unofficial advocacy of Woman Suffrage as a substitute for united and offiicial action on the part of the Government as a whole? In good condition – some creasing. 2-sided leaflet, printed in purple

[15006]                                                                                                                      £100

35.       SUFFRAGETTE CHINA – ‘ANGEL OF FREEDOM’ DESIGN      

Saucer (12.25cm) made by Williamsons of Longton for the WSPU in 1909, initially for use in the refreshment room of the Prince’s Skating Rink Exhibition and then sold in aid of funds. The white china has strikingly clean, straight lines and is rimmed in dark green. Each piece carries the motif, designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, of the ‘angel of freedom’ blowing her trumpet and flying the banner of ‘Freedom. In the background are the intitials ‘WSPU’ set against dark prison bars, surrounded by the thistle, shamrock and rose, and dangling chains. For more information on the WSPU china see my website – http://tinyurl.com/o4whadq. This piece originally belonged to a well-known suffragette. In very good condition – would be ‘fine’ but the ‘Angel of Freedom’ motif is very slightly faded

[14751]                                                                                                                      £350

36.       SUFFRAGETTE CHINA – ‘ANGEL OF FREEDOM’ DESIGN      

Saucer (12.25cm) made by Williamsons of Longton for the WSPU in 1909, initially for use in the refreshment room of the Prince’s Skating Rink Exhibition and then sold in aid of funds. The white china has strikingly clean, straight lines and is rimmed in dark green. Each piece carries the motif, designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, of the ‘angel of freedom’ blowing her trumpet and flying the banner of ‘Freedom. In the background are the intitials ‘WSPU’ set against dark prison bars, surrounded by the thistle, shamrock and rose, and dangling chains. For more information on the WSPU china see my website – http://tinyurl.com/o4whadq. This piece originally belonged to a well-known suffragette. In very good condition – would be ‘fine’ but there is a  small crack to the surface of the saucer. This slight blemish does not penetrate through to the reverse.

[14752]                                                                                                                      £200

#37 WSPU side plate

37.       SUFFRAGETTE CHINA – ‘ANGEL OF FREEDOM’ DESIGN      

Side plate (17 cm) made by Williamsons of Longton for the WSPU in 1909, initially for use in the refreshment room of the Prince’s Skating Rink Exhibition and then sold in aid of funds. The white china has strikingly clean, straight lines and is rimmed in dark green. Each piece carries the motif, designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, of the ‘angel of freedom’ blowing her trumpet and flying the banner of ‘Freedom. In the background are the intitials ‘WSPU’ set against dark prison bars, surrounded by the thistle, shamrock and rose, and dangling chains. For more information on the WSPU china see my website – http://tinyurl.com/o4whadq. This piece originally belonged to a well-known suffragette. In fine condition

[14756]                                                                                                                      £650

#38 WSPU saucer

38.       SUFFRAGETTE CHINA – ‘ANGEL OF FREEDOM’ DESIGN      

Saucer (12.25cm) made by Williamsons of Longton for the WSPU in 1909, initially for use in the refreshment room of the Prince’s Skating Rink Exhibition and then sold in aid of funds. The white china has strikingly clean, straight lines and is rimmed in dark green. Each piece carries the motif, designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, of the ‘angel of freedom’ blowing her trumpet and flying the banner of ‘Freedom. In the background are the intitials ‘WSPU’ set against dark prison bars, surrounded by the thistle, shamrock and rose, and dangling chains. For more information on the WSPU china see my website – http://tinyurl.com/o4whadq. This piece originally belonged to a well-known suffragette Mrs Rose Lamartine Yates. In fine condition

[15058]                                                                                                                      £450

39.       ‘SUFFRAGETTES’ CORONATION DEMONSTRATION’ BOADICEA AND HER TWO ATTENDANTS’      

Boadicea is on horseback, her hair in two very long plaits, attended by, presumably, two men of her Iceni tribe. The part of Boadicea was played by Miss Florence Parbury. Crowds line the procession route.Photograph by General Press Photo Company Ltd, 2 Breams’ Buildings, Chancery Lane. The image is very good, the edges of the 16.5 cm x photo a little frayed

[15341]                                                                                                                      £320

40.       TEN MAGIC LANTERN SLIDES ‘The Suffragettes’ Ruse & How Bobby Peeler Foiled Them’    

The slides tell a neat little story of an attempt by suffragettes to infiltrate Parliament from the Thames. Hiding in barrels, they plan to be unloaded onto the Terrace – but two burly policemen, alert to the inability of women to resist the joys of a ‘fashion paper’, entice them out – and haul them off to Cannon [sic] Row police station.  The illustrations are lovely – beautifully drawn and delicately coloured. An allusion is made on the title slide to ‘The Graphic’. The Lucerna Magic Lantern Web Resource (University of Exeter) notes the set as manufactured no later than 1907 by York & Son, based in Bayswater, London. One of the partners, William York, was a ‘photographic artist’ and may possibly have been responsible for this topical number. 10 glass slides, each 3¼ inches (83mm) square and edged with passepartout.Slide no 6 has a little fracture across the top right corner (held with the passepartout) and slide 8 has a superficial crack (without breaking the glass) – all in all these humourous lantern slides – a complete set  – are in amazingly good condition considering their age and fragility. I have never before, in nearly 30 years of immersion in suffrage ephemera as researcher and dealer, seen this set -or, indeed, any other suffragette lantern-slide story. In fact, ‘The Suffragettes’ Ruse’ is the only suffrage-related item on the Lucerna website. Extremely rare

[15388]                                                                                                                   SOLD

41.       THAT RAGTIME SUFFRAGETTE SHEET MUSIC    B. Feldman & Co c 1913

written by Harry Williams and Nat D. Ayer and originally heard in the 1913 Ziegfeld Follies. It was recorded c 1913/14 by Warwick Green – a British comic singer – to very great effect, although I think he omits the second verse, which is printed in this sheet music. You can hear Warwick Green singing ‘That Ragtime Suffragette’ on youtube. I think it’s wonderful – so evocative- ‘Ragging with bombshells and ragging with bricks/ Hagging and nagging in politics’. The 4-pp of sheet music is printed ‘Professional Copy’ – in good condition, a little rubbed and scuffed; I’m sure it has been well played. Very scarce.

[15319]                                                                                                                   SOLD

42.       THE CONCILIATION BILL EXPLAINED      

Leaflet headed ‘Votes for Women’, probably dating from 1910. settng out the contents of the Conciliation Bill, which had passed its Second Reading in July 1910, and explaining details,such as which groups of women would be enfranchised under tis terms. Printed by Baines and Scarsbrook, 75 Fairfax Road, South Hampstead and with the rubber stamp of the WFL [Women’s Freedom League] 1 Robert St, Adelphi. In pristine condition, having been found laid betwen the pages of a book.

[15036]                                                                                                                      £120

43.       THE FIGHTING SEX      

This issue of the part-work ‘History of the 20th Century’ includes a section on the suffrage campaign – written by Trevor Lloyd (author of ‘Suffragettes International’). Paper covers – large format

[14074]                                                                                                                          £5

44.       ‘THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN’      

‘Dedicated to the Women’s Social and Political Union’ by its composer, Ethel Smyth. This is an example of the ‘Popular Edition in F. (For meetings and processions, to be sung in unison)’. The 4-page song sheet, containing both music and the words, the latter written by Cicely Hamilton, was published by Breitkopf & Hartel of 54 Great Marlborough Stree, London W and was ‘To be had of The Woman’s Press, 156 Charing Cross Road, London, W.C.’ Price Threepence. ‘The March of the Women’ was premiered at a WSPU meeting, held on 21 Jan 1911 to celebrate the release from prison of WSPU militants. The back cover lists ‘Works by Ehtel Smyth, Mus. Doc.’.  The song-sheet has been folded and is a little rubbed and marked, having presumably been put to its intended use at some WSPU rally, but is in generally good condition. Very scarce

[15315]                                                                                                                   SOLD

45.       ‘THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN’      

supplement to ‘The Graphic’, 1885, heralding the supplements to be issued in Nov and Dec 1885 on ‘Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days’. As its advertisement for the series The Graphic has chosen to use George Cruickshank’s ”The Rights of Women; or a view of the hustings with female suffrage, 1853.’ We see on the hustings the two candidates –  ‘The Ladies’ Candidate’- Mr Darling’ and ‘The Gentleman’s Candidate – Mr Screwdriver – the great political economist’. Elegant Mr Darling is surrounded by ladies in bonnets and crinolines – Mr Screwdriver by ill-tempered-looking boors. The audience contains many women accompanied, presumably, by their husbands who are holding aloft a ‘Husband and Wife Voters’ banner. Another banner proclaims the existence of ‘Sweetheart Voters’ and riding in their midst is a knight in armour holding a ‘Vote for the Ladies’ Champion’ pennant. There do not appear to be many supporters of the opposition.

Single sheet 28 cm x 20.5 cm – a little foxed around the edges of the paper but barely afffecting the good, clear image of Crucikshank’s cartoon.

[13690]                                                                                                                      £160

46.       ‘THE WOMEN’S MARSEILLAISE’      

Written by Florence Macaulay (1862-1945), one-time student at Somerville College, Oxford, and an organiser for the WSPU. ‘The Women’s Marseillaise’, a marching song, was written in 1909 and begins ‘Arise, ye daughters of a land/That vaunts its liberty’. This single sheet is headed ‘The National Women’s Social & Political Union 4 Clement’s Inn, Strand, W.C.’ and was printed by ‘Geo. Barber,The Furnival Press, E.C.’ The sheet was clearly used for the purpose intended, has been folded, with a slight split at the edges of the fold. In good condition – very scarce

[15314]                                                                                                                   SOLD

47.       THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION – VOTES FOR WOMEN – ALL WOMEN ARE INVITED TO BE PRESENT AT THE PARLIAMENT OF WOMEN      

to be held in the Caxton Hall, Westminster, on February 11, 12 and 13. Session each afternoon, 3-6. Evening meeting, 8-10. Chairman: Mrs Pankhurst.’ The year is 1908. The single-sheet leaflet, issued by the WSPU and printed by Geo. Barber, The Furnival Press, then sets out arrangements for other meetings to be given in the forthcoming weeks. In goodish condition – a little loss to paper on one side, with no loss of text

[15325]                                                                                                                      £350

48.       ‘VOTES FOR WOMEN’ to be sung to the tune of ‘Bonnie Dundee’    

Songsheet, – the words of a song adapted from a poem by Sir Walter Scott, to be sung to the tune of ‘Bonnie Dundee’. It begins ‘To the Lords of Westminster ’twas the suffragette spoke:-/Put us in the King’s Speech, and give us the Vote,/Let each mother’s son who loves freedom to see,/Cry ‘Votes for the Women’ let Britons be free!’. No publisher or society is credited as issuing of the songsheet, which was in circulation by April 1908.(because Campbell-Bannerman is cited, still prime minister). So quite an early example of a suffrage songsheet. Good -single sheet – some foxing

[15309]                                                                                                                   SOLD

#49 ‘A Deputation to the House of Commons’

49.       VOTES FOR WOMEN – A DEPUTATION OF WOMEN WILL PROCEED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS      

to interview Mr Asquith and Mr Lloyd George, on Tuesday, Nov 21st at 8 o’clock, to protest against a Bill to give votes to all men being introduced by a Government that excludes all women from the vote’. The year is 1911. Set out in the leaflet is a invitation by Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, who was to lead the deputation, to members of the public to come along to Parliament Square ‘to see fair play’ and to ‘protect women from being brutally vitimized by police in uniform and in plain clothes as they were on Black Friday (November 18th 1910)’. The leaflet was issued by the WSPU and printed in green, on white paper, by Geo Barber, The Furnival Press. In very good condition

[15329]                                                                                                                      £400

#50 Royal Albert Hall Demonstration

50.       VOTES FOR WOMEN – THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION – A WOMEN’S DEMONSTRATION IN THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, ON SATURDAY, JUNE 15TH, 1912 AT 8PM      

Mabel Tuke is in the chair (in the enforced absences of Mrs Pankhurst and Mrs Pethick-Lawrence) and the speakers were T.M. Healy, the barrister and MP who had defended Mrs Pethick-Lawrence at her trial for conspiracy in March, Elizabeth Robins, Annie Kenney and Mrs Mansell-Moullin. Newspaper reports show that there was a febrile atmosphere at this demonstration, with messages read out from prisoners who were being held, on hunger strike. This 4-pp card contains a long list of  the ‘Suffragist Prisoners Still Under Sentence’, with the date of their arrest, the length of their sentence and the prison in which they were held. The back cover consists of a form on which a promise of a donation to the WSPU could be made. Very good – most unusual. I don’t remember having seeing an item such as this previously.

[15330]                                                                                                                      £600

51.       WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION SONG SHEET      

Headed ‘Votes for Women’ and ‘The National Women’s Social & Political Union, 4, Clement’s Inn, Strand, W.C.’, the 4-page pamphlet contains the words of  6 songs. They are: 1) The Women’s Marseillaise by F.E.M. Macaulay 2) Rise Up Women (to the tune ‘John Brown’) by Theodora Mills 3) Women of England (to the tune ‘Men of Harlech’ 4) In the Morning (to the tune ‘John Peel’) by Theodora Mills 5) As I Came Through Holloway (to the tune ‘The Keel Row’) 6) Women of To-Day (which begins ‘The blood of maryrs is the seed from which the churches sprung,/We suffer now our martyrdom when into prison flung/’).Printed by St Clement’s Press and published by the WSPU). This songsheet probably dates from c 1908. In very good condition – very scarce

[15316]                                                                                                                   SOLD

52.       WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION  – VOTES FOR WOMEN – A DEPUTATION OF WOMEN WILL GO TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON TUESDAY, JUNE 29TH AT 8 O’CLOCK TO SEE THE PRIME MINISTER      

and lay before him their demand for the Vote. The right to do this is secured to them by the Bill of Rights….’ In the event many women were arrested, although most of them had their cases adjourned ‘sine die’. Some, charged with stone throwing, were imprisoned and were some of the first women to go on hunger strike in Holloway. The case of Mrs Pankhurst and Mrs Evelina Haverfield, judged to be the leaders of the protest and who pleaded their protest was within the terms of the Bill of Rights, was adjourned until the end of the year. Flyer, issued by the WSPU and printed in black on white paper by the St Clements Press, Portugal Street. In good condition – the year ‘1909’ has been added in pencil after ‘June 29th’ – extremely scarce

[15321]                                                                                                                      £400

53.       WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION ‘VOTES FOR WOMEN’ LEAFLET NO. 61      

This double-sided leaflet is devoted to publishing Laurence Housman’s ditty ‘Woman This, and Woman That’, an ‘Echo of a ‘Barrack-room Ballad, with acknowledgments to Mr Rudyard Kipling’. It begins ‘We went up to Saint Stephens, with petitions year by year;/’Get out!’ the politicians cried, ‘we want no women here!’/ and was avery popular party-piece at WSPU gatherings. Perhaps its most famous rendition was by actress Decima Moore on the night of the 1911 census, when her audience comprised c 500 suffragettes evading the enumerator in the Aldwych Skating Rink.  This leaflet is headed with full details of the WSPU office and leading personnel and was printed by the St Clement’s Press, Portugal Street (now the site of the LSE Library). Like many such ephemeral pieces, it has been folded – presumably in use at a WSPU gathering – with a slight split along a fold – but no loss of text. Although fragile, it is actually in quite good condition, considering its age and purpose

[15317]                                                                                                                      £150

#54 WSPU Neck Piece

54.       WSPU NECK PIECE      

A length of purple, white, and green woven ribbon, from which gold tassels dangle from the two ends. I hardly like to call it a tie, as this gives the wrong impression – but it was worn around the neck, as modelled by Christabel Pankhurst on 13 October 1908, when being arrested by Inspector Jarvis, along with her mother and Flora Drummond, in Clements Inn. The item is in fine condition, with no fraying, the colours vibrant. I have never seen one of these for sale before. I am including with the piece, for the sake of provenance, a comic suffragette postcard, postmarked 1913 and addressed to Miss Chapman, together with an original real photographic postcard depicting, as mentioned above, Christabel Pankhurst wearing just such a neck piece..

[15106]                                                                                                                   £3,000

Suffrage Postcards – Real Photographic

55.       ANNIE KENNEY      

– an early postcard, I think, No photographer or publisher is credited. She is wearing a blouse with elaborate lace yoke and deep lace cuffs – and is standing behind a chair. She looks very youthful. It was probably Miss Chapman who wrote on the reverse ‘Miss Annie Kenney’. Very good – on good, thick card – unposted

[15109]                                                                                                                      £120

56.       CHRISTABEL PANKHURST      

photographed by Lambert Weston and Son, 27 New Bond St. I think the card dates from c 1907/8. Fine – unposted

[13616]                                                                                                                        £45

57.       CHRISTABEL PANKHURST      

black and white photograph of the portrait of Christabel by Ethel Wright, with Christabel’s printed signature along the bottom of the card. The card will date from c 1909, when the portrait was first exhibited. Having been owned by the family of Una Dugdale since that time, the portrait was bequeathed to the National Portrait Gallery in 2011 and is on permanent display. This postcard – which is in fair condition (it has a diagonal crease across the centre)  comes from Miss Chapman’s collection and is unposted. It represents one of the WSPU’s ingenious methods of fund-raising.

[15111]                                                                                                                        £20

58.       CHRISTABEL PANKHURST      

photographed probably post-First World War – I have seen an image on Google images that may be from the same sitting and is dated to 1926.. She is shown in profile, wearing a blouse with a wide collar. The image is set in an oval, on stiff brown card – rather like that used by Lena Connell, but no photographer is noted. The card was once owned by Joan Wickham. An unusual image. Fine – unposted

[15153]                                                                                                                      £120

59.       COUNTESS RUSSELL      

real photographic postcard – headed ‘Votes for Women’ of ‘Countess Russell Member of National Executive Committee Women’s Freedom League’. The card depicts Mollie Russell photographed in a studio setting.. She was the second wife of Frank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell, the elder brother of Bertrand. Mollie was described by George Santyana as ‘a fat, florid Irishwoman, with black curls, friendly manners and emotional opinions: a political agitator and reformer.’ The photograph in no way belies the physical description. She and Russell were divorced in 1915.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted – scarce

[14612]                                                                                                                        £25

60.       DR THEKLA HULTIN      

Portrait photograph, published by the Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert St, Adelphi, and headed ‘Votes for Women’. The portrait is captioned ‘Dr Thekla Hultin, Member of the Finnish Diet’. Thekla Hultin was the first elected woman member of Parliament to speak at a suffrage meeting in Britain. From Miss Chapman’s collection. Fine – unposted

[15123]                                                                                                                      £120

61.       EMMELINE PETHICK LAWRENCE      

Captioned ‘Mrs Pethick Lawrence. The National Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clements Inn, WC’ – she is wearing a coat with a heavy fur collar and lapels and is standing with her hands in her pockets. Published by Sandle Bros. A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. In fine condition – unposted

[14571]                                                                                                                        £25

62.       EMMELINE PETHICK LAWRENCE      

The photo is captioned ‘Mrs Pethick Lawrence Joint Editor of ‘Votes for Women’, Honorary Treasurer, National Women’s Social and Political Union. 4 Clement’s Inn.’ The photographer, F. Kehrhahn, has an entry in my ‘Art and Suffrage: a biographical dictionary of suffrage artists’. Fine – unposted

[14574]                                                                                                                        £25

63.       LADY CONSTANCE LYTTON      

real photographic postcard- issued by the ‘Women’s Social and Political Union’. She is sitting at her desk looking at a book.  Glossy photograph by Lafayette. This card was purchased in the International Suffrage Shop at 15 Adam St, just off the Strand and was sent to France by Helene Putz, who lived at 10a Belsize Parade, Haverstock Hill, London NW. The 1911 census finds her living there, aged 60, and working as a foreign correspondent – dealing with patent medicines. The message, written in French, tells the recipient that Lady Con is another of the important women working ‘pour la franchise’.

[14694]                                                                                                            £120

64.       MISS ALICE SCHOFIELD (Organiser) Women’s Freedom League    WFL 

An early WFL card – the address printed on the card is 18 Buckingham Street, Strand (ie before the move to 1 Robert St in 1908). Alice Schofield, influenced by Teresa Billington, had been a very early member of the WSPU, but with Teresa left the WSPU in 1907 and by 1908 was a paid WFL organizer.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson.. A scarce card – in fine unposted condition

[14554]                                                                                                                      £120

65.       MISS CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, LLB      

Captioned ‘National Union of Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clement’s Inn, WC’. She is wearing a brooch that may have been designed by   C.R. Ashbee.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14599]                                                                                                                        £25

66.       MISS CICELY HAMILTON      

‘Member of the Executive Committee of the Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert St, Adelphi, London WC’. The photograph is by Elliot and Fry – published by the London Council of the Women’s Freedom League.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14600]                                                                                                                        £65

67.       MISS CICELY HAMILTON      

member of the National Executive Committee, WFL. office 18 Buckingham Street, Strand, London. 30 Gordon Street, Glasgow.’ An early card – published by the Women’s Freedom League not long after their break with the WSPU and before they moved into their Robert Street office. Cicely Hamilton faces straight on to the camera.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson.. Fine – unposted – scarce

[14633]                                                                                                                        £45

68.       MISS GLADICE KEEVIL      

Portrait photograph of Gladys Keevil ‘National Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clement’s Inn, WC’. The photographer was Lena Connell, who, in an interview in the Women’s Freedom League paper, ‘The Vote’, dated her involvement with the suffrage movement to this commission – photographing Gladice Keevil soon after her release from prison in 1908. Gladice was considered one of the prettiest of the WSPU organisers. You can read about her in my ‘Reference Guide’.  In fine conition – unposted. Unusual

[14918]                                                                                                                      £120

69.       MISS MARGUERITE SIDLEY      

Photograph by Foulsham and Banfield, headed ‘Votes for Women’ and captioned ‘Women’s Freedom League’ 1 Robert St, Adelphi, London W.C.,’ She wears, I think, the WFL ‘Holloway’ badge at ther throat and, certainly, a WFL flag brooch on her bosom. She had joined the WSPU in London in 1907, working for some time in the London office and then as a peripatetic organizer  before leaving the WSPU to do the same kind of work for the Women’s Freedom League.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – scarce – unposted

[14643]                                                                                                                        £65

70.       MRS AMY SANDERSON      

Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London WC. She had been a member of the WSPU, and, as such had endured one term of :imprisonment, before helping to found the WFL in 1907. She is, I think, wearing her  WFL Holloway brooch in the photograph. Card, published by WFL, is from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson..Fine – unusual – unposted

[14636]                                                                                                                        £65

71.       MRS BORRMANN WELLS    WFL 

Headed ‘Votes for Women’ and captioned ‘Women’s Freedom League. Offices: 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London WC’. Bettina Borrmann Wells was born in Bavaria c 1875 and in 1900 married an Englishman, Clement Wells. She joined the WSPU in 1906- but by 1908 had left to join the WFL. She was imprisoned for 3 weeks in Oct 1908 after demonstrating at Westminster.  The Hodgson Collection contains a (different) postcard from Bettina Borrmann Wells to ‘Miss Hodgson’ asking for help with ‘special work’, which may be the picketing  She later spent much of her life in the US. A striking photo- she’s rather magnificently dressed.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. In fine condition -unusual –  unposted

[15005]                                                                                                                      £120

72.       MRS CHARLOTTE DESPARD      

photographed in profile  -seated. A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14580]                                                                                                                        £25

73.       MRS CHARLOTTE DESPARD      

studio photograph. She is seated and facing the camera, looking wry. No photographer, publisher or suffrage affiliation given. A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14591]                                                                                                                        £25

74.       MRS COBDEN SANDERSON    WFL 

Mrs Cobden Sanderson is shown, head and shoulders, in profile on this most unusual card. The photo is by Max Parker and the caption is: ‘Mrs Cobden Sanderson. Women’s Freedom League’. I would imagine that this is quite an early card -c 1908. Fine – unposted

[14965]                                                                                                                      £120

75.       MRS DESPARD      

Photograph of her in profile.  The card is headed ‘Votes for Women’ and underneath her name is the caption ‘Hon. Treas. Women’s Freedom League Offices: 18 Buckingham St., Strand. 20 Gordon St, Glasgow’ The card dates from after 1910, when she took over the treasureship of the WFL. Very good – unposted

[14569]                                                                                                                        £25

76.       MRS DESPARD      

photographed by Alice Barker of Kentish Town Road and published by the Women’s Freedom League. A head and shoulders portrait in profile. A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14592]                                                                                                                        £25

77.       MRS DESPARD      

photographed by M.P. Co (Merchant’s Portrait Co). ‘President, The Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London W.C.). She is sitting in an armless chair – with her left arm leaning on a table.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14616]                                                                                                                        £25

78.       MRS E. HOW-MARTYN      

photographed by M.P.Co (Merchant’s Portrait Co) as ‘Hon. Sec Women’s Freedom League’. It seems to me that for this photograph she wearing the ‘Holloway’ badges issued to erstwhile prisoners by both the WSPU and the WFL.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14609]                                                                                                                        £65

79.       MRS EDITH HOW-MARTYN      

Hon Sec Women’s Freedom League, ARCS, BSc – photographic postcard headed ‘Votes for Women’. Photographed by Ridsdale Cleare of Lower Clapton Road. A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14594]                                                                                                                        £65

80.       MRS EMMELINE PANKHURST      

photograph by F. Kehrhahn & Co, Bexleyheath. She is wearing one of the WSPU shield-shaped badges – and looks very beautiful. The sitter isn’t identified, but Mrs Pankhurst is unmistakable.  The photograph had been taken at the same time – or had been cropped from and reproduced as a separate image – as a full length portrait (#14536). The card was published by Kehrhahn – about whom you can find out more here https://wp.me/p2AEiO-ge. Unusual – probably dates from c 1909. In fine condition

[14534]                                                                                                                      £100

81.       MRS EMMELINE PANKHURST      

no photographer or publisher given. She sites in a high-backed chair wearing a dress with heavily embroidered sleeves and bodice. Her right hand rests on her cheek.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson. Fine – unposted

[14640]                                                                                                                        £45

82.       MRS EMMELINE PANKHURST      

studio portrait photograph by F. Kehrhahn, Bexleyheath, possibly dating from c. 1912-1914. A head-and shoulders image – she is wearing an evening-style dress, a rather magnificent necklace, and a decorative band across her hair. It is an unusual image of her, taken by a photographer who often photographed WSPU occasions (or a post about Kehrhahn on my website see https://wp.me/p2AEiO-ge). Interestingly, although so recognisable, the card doesn’t carry her name – or any link to the WSPU. On the reverse of the card is written ‘Mrs Pankhurst’. It was once owned by Joan Wickham. Fine – unposted

[15152]                                                                                                                      £120

83.       MRS HENRY FAWCETT, LL.D.      

photographed by Elliott and Fry in c 1909. She is sitting, full length, seen in profile. From Miss Chapman’s collection. Although the image is familiar I do not appear to have had a copy of this postcard in stock previously. The NUWSS issued far fewer postcards than did the WSPU so are relatively scarce – and this card doesn’t even mention her association with the NUWSS. Very good – unposted

[15127]                                                                                                                        £60

84.       MRS LILIAN M. HICKS      

– photographed by Lena Connell – an official Women’s Freedom League photographic postcard. Mrs Hicks had been an early member of the WSPU, but left to join the WFL in the 1907 split, returning in 1910 to the WSPU. Fine – unposted

[14533]                                                                                                                        £35

85.       MRS MASSY      

photographic portrait, taken by Rita Martin and captioned ‘Mrs Massy. National Women’s Social and Political Union, 4, Clements Inn, W.C.’. Mrs Rosamund Massy (1870-1947) probably joined the WSPU in 1908 and in Nov 1909 was imprisoned for the first time, In Nov 1910 she served a month in Holloway after breaking a window during the ‘Black Friday’ debacle. When, in 1928, Mrs Pankhurst stood for election in Whitechapel Mrs Massy, although not a Conservative, gave her every support and it was Mrs Massy’s hunger strike medal and Holloway badge that it was, it is believed, placed in a casket in the plinth of Mrs Pankhurst’s statue when it was first erected in Victoria Tower Gardens. Fine – unposted – unusual

[15189]                                                                                                                      £140

86.       MRS PANKHURST      

Full-lenth portrait by F. Kehrhahn of Bexleyheath.- captioned ‘Mrs Pankhurst’ She is wearing a WSPU badge and holds a dangling lorngnette in one hand while the other rests on an open book, is wearing a WSPU badge. Very good – unposted

[14536]                                                                                                                        £40

87.       MRS PANKHURST      

photographed sitting, turning towards the camera with an open book in her hand. A long, pale stole is draped over her shoulders. A studio portrait, though no photographer is noted. ‘Votes for Women’ is the heading and the caption is ‘Mrs Pankhurst, The Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clement’s Inn, Strand, WC’. This card dates from the early days of the WSPU in London, c 1907. From Miss Chapman’s collection. Very good – unposted

[15138]                                                                                                                        £55

88.       MRS PANKHURST      

arrested in Victoria Street, 13 February 1908. She is on her way from the WSPU ‘Women’s Parliament’ in Caxton Hall – a policeman holds her left hand – she carries her ‘Parliament’s’ resolution in the other. Published by Photochrome Ltd. On the reverse, a rather complicated message to unravel. The card was posted from South Kensington to ‘Mrs Dixon, 66 Ceylon Place, Eastbourne’ in March 1908, I can’t make out the day on the postmark. I think it was a joint effort – the first sender, signing for ‘A & F (?), ‘writes this in the Hall – do so wish you here with us’, and a second  (‘L’) continues ‘C. Pankhurst is speaking as I write. Mrs P. has been released today instead of tomorrow so will occupy the chair – I wish you were herre – must listen’. The meeting the writers of the postcard were attending was that held in the Albert Hall on 19 March 1908, at which Mrs Pankhurst, newly released from Holloway, did arrive to take the chair. Her sentence had followed her arrest, as pictured on the reverse.There is another layer, as it were, on the card. In what I think is another, firmer, hand (perhaps that of Mrs Dixon, the recipient), has been written ‘19.3.08 self denial £258 2. 11. 7!!’ This refers to the amount of the money raised in ‘Self Denial Week’ of £258 2s 11d. The figure 7 and the exclamation marks could be interpreted as referring to the £7000, the sum raised in cash, goods and promises by the end of the meeting. I have been unable to identify ‘Mrs Dixon’, who was no longer living at 66 Ceylon Place (a boarding house) in 1911, but perhaps someone with an interest in suffrage activity in Eastbourne will be able to. The card, with its interesting on-the-spot message, has been through the Edwardian post and has a crease across one corner, but is in generally good condition

[15346]                                                                                                                      £180

89.       MRS T BILLINGTON-GREIG    WFL 

A lovely photographic head and shoulders portrait of her – captioned ‘Mrs T Billington-Greig Hon Organising Sec Women’s Freedom League 1 Robert St, London WC’. The photo is by Brinkley and Son, Glasgow. Fine – unposted – unusual

[14573]                                                                                                                        £65

90.       REV R.J CAMPBELL      

published in Rotary Photographic Series. A rather angelic-looking muscular Christian – and fervent supporter of women’s suffrage. He spoke out against the White Slave Trade.  A postcard from the Postcard Album compiled by Women’s Freedom League members Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson.. Fine – unposted

[14652]                                                                                                                        £65

91.       ST CATHERINE’S CHURCH, HATCHAM      

The church, in Pepys Road, Deptford, was burned by suffragettes on the night of 6 May 1913. On the reverse the date is written in ink in a contemporary hand ‘Tuesday June 17th 1913’. As there is no photographer or publisher given, it may be that the photograph was taken by an individual and then processed as a postcard on which they wrote that date. The arson attack was an element in the protest against the latest sentencing of Mrs Pankhurst. Shown roofless in this photograph, the church was rebuilt.

[15337]                                                                                                                      £120

92.       WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE MRS DESPARD AND MRS COBDEN SANDERSON WAITING FOR MR ASQUITH   WFL 

‘Arrested August 19th, 1909’ They are shown wating outside 10 Downing Street as part of the campaign to picket the Prime Minister in a vain attempt to force him to accept a petition. Fine condition – scarce – unposted

[15354]                                                                                                                        £65

Suffrage Postcards: Commercial Comic

93.       PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT      

presumably the result of enfranchising women – Wife wields poker as her husband crawls out from under the tea table. She says, ‘Come along, come along, come along do, I’ve been waiting here for you’. Good – posted from London to Wincanton on 24 June 1911

[14096]                                                                                                                        £10

94.       THEM PESKY SUFFRAGETTES WANTS EVERYTHING FOR THEMSELVES      

says old man confronted with a door labelled ‘For Ladies Only’. Rather topical, again. A US postcard. Fine – unposted

[14000]                                                                                                                        £20

General Non-fiction

95.       REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS FROM CONNECTICUT OF THE COLUMBIAN EXHIBITION OF 1893 AT CHICAGO  Case, Lockwood and Brainard Co 1898

Fine – many photographs

[5485]                                                                                                                          SOLD

96.       ADELMAN, Jeanne And ENGUIDANOS, Gloria (eds) Racism in the Lives of Women: testimony, theory and guides to antiracist practice Harrington Park Press 1995

Paper covers – mint

[5226]                                                                                                                           £5

97.       AHMED, Leila Women and Gender in Islam   Yale University Press 1992

Fine in d/w

[10512]                                                                                                                        £15

98.       ALBERMAN, Eva And DENNIS, K.J. Late Abortions in England and Wales   Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 1984

A report of a national confidential survey by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Soft covers – good – ex-library

[9010]                                                                                                                           £8

99.       ALLEN, Jennifer (ed) Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures   State University of New York Press 1990

Paper covers – very good

[5164]                                                                                                                           £5

100.     ALLSOPP, Anne The Education and Employment of Girls in Luton, 1874-1924: widening opportunities and lost freedoms  Boydell Press/Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 2005

Examines the education of Luton girls and its relationship with employment opportunities. Mint in d/w

[10963]                                                                                                                        £20

101.     ANON New Careers for Women: the best positions, and how to obtain them  George Newnes 1917

Articles that were first published in ‘The Ladies’ Field’, covering medicine, dispensing, dentistry, the civil service, the public librarian, accountancy, portrait photography (by Madame Lallie Charles),landscape gardening (by Gertrude Jekyll), the house decorator (one of the women cited as an example, Millicent Cohen, had been a pupil of Agnes Garrett), gardening (ny Viscountess Wolseley), landscape gardening (by Gertrude Jekyll), cookery, poultry farming, dog breeding, motoring – and much more. Very good – very scarce

[15264]                                                                                                                        £55

102.     BEACHY, Robert Et Al (eds) Women, Business and Finance in 19th-century Europe: rethinking separate spheres  Berg 2006

Fine

[9208]                                                                                                                         £12

103.     BEER, Janet Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: studies in short fiction  Palgrave 1997 r/p

Focusses on a wide range of short fiction by these three women writers. Hardovers – fine

[11769]                                                                                                                        £12

104.     BENJAMIN, Marina (ed) Science and Sensibility: gender and scientific enquiry 1780-1945  Basil Blackwell 1994

An interesting collection of essays, Soft covers – mint

[11668]                                                                                                                        £18

105.     BERRY, Mrs Edward And MICHAELIS, Madame (eds) 135 Kindergarten Songs and Games   Charles and Dible, no date [1881]

‘These songs are printed to supply a want in English Kindergartens’ – the music is, of course, included – as are movement instructions. Mme Michaelis ran the Croydon Kindergarten. Very good

[9035]                                                                                                                         £48

106.     BLAKE, Trevor (ed) The Gospel of Power: ‘Egoist’ essays by Dora Marsden   Union of Egoists (Baltimore) 2021

Essays by Dora Marsden (1882-1960), sometime member of the WSPU, published in ‘The Egoist’. Soft covers – mint

[15213]                                                                                                                          £8

107.     BLAKELEY, Georgina and BRYSON, Valerie (eds) The Impact of Feminism on Political Concepts and Debates   Manchester University Press 2007

Soft covers – mint

[11549]                                                                                                                        £10

108.     Boucé, Paul-Gabriel (ed) Sexuality in 18th-century Britain   Manchester University Press 1982

Includes essays by Roy Porter, Ruth Perry and Pat Rogers – among others. Very good in d/w

[11034]                                                                                                                        £24

109.     BURSTALL, Sara A. The Story of the Manchester High School for Girls 1871-1911   Manchester University Press 1911

Very good internally – slightly marked cover

[9606]                                                                                                                         £15

110.     CHECKLAND, Olive Philanthropy in Victorian Scotland: social welfare and the voluntary principle  John Donald Ltd 1980

Fine in fine d/w

[9241]                                                                                                                         £20

111.     CLARK, Margaret Homecraft: a guide to the modern home and family  Routledge, 3rd ed 1978 (r/p)

The author was senior adviser for Home Economics for Derbyshire. The book was a textbook, suitable for school Home Economics courses. First published in 1966. Soft covers – very good

[10288]                                                                                                                          £6

112.     CLARKE, Norma Dr Johnson’s Women   Hambledon and London 2000

investigates lives of Elizabeth Carter, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Montagu, Hester Thrale and Fanny Burney – exploring their relationship with Dr Johnson, with each other and with the world of letters. Excellent reading. Mint in d/w

[9736]                                                                                                                           £8

113.     CLARKE, Patricia The Governesses: letters from the colonies 1862-1882  Hutchinson 1985

Fine in fine d/w

[12463]                                                                                                                          £7

114.     COHEN, Monica Professional Domesticity in the Victorian Novel: women, work and home  CUP 1998

Offers new readings of narratives by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, George Eliot, Emily Eden etc to show how domestic work, the most feminine of all activities, gained much of its social credibility by positioning itself in relation to the emergent professions. Soft cover – fine

[12419]                                                                                                                        £25

115.     CRAWFORD, Elizabeth Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle  Francis Boutle 2009 (r/p)

Pioneering access to education at all levels for women, including training for the professions, the women of the Garrett circle opened the way for women to gain employment in medicine, teaching, horticulture and interiior design – and were also deeply involved in the campaign for women’s suffrage. Includes studies of the work of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Davies, Millicent Fawcett, Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, Fanny Wilkinson, Annie Swynnerton – and many women of their day. Soft covers, large format, over 70 illustrations. Mint

[15386]                                                                                                                        £25

116.     CUNNINGTON, C. Willett Feminine Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century   William Heinemann 1935

Good

[2558]                                                                                                                         £15

117.     DEAN-JONES, Lesley Ann Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science   OUP 1996

Soft covers – fine

[11865]                                                                                                                        £15

118.     DINSHAW, Carolyn and WALLACE, David (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing   CUP 2003

Soft covers – fine

[11857]                                                                                                                        SOLD

119.     DON VANN, J. and VANARSDEL, Rosemary T. (eds) Periodicals of Queen Victoria’s Empire: an exploration  University of Toronto Press 1996

Fine in fine d/w

[9600]                                                                                                                         £18

120.     DOODY, Margaret Anne The True Story of the Novel   Fontana 1998

Aims to prove that the novel is an ancient form – with a continuous history of 2000 years. Soft covers – very good

[10562]                                                                                                                          £5

121.     DURHAM, Edith High Albania   Virago 1985

First published in 1909. Soft covers – very good

[10802]                                                                                                                          £8

122.     DYHOUSE, Carol Girl Trouble: panic and progress in the history of young women  Zed Books 2013

Paper covers – mint

[15209]                                                                                                                          £8

123.     ELLIS, Mrs Sarah Stickney The Select Works   Henry G. Langley (New York) 1844

Includes ‘The Poetry of Life’, ‘Pictures of Private Life’, ‘A Voice From the Vintage, on the force of example addressed to those who think and feel’

Good in original decorative cloth

[11234]                                                                                                                        £48

124.     EVANS, Dorothy Women and the Civil Service: a history of the development of the employment of women in the Civil Service, and a guide to present-day opportunities  Pitman 1934

Dorothy Evans had been a leading WSPU organizer – and after 1918 was chairman of the Six Point Group. In the 1920s and 1930s she was a representative of the National Association of Women Civil Servants, campaigning for equal pay with their male colleagues. Fine condition – very scarce

[15233]                                                                                                                        SOLD

125.     FADERMAN, Lillian Surpassing the Love of Men: romantic friendship and love between women from the Renaissance to the present  The Women’s Press 1991 (r/p)

Paper covers – fine

[15049]                                                                                                                          £8

126.     FINDLAY, J.J. (ed) The Young Wage-Earner and the Problem of His Education: essays and reports  Sigwick and Jackson 1918

For ‘His Education’ read also ‘Hers’. The essays include: ‘From Home Life to Industrial Life: with special reference to adolescent girls, by James Shelley, prof of education, University College, Southampton; ‘The Young Factory Girl’ by Emily Matthias, superintendent of women employees, the Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Co, Bradford and the reports include: ‘Working Girls and Trade Schools (London)’ by Theodora Pugh and ‘The Sons and Daughters of Farming Folk’ by J.J. Findlay. Very good

[8026]                                                                                                                         £25

127.     FRANCOME, Colin Abortion Freedom: a worldwide movement  Allen & Unwin 1984

Very good in d/w

[9006]                                                                                                                           £5

128.     FRYE, Susan And ROBERTSON, Karen (Eds) Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: women’s alliances in early modern England  OUP 1999

A collection of essays exploring how early modern women associated with other women in a variety of roles, from alewives to midwives, prostitutes to pleasure seekers, slaves to queens, serving maids to ladies in waiting…’. Fine

[7435]                                                                                                                         £28

129.     FULLER, Margaret ‘These Sad But Glorious Days’: dispatches from Europe, 1846-1850  Yale University Press 1991

Fine in d/w

[8887]                                                                                                                         £18

130.     GARRETT, Stephanie Gender   Tavistock 1987

In ‘Society Now’ series. Soft covers – very good

[8759]                                                                                                                           £3

131.     GATES, Evelyn (ed) Woman’s Year Book 1923-1924   Women Publishers Ltd 1924 (2nd ed)

An invaluable reference work, covering all aspects of the post-emancipation period in considerable detail. Contributors include Millicent Fawcett, Commandant Mary Allen, Lena Ashwell, Lilian Barker, Margaret Bondfield, Winifred Cullis, Margaret Llewellyn Davies, Margery Fry, Chrystal Macmillan, Hilda Martindale, Bertha Mason, Edith Picton-Turbervill, Eleanor Rathbone – among many others. Full of facts and figures, names and addresses. Women Publishers Ltd was not in business for long; this is the only Year Book they published. Very good internally – cloth grubby with library shelf mark on spine. Scarce.

[15240]                                                                                                                   SOLD

132.     GLUCK, Sherna Berger and PATAI, Daphne (eds) Women’s Words: the practice of oral history  Routledge 1991

Explores the theoretical, methodological, and practical problems that arise when women utilize oral history as a tool of feminist scholarship. Hardback – fine in d/w

[11532]                                                                                                                        £15

133.     GOOD HOUSEKEEPING’S HOME ENCYCLOPAEDIA    Ebury Press 1968 (r/p)

Packed with information and illustrations. How very retro. Large format – very good in rubbed d/w – heavy

[10297]                                                                                                                        £10

134.     HARTLEY, Jenny (ed) Hearts Undefeated: women’s writing of the Second World War  Virago 1994

Soft covers – very good

[9135]                                                                                                                         £10

135.     HASTE, Cate Rules of Desire: sex in Britain: World War 1 to the present  Pimlico 1992

Soft covers – very good

[10519]                                                                                                                          £8

136.     HESSELGRAVE, Ruth Avaline Lady Miller and the Batheaston Literary Circle   Yale University Press 1927

An 18th-century Bath literary salon. Lady Miller was the first English woman to describe her travels in Italy. Fine

[3020]                                                                                                                         £30

137.     HOLT, Anne A Ministry To The Poor: being a history of the Liverpool Domestic Mission Society, 1836-1936  Henry Young (Liverpool) 1936

Very good – scarce

[9243]                                                                                                                         £45

138.     HORSFIELD, Margaret Biting the Dust: the joys of housework  Fourth Estate 1997

Mint in d/w

[10183]                                                                                                                          £5

139.     HUGHES, Linda K. And LUND, Michal Victorian Publishing and Mrs Gaskell’s Work   University Press of Virginia 1999

Fine in fine d/w

[9537]                                                                                                                         £15

140.     KEDDIE, Nikki And BARON, Beth (eds) Women in Middle Eastern History: shifting boundaries in sex and gender  Yale University Press 1991

The first study of gender relations in the Middle East from the earliest Islamic period to the present. Fine in d/w

[10511]                                                                                                                        £15

141.     KENEALY, Arabella Feminism and Sex-Extinction   E.P. Dutton & Co (NY) 1920

Anti-feminist eugenicist polemic. US edition is scarce. Very good internally – cloth cover a little bumped and rubbed

[12107]                                                                                                                        £25

142.     KERTZER, David and BARBAGLIO, Marzio (eds) Family Life in the Long Nineteenth Century 1789-1913   Yale University Press 2002

A collection of essays under the headings: Economy and Family Organization: State, Religion, Law and the Family; Demographic Forces; Family Relations. 420pp Heavy. Mint in d/w

[11037]                                                                                                                        £18

143.     KIDD, Alan and NICHOLLS, David (eds) Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: middle-class identity in Britain 1800-1940  Manchester University Press 1999

Soft covers – very good

[11759]                                                                                                                        £12

144.     KIRBY, Joan (ed) The Plumpton Letters and Papers   CUP for the Royal Historical Society 1996

Letters addressed mainly to Sir William Plumpton (1404-80) and his son, Sir Robert (1453-1525). Good in marked d/w- but has perhaps been exposed to damp at some point

[10954]                                                                                                                        £10

145.     LEE, Julia Sun-Joo The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel   OUP 2010

Investigates the shaping influence of the American slave narrative on the Victorian novel in the years between the British Abolition Act and the American Emancipation Proclamation – and argues that Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thackeray and Dickens integrated into their works generic elements of the slave narrative. Mint in d/w (pub price £40)

[13436]                                                                                                                        £15

146.     LOANE, M. The Queen’s Poor: life as they find it in town and country  Edward Arnold (new and cheaper edition0 1906

Martha Loane, a Queen’s Nurse in Portsmouth, wrote as a social investigator among the ‘respectable poor’. This was her first study. Good in decorative boards

[7995]                                                                                                                         £35

147.     LYNN, Susan Progressive Women in Conservative Times: racial justice, peace, and feminism, 1945 to the 1960s  Rutgers University Press 1992

Paper covers – mint

[5219]                                                                                                                         £10

148.     MALOS, Ellen (ed) The Politics of Housework   Allison & Busby 1980

Fine in d/w

[1819]                                                                                                                           £4

149.     MARKS, Lara Metropolitan Maternity maternity and infant welfare services in early 20th century London  Rodopi 1996

Soft covers – fine

[11624]                                                                                                                        £22

150.     MARTIN, Jane Women and the Politics of Schooling in Victorian and Edwardian England   Leicester University Press 1999

Mint (pub price £65)

[10781]                                                                                                                        £15

151.     MASON, Michael The Making of Victorian Sexuality   OUP 1994

Fine in d/w

[10599]                                                                                                                        £14

152.     MEAKIN, Annette Woman in Transition   Methuen 1907

A feminist study of a changing society.  Very good

[15220]                                                                                                                        £48

153.     MEERES, Frank Suffragettes: how Britain’s women fought & died for the right to vote  Amberley 2013

Hardcover in fine condition – in fine d/w. With many illustrations

[15211]                                                                                                                          SOLD

154.     MEWS, Hazel Frail Vessels: woman’s role in women’s novels from Fanny Burney to George Eliot  Athlone Press 1969

Very good in d/w

[3801]                                                                                                                         £12

155.     MILLER, Lucasta The Bronte Myth   Cape 2001

Hardcover – fine –  in very good d/w

[15216]                                                                                                                          £8

156.     MILLER, Naomi and YAVNEH, Naomi (eds) Maternal Measures: figuring caregiving in the early modern period  Ashgate 2000

Essays on a wide range of early modern caregiving roles by women in England, Italy, Spain, France, Latin America, Mexico and the New World. A wide range of scholarly and critical approaches is represented. Mint in d/w

[11038]                                                                                                                        £15

157.     MUMM, Susan (ed) All Saints Sisters of the Poor: an Anglican Sisterhood in the 19th century  Boydel Press/Church of England Record Society 2001

A history of the Sisterhood that was founded by Harriet Brownlow Byron in 1850 to work in the slums of Marylebone – but then spread its net much wider. This volume comprises material drawn from the Sisterhood’s archives. V. interesting. Mint

[10964]                                                                                                                        £15

158.     NATIONAL LESBIAN AND GAY SURVEY What a Lesbian Looks Like: writings by lesbians on their lives and lifestyles  Rooutledge 1992

Paper covers – mint

[5281]                                                                                                                         £10

159.     NORWICH HIGH SCHOOL 1875-1950    privately printed, no date [1950]

A GPDST school. Very good internally – green cloth covers sunned – ex-university library

[9612]                                                                                                                         £15

160.     ORAM, Alison And TURNBULL, Annmarie The Lesbian History Sourcebook: love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970  Routledge 2001

Soft covers – fine

[9092]                                                                                                                         £12

161.     PEACH, Linden Contemporary Irish and Welsh Women’s Fiction: gender, desire and power  University of Wales Press 2008

The first comparative study of fiction by late 20th and 21st-century women writers from England, Southern Ireland and Wales. Soft covers – mint

[11572]                                                                                                                        £15

162.     PEEL, John And POTTS, Malcolm Textbook of Contraceptive Practice   CUP 1969

Soft covers – very good

[9021]                                                                                                                           £6

163.     PICHLER, Pia Talking Young Femininities   Palgrave 2009

Explores the spontaneous talk of adolescent British girls from different socio-cultural backgrounds. Hardovers – mint ( pub price £50)

[11525]                                                                                                                        £10

164.     PINES, Davida The Marriage Paradox: modernist novels and the cultural imperative to marry  University Press of Florida 2006

Mint

[10188]                                                                                                                        £18

165.     POTTS, Malcolm, DIGGORY, Peter And PEEL, John Abortion   CUP 1977

Soft covers – very good – 575pp

[9007]                                                                                                                           £8

166.     PURKISS, Diane The Witch in History: early modern and 20th century representations  Routledge 1996

Soft covers – mint

[9395]                                                                                                                         £12

167.     RENDALL, Jane The Origins of Modern Feminism: women in Britain, France and the United States 1780-1860  Macmillan 1985

Soft covers – very good

[9461]                                                                                                                         SOLD

168.     RIOJA, Isabel Ramos The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life   Spinifex 1998

A photographic study of female circumcision. Soft covers – large format – mint

[7577]                                                                                                                           £8

169.     ROBERTS, Alison Hathor Rising: the serpent power in ancient Egypt  Northgate 1995

Soft covers – fine

[11866]                                                                                                                          £8

170.     ROBINSON, Jane Angels of Albion: women of the Indian mutiny  Viking 1996

Very good in rubbed d/w

[4240]                                                                                                                           £8

171.     ROWBOTHAM, Sheila Women, Resistance and Revolution   Allen Lane 1972

Very good in chipped d/w

[1834]                                                                                                                         £10

172.     SANCHEZ, Regina Morantz- Conduct Unbecoming a Woman: medicine on trial in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn  OUP 2000

Soft covers – very good

[15212]                                                                                                                          £4

173.     SEARLE, Arthur (ed) Barrington Family Letters 1628-1632   Royal Historical Society 1983

In the main letters to Lady Joan Barrington, the focal point of the extended family, the dowager and respected matriarch on a recognisable early 17th-century pattern. Very good

[10955]                                                                                                                        £12

174.     SEIDLER, Victor The Achilles Heel Reader: men, sexual politics and socialism  Routledge 1991

Paper covers – mint

[5302]                                                                                                                           £5

175.     SHATTOCK, Joanne And WOLFF, Michael (eds) The Victorian Periodical Press: samplings and soundings  Leicester University Press 1992

A collection of essays. Fine in d/w

[3501]                                                                                                                         £28

176.     SMITH, Joan Misogynies   Faber 1990

Reprint, paper covers – mint

[15064]                                                                                                                          £4

177.     SONBOL, Amira El Azhary (ed) Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History   Syracuse University Press 1996

18 essays covering a wide range of material. Soft covers – fine

[10484]                                                                                                                        £12

178.     SOUHAMI, Diana No Modernism Without Lesbians   Head of Zeus 2021

Paper covers – fine

[15210]                                                                                                                          £5

179.     SPENDER, Dale Invisible Women: the schooling scandal  Women’s Press 1989

Pioneering research on sexism in education.  Paper covers – mint

[1667]                                                                                                                           £2

180.     STAFFORD, William English feminists and their opponents in the 1790s; unsex’d and proper females  Manchester University Press 2002

Fine in fine d/w (pub. price £45)

[11757]                                                                                                                        SOLD

181.     STONE, Dorothy The National: the story of a pioneer college  Robert Hale 1976

History of the pioneering domestic economy training college – The National Training College of Domestic Subjects. Fine in d/w

[8231]                                                                                                                         £12

182.     STOPES, Marie Birth Control Today   Hogarth Press, 12th ed 1957

Very good in d/w

[9003]                                                                                                                           £5

183.     TAYLOR, Jane Contributions of Q.Q.   Jackson & Walford 5th ed, 1855

The majority of these essays were first published in the ‘Youth’s Magazine’, between 1816 and 1822.  Good in original cloth

[1699]                                                                                                                         £15

184.     VANITA, Ruth Sappho and the Virgin Mary: same-sex love and the English literary imagination  Columbia University Press 1996

Soft covers – very good

[11223]                                                                                                                          £8

185.     VICINUS, Martha (ed) Suffer and Be Still: women in the Victorian age  Methuen 1972

An excellent collection of essays. Paper covers – fine – scarce

[2388]                                                                                                                         £25

186.     WANDOR, Michelene Post-War British Drama: looking back in gender  Routledge, revised edition 2001

Soft covers – mint

[5897]                                                                                                                         £12

187.     WILSON, Philip K (ed) Childbirth: Vol 3: Methods and Folklore  Garland Publishing 1996

An anthology of key primary sources centring on methods of childbirth -covering ‘Painless Childbirth’ from the 18th century onwards; ”Caesarian Sections’ and ’20th Century Natural Childbirth’ and ‘Oral Traditions and Folklore of Pregnancy and Childbirth’  A single volume from a 5-voume series. Fine – 433pp

[11065]                                                                                                                        £25

188.     WOOD, Ethel M. The Pilgrimage of Perseverance   National Council of Social Service 1949

A rather negelected but I think rather good short history of feminist campaigns. Good – though ex-library

[2312]                                                                                                                          £3

189.     WOLFE, Susan J. And PENELOPE, Julia (eds) Sexual Practice/Textual Theory: lesbian cultural criticism  Blackwell 1993

Paper covers – mint

[5276]                                                                                                                           £5

General Biography

190.     (ALDRICH-BLAKE) Lord Riddell Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake   Hodder & Stoughton, no date (1920s)

Biography of Louisa Aldrich-Blake, surgeon at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s New Hospital for Women. You can see her portrait bust in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury. Presentation copy from the author, Lord Riddell.

[15283]                                                                                                                        £15

191.     (ALLEN) John C. Hirsh Hope Emily Allen: medieval scholarship and feminism  Pilgrim Books (Oklahoma) 1988

Biography of an American medieval scholar, born in 1883 – who spent time at Newnham. Fine

[11995]                                                                                                                        £15

192.     (AMBERLEY) Bertrand and Patricia Russell (eds) The Amberley Papers: the letters and diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley   Hogarth Press 1937

The epitome of radical liberalism in the mid-19th-century. Both died tragically young. Good

[11044]                                                                                                                        £45

193.     ANON WOMEN’S WHO’S WHO, 1934-5   Shaw Publishing Co 1935

‘An Annual Record of the Careers and Activities of the Leading Women of the Day.’  A mine of information.  Very good

[15290]                                                                                                                        £38

194.     ANON (Agnes Maud Davies) A Book with Seven Seals   Cayme Press 1928

First edition of a classic of Victorian childhood – I think perhaps it is a ‘faction’ – am not sure that it is actually a memoir. If I said that it strikes me as having a hint of Rachel Ferguson about it, those that are familiar with her work will know what I mean. The author’s name was withheld for this first edition. An elegant book – cover a little blotched

[8552]                                                                                                                         £15

195.     (ARNOLD-FOSTER) T.W. Moody and R.A.J. Hawkins (eds) Florence Arnold-Foster’s Irish Journal   OUP 1988

She was the niece and adopted daughter of W.E. Foster.  The journals covers the years 1880-1882 when he was chief secretary for Ireland.  Fine in slightly rubbed d/w

[1043]                                                                                                                         £10

196.     (ASHBURTON) Virginia Surtees The Ludovisi Goddess: the life of Louisa Lady Ashburton  Michael Russell 1984

She was possibly proposed to by Browning – and was the patroness (and perhaps lover) of Harriet Hosmer. Fine in d/w

[8886]                                                                                                                         £18

197.     (BAIRD) Elizabeth Nussbaum Dear Miss Baird: a portrait of a 19th-century family  Longstone Books 2008

Traces the fortunes of a 19th-century family over 60 years, shedding light on issues such as the status of women, education and changing attitudes to religion, love and death. Some pencil lines in margins. Young Gertrude Baird was a talented artist, who died too young. Soft covers -some pencil lines in margins – otherwise fine

[15068]                                                                                                                          £3

198.     (BEALE) Elizabeth Raikes Dorothea Beale of Cheltenham   Constable 1908

Good

[11045]                                                                                                                        £15

199.     (BEETON) Kathryn Hughes The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton   Harper 2006

Excellent biography. Soft covers – fine

[10918]                                                                                                                          £6

200.     BELL, Alan (ed and with an introduction by) Sir Leslie Stephen’s ‘Mausoleum Book’   OUP 1977

Intimate autobiography written for Stephen’s immediate family after the death of his wife, Julia, the mother of Vanessa and Virginia. Very good in d/w

[13199]                                                                                                                        £12

201.     (BOTTLE) Dorothy Bottle Reminiscences of a Queen’s Army Schoolmistress   Arthur Stockwell no date [1936]

Dorothy Bottle (c.1886-1973) taught at schools for the children of the military –  in Ireland, Jamaica, Egypt and Britain and relates her experiences from c 1904-1935. She was an astute and sympathetic observer. Very good – with photographs – very scarce

[15257]                                                                                                                        £55

202.     (BURNEY) Joyce Hemlow (ed) Fanny Burney: selected letters and journals  OUP 1986

Follows her career from her romantic marriage to the impoverished French émigré General d’Arblay to her death 46 years later. Fine in fine d/w

[12030]                                                                                                                        £12

203.     (CAMERON) Victoria Olsen From Life: Julia Margaret Cameron and Victorian photography  Aurum Press 2003

Fine in d/w

[9345]                                                                                                                         £15

204.     CLAYTON, Ellen English Female Artists   Tinsley Brothers 1876

Biographical essays on English women artists – from the 16th century until 1876. Particularly interesting for the information on 19th-century artists. Two volumes – bumped, rubbed and back board of vol 2 detached, but present. Scarce

[15078]                                                                                                                 £50

205.     (CLEARY) Susanne George Kate M. Cleary: a literary biography with selected works  University of Nebraska Press 1997

Study of woman who wrote stories, poems and articles about life in the American west. Mint in d/w

[5413]                                                                                                                           £5

206.     CRAWFORD, Anne et al (eds) Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women: over 1000 notable women from Britain’s Past  Europa 1983

Soft covers – 536pp – fine

[12408]                                                                                                                        £10

207.     (DE STAEL/CONSTANT) Renee Winegarten Germaine de Stael and Benjamin Constant: a dual biography  Yale University Press 2008

Hardcovers – fine in fine d/w

[11963]                                                                                                                        £12

208.     (DICKINSON) Lyndall Gordon Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and her family’s feuds  Virago 2010

Biography of Emily Dickinson. Hardcover in fine condition – in fine d/w

[15207]                                                                                                                          £8

209.     (EDEN) Violet Dickinson (Ed) Miss Eden’s Letters   Macmillan 1919

Born, a Whig, in 1797. Her letters are full of social detail. In 1835 she went to India with her brother when he became governor-general. Very good

[9339]                                                                                                                         £28

210.     (ELIZABETH) Philip Yorke (ed)  Letters of Princess Elizabeth of England, daughter of King George III, and Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg written for the most part to Miss Louisa Swinburne  T. Fisher Unwin 1898

Full of social details – letters written both from England and Germany. Good

[8520]                                                                                                                         £38

211.     EWAN, Elizabeth, PIPES, Rosie etc (eds ) The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women   Edinburgh University Press 2018

Soft covers – 496pp – mint

[15072]                                                                                                                        £16

212.     (GAUTIER) Joanna Richardson Judith Gautier: a biography  Quartet 1986

Biography of French woman of letters – and muse. Soft covers – fine

[12432]                                                                                                                          £6

213.     (GLADSTONE) Lucy Masterman (ed) Mary Gladstone (Mrs Drew): her diaries and letters  Methuen 1930

Daughter of Gladstone, born in 1847, excellent diary and letters, 1858-to her death (1927). Very good in d/w

[8409]                                                                                                                         £18

214.     (GOODINGS) Lennie Goodings A Bite of the Apple: a life with books, writers and Virago  OUP 2020

Autobiography of Lennie Goodings, one of the founders of Virago. Mint in mint d/w

[15091]                                                                                                                          £6

215.     (HALDANE) Elizabeth Haldane From One Century to Another   Alexander Maclehose 1937

She was born in 1862, into an eminent Scottish Liberal family – an interesting autobiography by one who was at the heart of things. Good – cover marked – remains of Boots Library label

[15266]                                                                                                                        £12

216.     (HAMMOND) Mrs John Hays Hammond A Woman’s Part in a Revolution   Longmans, Green 1987

The ‘Revolution’ was the Boer War – her husband was imprisoned by the Boers. Good

[6083]                                                                                                                         £30

217.     (HARRISON) Amy Greener A Lover of Books: the life and literary papers of Lucy Harrison  J.M. Dent 1916

Lucy Harrison (a niece of Mary Howitt) studied at Bedford College, then taught for 20 years at a school in Gower St (Charlotte Mew was a pupil at the school and v. attached to Miss Harrison) and then became headmistress of the Mount School, York. Good – pasted onto the free front end paper is a presentation slip from the editor, Amy Greener, to Mary Cotterell

[11054]                                                                                                                        £18

218.     HAYS, Frances Women of the Day: a biographical dictionary of notable contemporaries  J.B. Lipincott (Philadelphia) 1885

A superb biographical source on interesting British women. Good in original binding – with library shelf mark in ink on spine- scarce

[12594]                                                                                                                        £75

219.     (HOLTBY) Alice Holtby and Jean McWilliam (eds) Winifred Holtby: Letters to a Friend  Collins 1937

Excellent, chatty, letters, dating from 1920-1935, written to her friend, Jean McWilliam, whom she had first met in 1918 while serving with the WAAC in France.  First edition, hard covers, in very good condition

[15253]                                                                                                                        £20

220.     (HOLTBY) Evelyne White Winifred Holtby as I Knew Her: a study of the author and her works  Collins 1938

Very good in d/w

[15252]                                                                                                                        £15

221.     (HOWE) Valarie Ziegler Diva Julia: the public romance and private agony of Julia Ward Howe  Trinity Press International 2003

Hardcover – fine in fine d/w

[11892]                                                                                                                        £10

222.     (JAMESON) Clara Thomas Love and Work Enough: the life of Anna Jameson  Macdonald 1967

Good

[12070]                                                                                                                        £10

223.     (JAMESON) G.H. Needler (ed) Letters of Anna Jameson to Ottilie von Goethe   OUP 1939

Very good internally – cover marked

[12451]                                                                                                                        £20

224.     (LEIGH) Michael and Melissa Bakewell Augusta Leigh: Byron’s half-sister – a biography  Chatto & Windus 2000

Hardcovers – fine in fine d/w

[12012]                                                                                                                          £8

225.     MARTINDALE, Hilda Some Victorian Portraits and Others   Allen & Unwin 1948

Biographical essays of members of her circle – including Adelaide Anderson, factory inspector. Very good in d/w

[6071]                                                                                                                         £18

226.     (MARTYN) Christopher Hodgson (compiler) Carrie: Lincoln’s Lost Heroine   privately published 2010

A biographical anthology of works relating to Caroline Eliza Derecourt Martyn, socialist. Soft covers – fine

[14222]                                                                                                                        £10

227.     (MAYNARD) Catherine B. Firth Constance Louisa Maynard: mistress of Westfield College  Allen & Unwin 1949

Very good  – scarce

[11033]                                                                                                                        £15

228.     (MONTGOMERY) Mary Rubio and Elizbeth Waterston (eds) The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery: vol 1 1889-1910  OUP 1985

Fine in very good d/w -424pp – heavy

[12426]                                                                                                                        £15

229.     (MORGAN) Sydney Lady Morgan Passage From My Autobiography   Richard Bentley 1859

‘The following pages are the simple records of a transition existence, socially enjoyed, and pelasantly and profitably occupied, during a journey of a few months from Ireland to Italy.’ Good – in original decorative mauve cloth

[13675]                                                                                                                        £18

230.     (NIGHTINGALE) Eliza F. Pollard Florence Nightingale: the wounded soldier’s friend  S.W. Partridge no date [early 1890s]

In Partridge’s ‘Popular Biographies’ series and, presumably, popular as this copy is from the twelfth thousand printing. Prettily illustrated, with an illustrated cover, depicting Florence, with her lamp, tending a wounded soldier. The free front endpaper contains a an ink inscription ‘To Jane Small. In remembrance of kind attention during illness from Elizabeth Johnson New Year’s Day 1894. An appropriate gift in the circumstances. In good condition

[15251]                                                                                                                   SOLD

231.     (NIGHTINGALE) Lynn McDonald (ed) Florence Nightingale’s European Travels   Wilfrid Laurier Press 2004

Her correspondence, and a few short published articles, from her youthful European travels. She is an excellent observer and reporter. Fine in d/w – 802pp

[11112]                                                                                                                        £45

232.     (NORTON) Jane Gray Perkins The Life of Mrs Norton   John Murray 1910

Very good

[3537]                                                                                                                           £8

233.     (ORR) Deborah Orr Motherwell: a girlhood   Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2021

A sharp memoir. Paperback – fine

[15208]                                                                                                                          £3

234.     PARRY, Melanie (ed) Chambers Biographical Dictionary of Women   Chambers 1996

Soft covers – fine – 741pp – heavy

[12421]                                                                                                                        £10

235.     (PASTON) Helen Castor Blood and Roses   Faber 2004

A family biography tracing the Pastons’ story across three generations. Mint in mint d/w

[11981]                                                                                                                          £8

236.     (PINZER) Ruth Rosen & Sue Davidson The Maimie Papers   Virago 1979

Correspondence, beginning in 1910, between Fanny Quincy Howe, a distinguished Bostonian, and Mainie Pinzer, a Jewish prostitute. Fascinating. Paper covers – very good

[5444]                                                                                                                           £5

237.     (PLATH/HUGHES) Diane Middlebrook Her Husband: Hughes and Plath: a marriage  Little,Brown 2004

Fine in fine d/w

[12020]                                                                                                                          £8

238.     (PUREFOY) G. Eland (ed) Purefoy Letters 1735-1753   Sidgwick & Jackson 1931

The letters of Elizabeth Purefoy (1672-1765), whose husband died in 1704, and her son, Henry Purefoy.  Elizabeth Purefoy was, as her epitaph recorded, ‘a woman of excellent understanding, prudent and frugal’ and her letters are full of domestic detail.  Very good – two volumes

[9338]                                                                                                                         £40

239.     (RUSKIN) Mary Lutyens (ed) Young Mrs Ruskin in Venice: the picture of society and life with John Ruskin 1849-1852  Vanguard Press (NY) 1965

Very good in d/w

[13200]                                                                                                                        £12

240.     (SEEBOHM) Victoria Glendinning A Suppressed Cry: life and death of a Quaker daughter  Routledge 1969

The short, sad life of Winnie Seebohm, smothered by her loving family. She enjoyed a month at Newnham in 1885, before returning home and dying. Good in d/w – though ex-library

[4276]                                                                                                                           £4

241.     (SMITH) Dodie Smith Look Back With Astonishment   W.H. Allen 1979

A volume of autobiography – from the early 1930s and the beginning of her success as a playwright. Good reading copy – ex-public library

[10642]                                                                                                                          £3

242.     (SMITH) Dodie Smith Look Back With Gratitude   Muller, Blond & White 1985

Follows on from ‘Look Back With Atonishment’. Reading copy – ex-public library

[10643]                                                                                                                          £3

243.     (SPENCE) Susan Magarey etc (eds) Every Yours, C.H. Spence   Wakefield Press 2005

Catherine Helen Spence was an Australian novelist, journalist and campaigner. This is her Autobiography (1825-1910), Diary (1894) and some correspondence (1894-1910). Fine in fine d/w

[15071]                                                                                                                        £12

244.     (SPRING RICE) Lucy Pollard Margery Spring Rice: pioneer of women’s health in the early 20th century  Open Book 2020

Excellent biography of yet another enterprising member of the Garrett family, author of ‘Working Class Wives’. Soft covers – mint

[15074]                                                                                                                        £12

245.     (ST TERESA OF AVILA) St Teresa of Avila by Herself   Penguin Classics 1957 (r/p)

Soft covers – fine

[11950]                                                                                                                          £6

246.     (STEAD) Chris Williams Christina Stead: a life of letters  Virago 1989

Soft covers – fine

[11891]                                                                                                                          £8

247.     (STOWE) Joan Hedrick Harriet Beecher Stowe   OUP 1994

Soft covers – fine

[11991]                                                                                                                          £9

248.     (STUART) Hon. James A. Home (ed) Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton   David Douglas (Edinburgh) 1901 & 1903

Two volumes – complete set. The first volume covers the period 1817 to 1825 and the second volume (called ‘Second Series’) that from1826 to 1834. Society observed. Very good – two volumes together

[13335]                                                                                                                        £38

249.     (TAYLOR) Nicola Beauman The Other Elizabeth Taylor   Persephone 2009

Biography of the novelist. Soft covers – mint

[15089]                                                                                                                          £8

250.     (TENNYSON) James O. Hoge Lady Tennyson’s Journal   University Press of Virginia 1981

Fine in d/w

[9675]                                                                                                                         £18

251.     (TREMAIN) Rosie: scenes from a vanished life   Vintage 2018

Autobiography of the novelist. Soft covers – mint

[15093]                                                                                                                          £4

252.     (TROUBRIDGE) Jaqueline Hope-Nicholson (ed) Life Amongst the Troubridges: journals of a young Victorian 1873-1884 by Laura Troubridge  John Murray 1966

Very good in rubbed d/w

[9324]                                                                                                                         £10

253.     (TUCKER) Agnes Giberne A Lady of England: the life and letters of Charlotte Maria Tucker  Hodder & Stoughton 1895

The standard biography of a popular children’s and religious writer – who spent the later years of her life as a missionary in India.  Good – though ex-university library

[9599]                                                                                                                         £28

254.     (TUDOR) Maria Perry Sisters to the King   deutsch 2002

Lives of the sisters of Henry VIII – Queen Margaret of Scotland and Queen Mary of France. Soft covers – fine

[12024]                                                                                                                          £4

255.     (VICTORIA) Agatha Ramm (ed) Beloved and Darling Child: last letters between Queen Victoria and her eldest daughter 1886-1901  Alan Sutton 1990

Mint in d/w

[6509]                                                                                                                         £10

256.     (VICTORIA) Dorothy Marshall The Life and Times of Victoria   Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1992 (r/p)

Lavishly illustrated. Mint in d/w

[6510]                                                                                                                         £10

257.     (WARWICK) Charlotte Fell-Smith Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick (1625-1678), her family and friends   Longmans, Green 1901

Very good

[1754]                                                                                                                         £15

258.     (WORTH) Edith Saunders The Age of Worth: courtier to the Empress Eugenie  Longmans 1954

Interesting social history. Good – though ex-Boots library, with label pasted on to front cover.

[4013]                                                                                                                           £5

259.     (WRIGHT) Margaret Lane Frances Wright and the ‘Great Experiment’   Manchester University Press 1972

An Owenite – the ‘Great Experiment’ was Nashoba, a utopian community in America. Very good

[6081]                                                                                                                         £18

260.     (WYNNE) Anne Fremantle (ed) The Wynne Diaries Vol II (1794-1798   OUP 1937

I’ve loved Betsey and Eugenia Wynne ever since I encountered them about 50 years ago in the condensed, one volume, Oxford Classics edition of the Wynne diaries – and then followed them through the three full published volumes. They are rattling around Europe, on land and sea, during the war with France. Very good in very good d/w

[9609]                                                                                                                         £35

261.     (WYNNE) Anne Fremantle (ed) The Wynne Diaries Vol III (1798-1820)   OUP 1940

I’ve loved Betsey and Eugenia Wynne ever since I encountered them about 50 years ago in the condensed, one volume, Oxford Classics edition of the Wynne diaries – and then followed them through the three full published volumes. In this vol Betsey is married to Capt Fremantle, who becomes an admiral in the course of fighting Napoleon at sea. Betsey is at home in England and the letters and diary give a wonderful picture of civilian life at all levels of society. Very good in very good d/w

[15077]                                                                                                                        £35

General Ephemera

262.     The Home Friend (New Series)   SPCK 1854

4 vols of miscellany of fact and fiction. Very good in embossed decorative original cloth – together

[8313]                                                                                                                         £45

263.     AUTOGRAPHS – THE GUILDHOUSE      

The Guildhouse was an ecumenical place of worship and cultural centre founded in 1921 by Maude Royden. On 4 sheets of paper are fixed 25 cut-out signatures, including those of Maude Royden, Hudson Shaw, Daisy Dobson (Maude Royden’s secretary), Zoe Procter (former WSPU activist), and Katherine Courtney (of the NUWSS). Together

[13061]                                                                                                                        £45

264.     BEATON, Audrey Evelyn Memoirs of Guide and Brownie Days    

This handwritten ‘memoir’ covers the period September 1941 to February 1950. ‘Although I am only just fourteen and have most of my guide life still before me I want to write down on paper some of the things that have happened during my brownie and guide life before I forget. I want to read this book when I am a grown woman, and show it to my children, who, through reading some of the mistakes which I will relate in this book, will avoid them themselves….’  Audrey belonged to the 3rd Leek Girl Guides – and in time became District Captain. In the early 1950s her mother was treasurer of the Leek and District Girl Guides’ Association; Audrey dedicates her ‘Memoir’ to ‘Mum and Dad without whose help and support nothing good would have been accomplished.’  Here, in devoted detail, is every minute of Audrey Beaton’s early Brownie and Guiding career – a glimpse into that mysterious post-Second World War world. An excercise book – 177 pages – clearly written, in ink – with numerous illustrations – photographs, newspaper cuttings, certificates – laid in. In good condition

[15361]                                                                                                                   SOLD

265.     BINFIELD, Clyde Belmont’s Portias: Victorian nonconformists and middle-class education for girls  Dr Williams’ Trust 1981

The 35th Friends of Dr Williams’s Library Lecture. Paper covers – 35pp – good – scarce

[9158]                                                                                                                         £18

266.     CHARITY ORGANISATION REVIEW Vol X (New Series) July To Dec 1901    Longmans, Green 1902

half-yearly bound volume of the COS’s own magazine. Very good

[9244]                                                                                                                         £28

267.     CITIZEN HOUSE, CHANDOS BUILDINGS, BATH      

First Report on the running of Citizen House, which opened in Sept 1913 as an educational and social centre. The Report, dated March 1915, gives details of the societies, such as the National Union of Women Workers, the Workers Educational Association, Girl Guides – and, since the beginning of the war, the Committee of Women Patrols and the Aid  Coordination Committee. The Wardens were Helen Hope and Mary de Reyes. Packed full of information about the good works being done in Bath. In very good condition – 16pp – card covers

[14978]                                                                                                                        £18

268.     EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK    Equal Pay Campaign Committee 1944

‘The question of Equal Pay for Equal Work will shortly come up for discussion in Parliament…’Small 4pp leaflet

[14999]                                                                                                                          £2

269.     EVERYWOMAN      

founded in 1985, a news and current affairs magazine aimed at ‘real women’. Issues:

1991 July/Aug

1992 Oct, Nov, Dec/Jan 1993;1993, Feb, April, March, May, June, July, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov Dec/Jan 1994; 1994, Feb, March, April, May, June, July, Aug, Sept,  Oct, Nov, Dec/Jan 1995;1995 Feb, March, April, May, June, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec/Jan 1996;1996 May

In good condition. Each

[14923]                                                                                                                          £8

270.     FAREWELL FROM THE WOMEN’S BRANCH OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY WAR AND RELIEF FUND  1914 1918      

Small metal Vesta case with a map of India shown in relief..to hold a small box of matches. During World War I, Lord Willingdon, the governor of Bombay, created the India War & Relief Fund (Bombay Branch) two which all the native and princely states neighbouring the Bombay Presidency contributed, along with the people of the Bombay Presidency. Lady Willingdon was president of the Women’s Branch. it is thought these little vesta cases were given to soldiers leaving India on their way back to Britain. In good condition – unusual

[14979]                                                                                                                        £25

271.     GIRL’S OWN PAPER, Oct 1885-Sept 1886      

Good in decorative binding – front hinge a little loose – some foxing. The lead serial story is ‘Folorn, Yet Not Forsaken: the story of a nursery governess’.  Articles include ‘Photography for Girls’, The Law of Mistress and Servant’, ‘On Copying the Old Masters’ – plus many articles on dress, music, gardening etc – with masses of illustrations

[4152]                                                                                                                         £25

272.     GIRL’S OWN PAPER, Oct 1887-Sept 1888      

Includes articles on ‘Reform in Underclothing’ – as well as the usual articles on dress – on the typewriter and type-writing, on how girls should spend the year for pleasure and profit, stories by Mrs Linnaeus Banks and Mary Cowden Clarke etc etc.With the Extra Summer Number bound in. Good in chipped publisher’s binding

[4153]                                                                                                                         £25

273.     HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS BOLTON      

Page from ‘The Buiilding News’ (18 March 1892) showing the new building for the school, at Park Road, Bolton, opened by Millicent Fawcett on 8 May 1891. The building, now, I think, demolished was in an ‘olde Englishe’ style, with half-timbering  and an oriel window to the assembly hall. The page includes plans for the Ground and First floors, showing the disposition of classrooms, wcs etc. Very good

[14898]                                                                                                                        £25

274.     NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE CONTRIBUTION BOOK      

for Ethel Leach, a member of the Amalgamated Association of Card, Blowing and Ring room Operatives c1912. Ethel Leach lwas born in 1898 and lived at

2 Alder Street, Bolton, with her parents (her father was a basketmaker) and her brother and sister. When the 1911 census was taken she was 13 and still at school – but by the time this Contribution Book was issued she was a ‘Cardroom Operative;. The 8 printed pages of the book detail the Table of Weeklly Contributions, Contributions Paid, and the Benefits that will accrue.- as well as much detail about the operation of the National Health Insurance at that time. An unusual item. Card covers – very good

[14975]                                                                                                                        £12

275.     REFORMATORIES AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (COMMITTALS) Returns showing the comparative number of committals of boys and girls to reformatories and industrial schools   April 1872

‘Shows comparative number of committals of boys and girls to reformatories and industrial schools in 1870, with the number of cases in which the parents have been charged with such payment towards their children’s cost at such schools as may be considered equal to the expense they are saved by so throwing their children on public support, together with a comparative statement of the number of cases in which such charge has been adjudged, with that of the charges actually recovered and regularly paid.’ Raw facts. 4 foolscap pp – disbound

[9150]                                                                                                                         £28

276.     ROSS, Alan The London Magazine, March 1970    

Special Short Story Issue. Contains essays on short-story writing by Brian Glanville, Elizabeth Taylor and William Trevor. Soft covers – good

[7308]                                                                                                                           £5

277.     SENIOR, Mrs Nassau Pauper Schools   HMSO 1875

‘Copy ”of a Letter addressed to the President of the Local Government Board by Mrs Nassau Senior, lately an Inspector of the Board, being a reply to the observation of Mr Tufnell, also a former inspector upon her report on pauper schools’. This was a follow-up to Mrs Senior’s 1874 report.

24pp – large format – disbound.

[10457]                                                                                                                        £28

278.     WOMEN: A CULTURAL REVIEW    OUP 

1994 Spring, vol 5, no 1; Autumn vol 5, no 2; Winter vol 5, no 3

1995 Summer vol 6, no1; Autumn vol 6, no 2; Winter, vol 6, no 3

1996  Spring vol 7, issue 1; Autumn vol 7, no 2; Winter vol 7, no 3

1997 Sprng vol 8, no 1; Autumn vol 8. no 3

In very good condition – each

[14929]                                                                                                                          £8

279.     WOMEN’S PRINTING SOCIETY (LIMITED)      

Advertising card for this very interesting business, founded in 1876. Coincidentally, I was commissioned to write an article on the WPS to accompany the BL’s ‘Unfinished Business’ exhibition. You can find it here https://www.bl.uk/womens-rights/articles/the-womens-printing-society. This trade card dates from the early years of the WPS, before 1893,  when it was in Great College St, Westminster.

[15080]                                                                                                                   SOLD

General Postcards

280.     CLARK’S COLLEGE, CIVIL SERVICE Preparing for the Lady Clerk’s G.P.O. Exam    

Photographic postcard of the young women preparing for this exam which, if they passed, offered a chance of bettering themselves. Very good – unposted

[9233]                                                                                                                         £12

#281 Hull Postcard

281.     MYSTERY ‘WOMEN’S DEMONSTRATION’ POSTCARD      

I bought this card in 2004, but it was only as a result of Lockdown Research that I had the time – and patience – to work out why a large group of women were arrayed in front of a camera in Hull. The answer lay on their lapels – white ribbon badges = Hull Temperance. For details of the detective work, see the piece about it on my website – https://wp.me/p2AEiO-1Br

[8145]                                                                                                                         £20

General (Cross-Dressing) Vaudeville Sheet Music

282.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS    B. Feldman 1914

sings ‘Just One Kiss – Just Another One’ and is photographed in top hat and tails on the cover of the sheet music. The song was written by William Hargreaves and Dan Lipton. Very god

[10675]                                                                                                                          £7

283.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS    Campbell, Connelly & Co 1925

sings ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, written by Irving King, and is photographed as an awkward young man on the cover of the sheet music. Good

[10678]                                                                                                                          £6

284.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS    Lawrence Wright 1925

sings ‘When the Bloom is On the Heather’ and is photographed in top hat and tails on the cover of the sheet music. Very good

[10681]                                                                                                                          £6

285.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS    Lawrence Wright 1929

sings ‘Home in Maine’ and is photographed in sailor attire on cover of sheet music. Good

[10688]                                                                                                                          £6

286.     MISS HETTY KING    Francis, Day & Hunter 1908

sings ‘I’m Afraid to Come Home in the Dark’ and is photographed on the cover of the sheet music in extravagantly elegant top hat and tails. Very good

[10684]                                                                                                                          £7

287.     MISS NORA DELANEY    Lawrence Wright 1929

sings ‘Glad Rag Doll’ and is photographed in male evening dress on the cover of the sheet music. Good

[10687]                                                                                                                          £5

288.     VESTA TILLEY    Francis, Day & Hunter 1905

sings ‘Who Said, “Girls”?’. Sheet music featuring photograph on cover of Vesta Tilley in smart male attire. The ditty begins: ‘One day on a Western claim/Miners vow’d their lives were tame, For in that lonel spot there seldom girls had been.’ Good

[10670]                                                                                                                          £7

289.     VESTA TILLEY    Francis, Day & Hunter 1896

sings ‘He’s Going In For this Dancing Now’, sheet music, written by E.W. Rogers. Very good – except that the front cover is semi-detached

[10672]                                                                                                                          £5

General Fiction

290.     AITKEN, David Sleeping with Jane Austen   No Exit Press 2000

Facetious crime novel. Soft covers – very good

[12417]                                                                                                                          £4

291.     BULKIN, Elly (ed) Lesbian Fiction: an anthology   Persephone Press (Massachusetts) 1981

Soft covers – very good

[15079]                                                                                                                          £8

292.     CLIFT, Charmian Walk to the Paradise Gardens   Harper & Bros (NY) 1960

First US edition of this Australian novel. Very good in very good d/w, which is slightly chipped at top and bottom of spine

[12458]                                                                                                                        £25

293.     HOLTBY, Winifred The Crowded Street   The Bodley Head 1924

Very good in original decorative cloth. The novel is dedicated to Winifred’s friend, Jean McWilliam, to whom she wrote the letters published as ‘Letters to a Friend’ (see item # ?]

[15254]                                                                                                                        £35

294.     LEVERSON, Ada Love’s Shadow   Chapman & Hall 1950

Reprint of the 1908 edition. Good

[3086]                                                                                                                           £4

295.     MARTIN, Valerie The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories   Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2006

Soft covers – fine

[10469]                                                                                                                          £4

296.     SIGOURNEY, Mrs (ed. F.W.N. Bailey) The Poetical Works of Mrs L.H. Sigourney   G. Routledge 1857

Neatly rebound in cloth

[2428]                                                                                                                         £10

297.     SPENDER, Dale The Diary of Elizabeth Pepys   Grafton 1991

Elizabeth gives her account of life with Samuel. Soft covers – very good

[11232]                                                                                                                          £8

298.     TAYLOR, Kate Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen   Vintage 2004

Enjoyable novel, Canadian literary researcher in Paris – parallel portraits of old and new worlds. Soft covers – fine

[10470]                                                                                                                          £4

Women and the First World War: Non-fiction

299.     ALDRICH, Mildred On the Edge of the War Zone: from the Battle of the Marne to the entrance of the Stars and Stripes  Constable 1918

Mildred Aldrich had left the USA for France in 1898 and in 1914, when war broke out, was living in La Creste, a country house overlooking the Marne Valley. In this volume she recounts, in letter form, day-to-day life after the Battle of the Marne. The account was intended to influence public opinion, to back the entrance of the US into the war. In 1922 she was duly awarded the Legion d’Honneur. Very good

[15297]                                                                                                                        £45

300.     ANDERSON, Adelaide Women in the Factory: an administrative adventure, 1893 to 1921  John Murray 1922

‘Tells the story of the Woman Inspectorate of Factories and Workshops from its beginning in 1893, until 1921, when 30 Women Inspectors saw the fruits of the work of their branch, not only in greatly developed protection for the woman worker, but also in her own increased capacity to help herself’. Written by one of the leaders of the woman inspectorate movement, who was, incidentally, a niece of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Good, with the bookplate of the Lyceum Club, Melbourne on the free front endpaper – and a few spots on the front cover. Scarce.

[15225]                                                                                                            SOLD

300A ANON The Letters of Thomasina Atkins: Private (WAAC) on Active Service   Hodder & Stoughton no date (1918)

With a foreword by Mildred Aldrich. This is one of those books about which it is difficult to be entirely sure – are the letters genuine – or is it fiction? The general consensus – of reviewers in 1918 and of academics in the 21st century – is that they are real letters, written by a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps to a woman friend (‘Peachie’). The only clues as to the author’s identity are that she had previously been an actress and that  she was considerably younger than Mildred Aldrich (author of ‘Hilltop on the Marne’ and other accounts of the War), who had known her since she was a child.  Good – with a damp stain along bottom of free front endpapers – ownership inscription (1918) and stamp of the ‘Royal Midlan Counties Home for Incurables Castel Froma Lillington Road Leamington Spa’. Very scarce

[15261]                                                                                                                        £45

301.     ANON [Katherine Evelyn Luard] Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-1915   William Blackwood 1916 (2nd imp)

‘This Journal was written with no idea of publication. As it was thought that some of it might interest others outside the Author’s family, for whom the Journal was kept, these selections – which are given exactly as they were written – are published.’  Kate Luard’s experience nursing in France during the first two years of the First World War. She was born in 1872 and died in 1962, one of the many children of an Essex vicar – educated at Croydon High School when Dorinda Neligan was headmistress, and was twice mentioned in despatches during the War. Very good – very scarce

[15237]                                                                                                                   SOLD

302.     BILLINGTON, Mary Frances The Red Cross in War: woman’s part in the relief of suffering  Hodder & Stoughton 1914

Good

[15273]                                                                                                                        £20

303.     BOWSER, Thekla Britain’s Civilian Volunteers: authorized story of British Voluntary Aid Detachment Work in the Great War  McClelland, Goodchild & Steward (Toronto) 1917

This is the US/Canadian title of ‘The Story of British V.A.D. Work in the Great War’ – the text of both editions is the same. With 18 photographs. Very good – in d.w.

[15269]                                                                                                                        £45

304.     CABLE, Boyd Doing Their Bit: war work at home  Hodder and Stoughton, 2nd imp 1916

Includes a chapter on ‘The Women’. Good

[15232]                                                                                                                        £28

305.     CORBETT, Elsie Red Cross in Serbia: a personal diary of experiences, 1915-1919  Cheney & Sons 1964

Eyewitness account of nursing in the Balkans during the First World War. Very good,although free front end paper removed and cover cloth a little mottled – a  presentation copy to the author

[15244]                                                                                                                        £65

306.     COSENS, Monica Lloyd George’s Munition Girls   Hutchinson, no date (1916)

Anecdotal account of the work of the women munition workers in the First World War. Good – covers faded –  very scarce

[15230]                                                                                                                        £55

307.     COWPER, Col Julia.Margaret A Short History of Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps   WRAC Association no date (c 1967)

Soft covers – very good (ex-WRAC Museum). Scarce

[15241]                                                                                                                        £30

308.     DENT, Olive A V.A.D. in France   Grant Richards 1917

Description of life as a volunteer nurse in France – with attractie line drawings by R.M. Savage and others. The ink inscription on the free front endpaper, dated 13 September 1919, is ‘To Jeanie, with love,…from one who was in the hospital at Rouen 1916’. Good – with pictorial cloth cover – a little rubbed, bumped and shaken. Scarce

[15274]                                                                                                                   SOLD

309.     DIXON, Agnes M. The Canteeners   John Murray 1917

The story of the Cantines des Dames Anglaises (run under the aegis of the French Red Cross) by one who worked for them in France during the First World War. Good – with photographs

[15228]                                                                                                            SOLD

310.     DOUGLAS-PENNANT, Violet Under the Search-Light: the record of a great scandal   Allen & Unwin 1922

In June 1918 Violet Douglas-Pennant was appointed Commandant, Women’s Royal Air Force – only to be dismissed two months later ‘by direction of Lord Weir and Sir Auckland Geddes on the advice of Lady Rhondda, who acted without enquiry on secret information supplied to her, as well as to Mr Tyson Wilson MP, and Miss P. Strachey, by Mrs Beatty and others’. How intriguing. The book takes 463 pp to cover the ‘scandal’. Douglas-Pennant wrote it as her self-justificatory account of events “so that my name & honour may at last be vindicated.” Includes recollections of her ten weeks’ in charge, a Who’s Who of the personalities involved & full details of the House of Lords Inquiry into her dismissal. Good

[14129]                                                                                                                        £85

311.     FOXWELL, A.K. Munition Lasses: six months as Principal Onlooker in Danger Buildings  Hodder & Stoughton 1917

An account of work at Woolwich Arsenal during the First World War. With 10 photographs. Good – scarce

[15227]                                                                                                                   SOLD

312.     GRANT, Marjorie Verdun Days in Paris   Collins 1918

Work, from 1916, in a war canteen in Paris. Good – extremely scarce

[15276]                                                                                                            SOLD

313.     GWYNNE-VAUGHAN, DAame Helen Service With the Army   Hutchinson, no date (1940s)

A history of women’s involvement with the British army in the First and Second world wars – by one who played a key role in both. Good – scarce

[15260]                                                                                                                        £45

314.     HAMILTON, Cicely Senlis   Collins 1917

Her experience in France during the First World War. Good – with 11 photographs – and scarce

[15275]                                                                                                                        £75

315.     HARGREAVES, Reginald Women-At-Arms: their famous exploits through the ages  Hutchinson no date [1930]

Chapters on, amongst others ‘Mother Ross: the Amazon dragoon’, Anne Bonney and Mary Read, Hannah Snell, Dr James Barry, and, from the First World War, Dorothy Lawrence: the Sapper of the B.E.F., and Flora Sandes. Good, with 12 illustrations,  in original cloth – tho’ ex-library

[15268]                                                                                                            £12

316.     JESSE, F. Tennyson The Sword of Deborah: first-hand impressions of the British women’s army in France  Heinemann 1918

She was commissioned by the Ministry of Information to write this book in March 1918. ‘For we should not forget, and how should we remember if we have never known?’ Good – with the faint outline of a ‘Boots’ shield on the front cover – quite scarce

[15236]                                                                                                                        £48

317.     MACPHERSON, Maj-Gen Sir W.G. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents: Medical Services: General History: Vol 1  HMSO 1921

‘Medical Services in the United Kingdom; in British Garrisons Overseas; and During Operations against Tsingrau, in Togoland, the Cameroons, and South-West Africa’. 463pp – many maps, charts etc. In good condition (one page of the Index is loose). Very scarce

[15284]                                                                                                            £140

318.     MARKHAM, Violet R. Watching on the Rhine   George H. Doran (NY) 1921

Violet Markham was a member of the Army of Occupation in Germany immediately after the First World War. Very good. (The English edition was entitled ‘The Watcher on the Rhine’).

[15256]                                                                                                                        £25

319.     SINCLAIR, May Journal of Impressions in Belgium   Macmillan (NY) 1915

Her description of her journey to the front line with the Motor Ambulance Corps. Very good – extremely scarce

[15248]                                                                                                                        £75

320.     SUTHERLAND, Millicent, Duchess Of Six Weeks At The War   The Times 1914

She left England on 8 August 1914 to join a branch of the French Red Cross – and then went on to form her own ambulance unit and took it into Belgium.With photographs. Soft covers – good – spine a little nicked

[15239]                                                                                                                        £55

321.     STOBART, Mrs St Clair War and Women   G.Bell & Sons 1913

An account of her adventures with the Women’s Convoy Corps that she took out to Serbia during the Balkan Wars in 1912. With 32 photographs. Good – in original red cloth, with white cross on front board. Scarce

[15270]                                                                                                            SOLD

322.     STOBART, Mrs St Clair The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere   Hodder & Stoughton 1917 (2nd ed)

The redoubtable Mrs Stobart formed her own hospital unit during the First World War, taking it in 1915 to Serbia. Dramatic adventures. Very good – with many photographs, a pull-out map, and a dramatic emblematic cover. Scarce

[15246]                                                                                                                   SOLD

323.     TAYLER, Henrietta A Scottish Nurse At Work: being a record of what one semi-trained nurse has been privileged to see and do during four and a half years of war  John Lane 1920

She served with the Anglo-French section of the British Red Cross in Flanders, France and on the Italian Front. The latter section is particularly interesting because there are comparatively few accounts of that Front. Good internally – in original decorative cloth – ex-university library. With 7 illustrations. Extremely scarce

[15287]                                                                                                                        SOLD

324.     THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR VOL XVII    The Times 1918

This large, heavy volume includes a section on ‘Women’s Work: War Service’ that includes numerous photographs. Other sections on, for instance, ‘Medical Science and the Pests of War’, ‘The Conquest of Rumania’, ‘The Arab Uprising’, ‘The Boy Scouts’ etc. Very good – scarce

[15306]                                                                                                                        £65

Women and the First World War: Biography and Autobiography

325.     (ASHWELL) Lena Ashwell Myself a Player    

Autobiography of the actress and manager, in the years before the First World War, of the Kingsway Theatre – where she staged and starred in Cicely Hamilton’s ‘Diana of Dobson’s’.  During the First World War she was a member of the Women’s Corps – and entertained the troops. Very good

[15219]                                                                                                                        £48

326.     (BAGNOLD) Enid Bagnold A Diary Without Dates   Heinemann new impression, March 1918

Diary of her life as a VAD in the First World War. Good internally – split to spine cloth – very scarce

[15300]                                                                                                                        £65

327.     (DEARMER) Mabel Dearmer Letters From a Field Hospital: with a memoir of the author by Stephen Gwynn  Macmillan 1915

In April 1915 Mabel Dearmer, wife of the Christian Socialist Rev Percy Dearmer, went out with Mrs St Clair Stobart, as a nurse, to Serbia – and died there in July. These are the letters she sent home. Good internally – cover marked, spine chipped – withdrawn from the John Crerar Library, Chicago.. Scarce

[15303]                                                                                                                        £55

328.     (FORBES) Lady Angela Forbes Memories and Base Details   George H. Doran (NY) 1922

Born in 1876, she was the half-sister of Daisy, Countess of Warwick, and full sister to Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland. Much about her aristocratic up-bringing but the other half of the book (well over 100 pages) is devoted to her work during the First World War – organising hospitals in France. Very good -scarce

[15221]                                                                                                                        £48

329.     (GEORGE) Gertrude A. George Eight Months with the Women’s Royal Air Force   Heath Cranton 1920

Large format, with many delightful full-page illustrations by the author, Gertrude Alice George (1886-1971). She had been an art teacher in St Albans before the First World War. WRAF records show that she joined up on 29 October 1918 and that she was employed at the London Colney RAF airfield. Very good – scarce

[15255]                                                                                                                   SOLD

330.     (HUTTON) Isabel Hutton Memories of a Doctor in War and Peace   Heinemann 1960

Studied medicine at the Women’s Medical School in Edinburgh (not Sophia Jex-Blake’s one) – much about her medical education – then with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in the First World War – and a lifetime’s work after. Very good in d/w

[15245]                                                                                                                        £55

331.     (INGLIS) Lady Frances Balfour Dr Elsie Inglis   Hodder & Stoughton no date (c 1919)

Biography of  Dr Elsie Inglis (1864-1917), Scottish doctor – and suffragist. Founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. In good condition

[15286]                                                                                                                        £35

332.     (JOHNSTON) Agnes Anderson ‘Johnnie’ of Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps   Heath Cranton no date (c. 1919)

Elizabeth Johnston joined the WAAC in Dec 1917 and died, bizarrely, on Christmas Day 1918, having fallen from the tower of the church of St Ouen in Rouen.  Her year’s work in France is detailed from the letters she sent home to Fife. Very good -very scarce

[15259]                                                                                                                        £65

333.     (KENNARD) Lady Kennard A Roumanian Diary, 1915, 1916, 1917   William Heinemann 1917

Joins a Red Cross Hospital in Roumania in 1916. With photographs. Good condition -very scarce –

[15238]                                                                                                                        £65

334.     (MCARTHUR) Josephine Kellett That Friend of Mine: a memoir of Marguerite McArthur  The Swarthmore Press 1920

Memoir of a young woman, educated at Newnham, who in 1914 worked for the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society and then, after the outbreak of war, first in the War Office and then in France, in Etaples, with the YMCA. She was still working there when she died, of influenza, aged 26 in February 1919. Fine  – presentation copy from her sister

[15277]                                                                                                                        £35

335.     MCLAREN, Barbara Women of the War   Hodder & Stoughton 1917

Biographical essays of women and their work in the First World War. – beginning with Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson and Dr Flora Murray and ranging through Lilian Barker, Dr Elsie Inglis, Lady Paget, Commandant Damer Dawson, Lena Ashwell, Violetta Thurstan, Miss Ethel Rolfe and the Women Acetylene Welders, among many others.   With many photographs and a coloured frontispiece by Edmund Dulac.  Very good (corner has been torn from the free front endpaper) – scarce

[15265]                                                                                                                   SOLD

336.     (SALMOND) Monica Salmond Bright Armour: memories of four years of war  Faber, 2nd imp 1935

Autobiography of the sister of Julian Grenfell; she began training as a nurse on 19 August 1914 and worked, in both England and France, for the duration of the First World War. Good – a little foxing. It was once, I think, in the lending library run by Owen Owen, the Liverpool department store. Extremely scarce

[15247]                                                                                                                        SOLD

337.     (SQUIRE) Rose Squire Thirty Years in the Public Service: an industrial retrospect  Nisbet 1927

She was one of the first women inspectors of factories – appointed in 1896. Section on work in factories during the First World War. Good – scarce

[15231]                                                                                                                   SOLD

338.     (STIMSON) Julia C. Stimson Finding Themselves: the letters of an American Army Chief Nurse in a British Hospital in France  Macmillan (NY) 1927

She arrived in Liverpool in May 1917, moved on to London where she met society women now devoting themselves to running hospitals etc. She was in France, working alongside British nurses, by 11 June and was still there when the book ends, in April 1918. Good condition – very scarce

[15291]                                                                                                                      £120

339.     (VIDAL) Lois Vidal Magpie: the autobiography of a nymph errant  Little, Brown 1934

Daughter of the vicarage, she was all for adventure. She worked in the War Office, and then went to France as a war worker in France during the First World War, then was a governess in Corsica, then to Canada – and then back to England. Packed with interesting social comment. Good

[15229]                                                                                                                         £28

339A   WALTERS, E.W. Heroines of the World-War   Charles H. Kelly 1916

Chapters on Edith Cavell, Sister Myra Ivanovna: a Russian Joan of Arc, Mabel Dearmer, Sister Joan Martin-Nicholson, The Retreat in Serbia, Women Doctors and War Decorations., Women Soldiers etc. Very good – the endpapers bear the stamp of ‘Southampton General Hospital’. Surprisingly scarce

[15288]                                                                                                                   SOLD

Women and the First World War: Ephemera

340.     COX, Michael Women at War: on old picture postcards  Reflections of a Bygone Age 2014

‘A selection of picture postcards featuring the roels of women in World War One, with informative captions’. 38pp – mint

[15214]                                                                                                                          £4

Women and the First World War: Fiction

341.     BORDEN, Mary The Forbidden Zone   Heinemann 1929

Stories, sketches and poems written between 1914 and 1918, during four years of hospital work with the French army. Mary Borden (1886-1968), American-British novelist, daughter of a wealthy Chicago family, educated at Vassar, married a Scottish missionary, had three daughters, in England became a suffragette and on the outbreak of the First World War went to France as a VAD. During this time she had an affair with a Brigadier-General, whom she married after a divorce.  Quite a life. Fine in very good dustwrapper. Scarce

[15280]                                                                                                                     SOLD

342.     FORBES, R.E.(pseudonym of Ralph Straus) Mrs Holmes, Commandant   Edward Arnold 1918

The printed dedication is: ‘Dedicated with feelings of the profoundest respect to the Detachment’. By which is meant the ‘Voluntary Aid Detachment’, for this is a novel (humourous) about the setting up of a VAD hospital in a small English town. First edition in good condition – and very scarce

[15258]                                                                                                                        £45

343.     MARCHANT, Bessie A Transport Girl in France: a story of the adventures of a W.A.A.C.  Blackie no date [reprint c earl 1930s]

With pictorial cloth cover:  the original design was still in use c 15 years after first publication. Free front endpaper bears a presentation label from Gosport Education Committee showing that the book was awarded to ‘Netta Gladys Smith of St John’s Girls’ School for Good Conduct, Industry and Progress in Standard VIII. Position in Class: 1. 1934.’ The label is annotated in ink: ‘Mayor’s Special Prize’ and signed by the Mayor. Good – with illustrations by Wal Paget. Very scarce. Very good – clean and tight – with only slight bumping to corners

[15262]                                                                                                                        £75

344.     MARCHANT, Bessie A V.A.D. in Salonika   Blackie, no date c 1917/18

Good – with pictorial cover (she is in uniform, pushing a motor bike, with minarets and domes in the background.) Has an birthday gift inscription on free front endpaper – 15 February 1918

[15242]                                                                                                                        £45

345.     RATHBONE, Irene We That Were Young   Chatto & Windus 1932

With a preface by E.M. Delafield.. Irene Rathbone (1892-1980) had been a young suffragette and in the First World War worked in YMCA camps in France and as a VAD in London. A semi-autobiographical novel of  ‘the lost generation’. The free front endpaper carries the ownership signature of ‘H. Thomas 193’ and the comment ‘Twenty Years After’. The back pastedown bears the small label of the bookseller – ‘Higginbothams Booksellers Madras and Bangalore’. First edition -very good – extremely scarce

[15289]                                                                                                                      SOLD

***

You can pay me by bank transfer (preferred method), cheque or (if from overseas) at www.Paypal.com, using my email address as the payee account.

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In case you may be interested in books I have published they are ~

NEW

Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Selected Writings

ed. Melissa Terras & Elizabeth Crawford

Reproduces Fawcett’s essential speeches, pamphlets and newspaper columns to tell the story of her dynamic contribution to public life. Thirty-five texts and 22 images are contextualised and linked to contemporary news coverage as well as to historical and literary references. These speeches, articles, artworks and photographs cover both the advances and the defeats in the campaign for women’s votes. They also demonstrate a variety of the topics and causes Fawcett pursued: the provision of education for women; feminist history; a love of literature (and Fawcett’s own attempt at fiction); purity and temperance; the campaign against employment of children; the British Army’s approach to the South African War; the Unionist cause against Home Rule for Ireland; and the role of suffrage organisations during World War I. Here is a rich, intertextual web of literary works, preferred reading material, organisations, contacts, friends, and sometimes enemies, that reveals Fawcett the individual throughout 61 years of campaigning. The first scholarly appraisal of Fawcett in over 30 years, this is essential reading for those wishing to understand the varied political, social and cultural contributions of Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett

UCL Press

Available free to access and download. Also to buy in print editions – see https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/161045

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Art and Suffrage: a biographical dictionary of suffrage artists discusses the lives and work of over 100 artists, each of whom made a positive contribution to the women’s suffrage campaign. Most, but not all, the artists were women, many belonging to the two suffrage artists’ societies – the Artists’ Suffrage League and the Suffrage Atelier. Working in a variety of media –producing cartoons, posters, banners, postcards, china, and jewellery – the artists promoted the suffrage message in such a way as to make the campaign the most visual of all those conducted by contemporary pressure groups.

In the hundred plus years since it was created, the artwork of the suffrage movement has never been so widely disseminated and accessible as it is today, the designs as appealing as they were during the years before the First World War when the suffrage campaign was at its height. Yet hitherto little has been known about most of the artists who produced such popular images. Art and Suffrage remedies this lack and sets their artistic contribution to the suffrage cause within the context of their reanimated lives, giving biographical details, including addresses, together with information on where their work may be seen.

With over 100 illustrations, in black-and-white and in colour.

Published by Francis Boutle     Soft cover                                                £20

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Kate Parry Frye: the long life of an Edwardian actress and suffragette

Published by ITV Ventures as a tie-in with the series: ‘The Great War: The People’s Story’ this e-book tells Kate’s life story from her Victorian childhood to her brave engagement with the Elizabethan New Age. For details see here (and many more posts on my website).

Available to download from iTunes or Amazon

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The Women’s Suffrage Movement 1866-1928: A reference guide

Elizabeth Crawford

‘It is no exaggeration to describe Elizabeth Crawford’s Guide as a landmark in the history of the women’s movement…’  History Today

Routledge, 2000 785pp paperback £89.99 – Ebook £80.99

The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: a regional survey

Elizabeth Crawford

‘Crawford provides meticulous accounts of the activists, petitions, organisations, and major events pertaining to each county.’ Victorian Studies

Routledge, 2008 320pp paperback £38.99, Ebook £35.09

Enterprising Women: The Garretts and their circle

Elizabeth Crawford

‘Crawford’s scholarship is admirable and Enterprising Women offers increasingly compelling reading’ Journal of William Morris Studies

For further details see here Francis Boutle, 2002 338pp 75 illus paperback £25

I have stock of Art and Suffrage and Enterprising Women. Copies of all my books may be bought direct from the publishers or ordered from any bookshop.

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ANNIE SWYNNERTON: My Podcast for the Pre-Raphaelite Society

Posted by womanandhersphere in Art and Suffrage, The Garretts and their Circle on March 8, 2023

Louisa Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton

Following on from my previous post on Annie Swynnerton – ‘New Revelations’ – the Pre-Raphaelite Society have released, for International Women’s Day, my podcast talk on Annie – and Isabel Dacre.

The podcast is in two parts and you can listen here:

https://the-pre-raphaelite-podcast.podbean.com

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The Garretts And Their Circle: Annie Swynnerton: New Revelations

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories, The Garretts and their Circle on March 6, 2023

Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Annie Swynnerton. (Courtesy of The Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art)

Excellent News: Millicent Fawcett is entering Parliament. A portrait of Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Annie Swynnerton has been acquired by The Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art .

Last summer I noticed that this painting had appeared in an art dealer’s listing and immediately alerted Melanie Unwin, who until recently was Deputy Collector of the Palace of Westminster Collection – exclaiming, ‘Now, wouldn’t this be an excellent addition to the Parliamentary Collection?’ And – it has come to pass. The portrait is due to be ‘unveiled’ at the end of this month (March 2023). Public recognition of Millicent Fawcett is something in which I have taken a personal interest – for ten years ago I posted on this website a plea – ‘Make Millicent Fawcett Visible’. And – the veil has been lifted – she now has a statue in Westminster Square, her portrait, by Annie Swynnerton, is on show in the Tate,[i] and this other version will now hang in Parliament.

 This version, which presumably was painted around the same time (1910) as that bought for the Tate by the Chantrey Bequest in 1930 (the year after Fawcett’s death), remained, for whatever reason, in Annie Swynnerton’s studio and was sold in the February 1934 posthumous sale of her ‘Artistic Effects’. After that it passed through the auction rooms on several occasions but since the early 1970s has remained out of sight. However, thanks to the fact that the National Portrait Gallery archive holds a black-and-white photograph, Melissa Terras and I were able to include this image in Millicent Fawcett: selected writings.[ii]

In Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle I hazarded a guess that the Tate’s portrait might have been painted in a first-floor back room at Fawcett’s home, 2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury. However, I’ve now discovered, in a recently-digitised newspaper (the wonder of our age), that ‘Mrs Swynnerton told a Daily Herald representative that half of the portrait was painted in the garden of Dame Millicent’s house in Gower Street and the other half at her own home’.[iii]

Which leads me neatly to the bland, but intriguing, observation  that a narrative is shaped by the available information. Thus, in biography, an author takes ‘facts’ about a subject and turns them into a ‘life’. If the ‘facts’ comprise primary sources, such as letters, diaries, newspaper articles, society minutes, oral interviews etc, so much the better  – or, at least, easier. But if the subject has left no written trace, information must be wrung from whatever material comes to hand.

And, thus, I leap to the particular. For, in the case of the artist Annie Swynnerton (née Robinson), although there is very little documented information about her early life, serendipity – in the shape of a previously unrecorded collection of family portraits – has recently allowed me to focus the biographical lens on one connection made at the start of her career, that ran as a thread through its entirety, ensured her a place in the canon, and effected the link between the artist and the sitter of Parliament’s latest acquisition.

We know Annie Louisa Robinson was born in Manchester in 1844, the eldest of seven daughters. Her father, Francis Robinson (1814-89), the son of a Yorkshire carpenter,[iv] had risen from what one assumes were relatively humble beginnings, to become a solicitor, with  a practice in central Manchester. By the mid-1850s he was sufficiently successful to be able to move his growing family from inner Manchester to a newly-built, detached house in leafy Prestwich Park, 5 km north of the city.[v]  In fact Robinson was one of the first house-owners in this development which, guarded by two entrance lodges and with fine views, was intended to appeal to the burgeoning Manchester middle-class.[vi]  For some years Robinson involved himself in Manchester affairs; in 1863 he was vice-president of the Manchester Law Association and from at least 1861 was a councillor for St Ann’s Ward and by 1868 its chairman. However, in 1869 disaster struck; he was declared bankrupt. The effect on the family was momentous. In March the entire contents of the home – from a ‘Splendid Walnutwood Drawing-Room Suite, ‘’a sweet-toned cottage pianoforte’, ‘stuffed Australian birds under glass shade’ to a ‘patent coffee percolator’, ‘large brass preserving pans’, and ‘300 choice greenhouse and other plants’ – were all sold at auction.[vii] Stripped from the walls were oil paintings by, among others, Sam Bough, John Brandon Smith, and David Cox, and, from the bookshelves, about 500 volumes, among which were Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.

In June 1869 the Robinsons’ house , with its drawing-room, two dining rooms, breakfast room, library, nine bedrooms, bathrooms, pantries, sculleries, and about half an acre of land, was sold.[viii] The family was then split up. The 1871 census shows Annie (27, Artist), living with her sisters Emily (26, Artist), Julia (24, Artist), Mary (Scholar 16) and Frances (Scholar, 14) in lodgings at 28 Upper Brook Street, back in central Manchester, while Sarah (22) and Adela (19) were visiting with Mrs Sarah Robinson, an elderly widowed relation, and their aunt Mary on the other side of the same street, at number 13.[ix] There is no trace of the Robinson parents in the census but, wherever they were, on census night at least, they were not living with any of their daughters. We must assume that the older sisters now had responsibility for the younger two, who were still at school.

We have no information as to where or how Annie and her sisters were educated. The 1861 Robinson household census does not include a governess, so we can probably conclude that the girls attended a school.[x] Published 30 years later, a brief biographical article in The Queen gives us a rare insight into the Robinson sisters’ early life.[xi]

‘Curiously enough, whilst neither parent had any taste in that direction, Mrs Swynnerton’s two sisters Emily and Julia, were, like herself, born artists, and are both practising their profession in Manchester. When of the tender age of from eleven to thirteen years, Miss Annie used to delight her playfellows, visitors to the house, and the servants with exhibitions of specimens of her very juvenile skill in the shape of water-colour drawings. These primitive works were produced without the advantage of any instruction, and were simply the spontaneous efforts of an inborn, absorbing love of art.’

The Queen commends Francis Robinson for recognising his eldest daughter’s talent and states that ‘she was early placed in the art school at her native city, Manchester’, making no mention of the family’s financial disaster that probably necessitated, or, at least, precipitated, this development. Bankruptcy was unlikely to have struck suddenly and Annie and her sisters may well have been aware of impending disaster. That may be why, from sometime from 1868, Emily, Annie and Julia  enrolled as students at the Manchester School of Art. Sensible young women knew a training was necessary if a living was to be earned. Certainly by 1870/1871, with the security they had once enjoyed swept away, the three oldest Robinson sisters were all attending classes at Manchester School of Art.[xii] Here Annie excelled and in 1873 was awarded one of the 10 national gold medals and a Princess of Wales scholarship worth £11 for ‘Group in oils’.[xiii] Julia was presented with a bronze medal and Emily a book prize.[xiv]

In tracing Annie’s developing career I will continue with the known facts and return later to suppositions. Thus, the narrative runs that in 1874 Annie Robinson travelled to Rome with her friend Isabel Dacre to study and paint, returning to Manchester in 1876. We do not know exactly when in 1874 they left Manchester, nor exactly when in 1876 they returned. But we do know that Annie exhibited a painting at the Manchester exhibition in March 1877.[xv]

Mrs Louisa Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Kenneth Northover)

Annie was again successful the following March (1878) in having another painting selected to hang in the Manchester exhibition. Most importantly, this was the first of her works to which the name of the subject was attached, a name that was then included in the press reports. [xvi] The painting was a full-length portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson and is the first, dated, evidence of Annie’s lifelong friendship with the Wilkinson family, about which I write in Enterprising Women. When researching and writing that book, I guessed that the Wilkinsons, a leading Manchester family, were likely to have been the conduit through whom Annie entered the Garrett Circle, but until recently I had no material proof of when the connection might first have been made.

Revelation struck in June 2022 on a particularly serendipitous occasion, held to mark the installation, on her one-time Bloomsbury apartment, of an English Heritage Blue Plaque to Fanny Wilkinson (1855-1951), Britain’s first professional woman landscape gardener. It was my research on Fanny, published in Enterprising Women, that directed attention to her work, and I was delighted to listen as a descendant of her youngest sister gave a talk about the Wilkinson family – and was astounded when a portrait of Fanny, by none other than Annie Swynnerton, appeared on the accompanying Powerpoint. During the reception that followed I was thrilled to discover that a South African branch of the family held other portraits of family members painted by Annie, both before and after her marriage. This cache of paintings, previously unknown to the art world, presents us with a key to unlock more information about Annie’s career.

For among these family portraits is the painting of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson (1823-89) that was exhibited in Manchester in 1878. Here she is, fashionably attired  in satin, lace, and jewels, her dress, with its swagging, rosettes, ruches, and train, affording Annie every opportunity of displaying a bravura technique.  The Wilkinsons were wealthy and philanthropic; there is no doubt that Annie would have been well paid for the portrait. In addition, by permitting her portrait to be exhibited and allowing herself to be named, Mrs Wilkinson was furthering Annie’s cause by advertising her skill. To attract clients from Manchester’s prosperous middle-class an artist had to be able to display their work. Were the Wilkinsons Annie Robinson’s first significant clients?

 It may be that Annie received similar portrait commissions at this time but, because they were not exhibited by name (or, indeed, have subsequently passed through the auction rooms with a name attached), they are now unknown. The one portrait by Annie that did receive attention in the late 1870s was that of the Rev. W. Gaskell, widower of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, which was commissioned by the Portico Library. It was the Rev. Gaskell himself who in 1879 chose to be painted by Annie, remarking ‘My daughters tell me that she has painted a portrait which they like very much.’[xvii] Could it have been the portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson to which they were referring?[xviii]

For the Gaskells and Wilkinsons must surely have known each other. Dr Matthew Eason Wilkinson (1813-78) was Manchester’s leading doctor and his wife, although born in the US, was descended from a radical Manchester family. The Wilkinsons took an interest in art; Fanny, the eldest, put an artistic ‘eye’ and practical ability to good use in forging a novel career, while both Louisa (1859-1936) and Gladys (1864-1957) studied art in London and had works exhibited.

But, to return to the portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson. To have been exhibited in March 1878, this portrait must have been painted sometime earlier, which places Annie firmly in Manchester for at least some of 1877 and, probably, part of 1876. It so happens that the ‘manly, intellectual head’ of Mrs Wilkinson’s husband, Dr Matthew Eason Wilkinson, was, in the autumn of 1877, on display in the studio exhibition of a sculptor, Joseph Swynnerton.[xix] I think, therefore, we can be certain that, whether or not they had known each other previously (and surely they had), the artist and the sculptor must have encountered each other at this time, as they each immortalised Wilkinson père and mère, a pattern repeated the following year when they both produced portraits of the Rev. Gaskell, one in oils and one in marble.

As an addendum to the discussion of the portrait of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson, I will just mention here a rather intriguing comment made in the 1890 article about Annie that appeared in The Queen. In it the writer remarks that ‘An excellent picture, “Louise”, was placed on the line at the RA, this being succeeded by ”The Tryst”.’  It is difficult to interpret this remark. Although ‘The Factory Girl’s Tryst’ was shown at the RA in 1881, preceded in 1879 by ‘Portrait of a Lady’ and in 1880 by ‘Portrait of Miss S. Isabel Dacre’, Annie doesn’t appear ever to have exhibited any ‘Louise’ (or ‘Louisa’) at the RA. Unless, of course, the Queen journalist was told that the 1879 ‘Portrait of a Lady’ was that of a particular ‘Louise’ (or ‘Louisa’). In 1879 The Athenaeum’s reviewer described the portrait as of a ‘lady in a grey citron dress, standing against a grey background [which] shows profitable studies of old Italian portraiture with Dutch vraisemblance, and is the first-rate example of the harmonious treatment of low tints and tones in a manner that is not decorative ‘[xx] What do  you think? Could this accord with what you see in Mrs Louisa Wilkinson portrait? After Manchester in 1878, was she re-shown at the RA in 1879? Or was the portrait of another ‘Louise’ entirely?

Louisa Wilkinson – second daughter of the Wilkinson family (credit Kenneth Northover)

It was another eleven years before we can be certain that another portrait by Annie Swynnerton of a member of the Wilkinson family was exhibited – and that is this full-length portrait of Louisa Mary Wilkinson, shown at the New Gallery in April/May 1889. The change of style is remarkable. Louisa was described in the Pall Mall Gazette as ‘a slim figure with an old-fashioned face out of a Dutch picture standing among bluebells and clasping an illuminated missal,[xxi] while the Birmingham Daily Post considered it a ‘very original and unconventional portrait, which we found a great deal more human and interesting than the silk and satin gowns with long trains, the feather-fans ad bric-a-brac, with figure-heads attached’.[xxii]

It is now possible to insert a biographical ‘fact’ that may give a slight narrative depth to this picture. For when it was painted, 1888/9, although renting a studio at 6 The Avenue (76 Fulham Road), Annie and Joseph were actually living in Bedford Park, the ‘Queen Anne’, ‘Sweetness and Light’, suburb so popular with artists, their house, 18 St Anne’s Grove, having a purpose-built studio on the top floor.[xxiii]  At the same time, Mrs Louisa Wilkinson was also a resident of Bedford Park. Although Fanny was living in Bloomsbury, it’s likely and Louisa and her younger sisters lived, at least some of the time, with their mother.[xxiv] I don’t think it too fanciful to suggest that the younger Louisa Wilkinson may have been painted in Bedford Park – standing amongst bluebells (the image I reproduce is, perforce, cropped) either in the garden of Annie’s house or that of her mother.

A few years earlier Louisa had been recorded in the 1881 census as an art student, exhibited that year in the Dudley Gallery and in 1882 at the Walker Gallery, and later turned her hand to book binding. Thus, it’s fitting she’s depicted wearing Artistic Dress, her loose linen garment, with tucks, shoulder embroidery and bodice smocking, cinched by an embroidered belt,  hinting at an artist’s smock. She wears no necklace or earrings, the illuminated missal offering sufficient jewelled colours. Perhaps she had bound the missal herself.

In 1894 Annie exhibited the portrait again, including it in a Society of Lady Artists exhibition. Fortunately, the review in The Queen allows us to identify this as the same portrait, by including a description of ‘Portrait of Miss Louisa Wilkinson’: ‘a finely executed picture of a lady facing the spectator, holding, apparently, an illuminated missal in her hands. There is a strong sense of harmony in the scheme of colour, in which a reddish-brown costume plays a not inconspicuous part’. [xxv] The Manchester Evening News described the portrait as a ‘very “new English” full-length study’.[xxvi] Although Annie was not elected a member of the New English Art Club until 1909, she had long been responsive to works by such earlier members as George Clausen.

The two paintings, so different in style – that of Mrs Louisa Wilkinson exhibited in 1878 and her daughter, Louisa, in 1889 – are the only two of Annie’s Wilkinson portraits that were exhibited by name. But they are not the only family portraits by her still held by Wilkinson  descendants. As I’m keen to keep supposition separate from known facts, I’m now discussing these separately, rather than inserting them into the known Annie Robinson/Swynnerton chronology.

Jean (on the left) and Gladys Wilkinson (credit Kenneth Northover)

It is possible that the above portrait could have been the first that the Wilkinson family commissioned from Annie. The biographical article published in The Queen mentions that Annie’s ‘.. first picture was a profile picture of a girl’s head, and this she followed with a group, two half-length portraits, called “Gladys and Jean”, which was in the Manchester exhibition.’ 

Gladys and Jean were the youngest members of the Wilkinson family, born in 1863 and 1876. How old do you think they look in this painting? To me it doesn’t seem possible they could be older than 11 and 7 respectively and that, if so, the double portrait must have been painted no later than 1873/1874, before Annie’s departure abroad.[xxvii] Even in this imperfect photo, we can see that the girls’ satin and lace dresses – and the fashionable Japanese fan held by Gladys – have been lovingly detailed by Annie. It seems plausible that the Wilkinson parents would have commissioned a smaller portrait of their youngest daughters, as a test run, before incurring the expense of a full-length painting of their mother.   If The Queen journalist was correctly informed and the painting was indeed exhibited in Manchester, it could have been included in the 1875 Royal Manchester exhibition, the first for which ‘lady exhibitors’, of whom Annie was one, were eligible.[xxviii] Or could it even have been the ‘group in oils’ (which is an echo of  the term used of ‘Gladys and Jean’ in The Queen)for which Annie won her Princess of Wales scholarship in 1873? But that is probably too fanciful – and an illustration of how dangerous it is to view a ‘biography’ through a single  lens.

Fanny Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Kenneth Northover)

Here, now, is the portrait of a demure Fanny Wilkinson that put me on the trail of the cache of ‘Wilkinson’ paintings. Although it probably does carry a date, that cannot be seen at the moment, and, although it’s possible to gauge the age of young children such as Gladys and Jean, it’s more difficult to do so for a young woman. Although I cannot decide whether it was painted before or after Annie’s stay in Rome (1874-6), I think we can be certain that the portrait was painted before the death of Dr Wilkinson in Autumn 1878 and the family’s consequent move from Manchester to Middlethorpe Hall in Yorkshire.

Fanny is depicted as decidedly ‘Artistic’, the sleeves of her dress bound in a quasi-medieval style, a lace fichu flowing  over the bodice, complementing the frothing cuffs. Although we cannot see the whole shape of her dress, it certainly appears more relaxed than her mother’s ruched and flounced costume.  The peacock feathers were, of course, the height of Aesthetic accessorizing. The accomplished painting of the yellow satin and the lace once again advertised the artist’s skill.  I wonder if the portrait was ever exhibited? I don’t think it can be the  ‘profile picture of a girl’s head’ mentioned in the 1890 Queen article – as it’s so much more than ‘a head’.

Louisa Wilkinson by Annie Swynnerton (credit Kenneth Northover)

This is the last of this batch of Wilkinson portraits – a sketch of Louisa in a sun bonnet. It is signed ‘A.L. Swynnerton’ and so can be dated to no earlier than 1883 – and her marriage to Joseph – but could perhaps be any time after 1887 (for in that year she was still signing paintings as ‘Robinson’) but before Louisa’s marriage to George Garrett in 1900 (because the  title on the frame refers to her as ‘Wilkinson’).[xxix]  

This marriage merely formalised the link between the Garrett and Wilkinson families, the women having already been bound for over two decades in friendship and shared enterprises, with Annie as their preferred portraitist. Besides the portraits noted above, I know she painted an earlier portrait of Louisa Wilkinson (the younger), probably dating from the late 1870s, but at the moment am unable to contact the owner in order to ask permission to reproduce the image of it that I have.It has even crossed my mind to wonder if this could be the portrait of ‘Louise’ that The Queen journalist was so sure had been exhibited at the RA. I also know Annie painted Louisa Garrett Anderson (daughter of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and niece of Millicent Fawcett) and Rhoda Garrett (cousin and partner of Agnes Garrett), although the whereabouts of these portraits is not now known. However, in the course of researching this article I think I have made one discovery.

Agnes Garrett? by Annie Swynnerton (courtesy of Lacy Scott and Knight)

For, on Jonathan Russell’s excellent ‘Annie Swynnerton’ website, under details of the paintings shown at the 1923 exhibition of Annie’s works,  I came across this painting– described as ‘Portrait of a lady standing by flowering ivy’, which, as I then saw from Saleroom.com, had been sold twice, in quick succession, in 2014. I am certain that this is the portrait that Annie painted of Agnes Garrett – at Agnes’ holiday home in Rustington, in the summer of 1885. The subject not only looks like Agnes (wearing a dress with an apron front fashionable at that date) but I can see Sussex knapped flints in the wall behind her. This painting was included in the 1923 Manchester exhibition of Annie’s works – and I know that Agnes’ portrait was also there, although without her name attached. This must surely be it.

The Wilkinsons’ connection to Annie Swynnerton continued until her death. Louisa Garrett sent a wreath – and her sister, Fanny Wilkinson, was one of the few mourners named as attending her burial.

In Enterprising Women I describe in detail how the Wilkinsons, the Garretts, and other members of their circle did so much – through their ‘matronage’ – to ensure Annie Swynnerton’s presence on art gallery walls. And she, in turn, has ensured that her friends and associates, as they hang on the walls of family homes, are still known to their descendants.

You can find other posts about Annie Swynnerton on this website by putting ‘The Garretts and their Circle’ into the Searchbox.

For International Women’s Day 2023 the Pre-Raphaelite Society invited me to talk about Annie Swynnerton. You can find the resulting 2 podcasts here

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

[i] When, c. 2000, I was researching Enterprising Women:the Garretts and their circle (Francis Boutle, 2002) I had to visit the Tate storage facility in order to view the Swynnerton portrait of Millicent Fawcett. It was subsequently shown in Wales, at Bodelwydden Castle, but returned to London for the suffrage centenary in 2018.

[ii] M. Terras and E. Crawford (eds), Millicent Garrett Fawcett: selected writings, UCL Press. Free to download https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10149793/1/Millicent-Garret-Fawcett.pdf p 315.

[iii] Daily Herald, 7 May 1930, 1. Swynnerton’s home and studio in 1910 was 1a The Avenue, 76 Fulham Road, London W.

[iv] Information from Francis Robinson’s Articles of Clerkship, 1836 via Ancestry.

[v] I note that the two youngest Robinson daughters were both born in Prestwich. The elder, Mary, was baptised at St Mary’s, Prestwich, on 3 March 1856.

[vi] For something on the history of Prestwich Park see https://www.bury.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=5382&p=0. In the advertisement for the sale of the Robinsons’ household goods in the Manchester Courier, 6 March 1869, the house was described as ‘the second house from the Bottom Lodge, Prestwich Park.

[vii] Manchester Courier,6 March 1869.

[viii] Manchester Courier, 5 June 1869.

[ix] C. Allen and P. Morris, Annie Swynnerton: painter and pioneer, Sarsen Press, 2018, identifies the widowed relation as Francis Robinson’s stepmother

[x]  In 1861 Miss Hannah Dickinson’s Ladies’ College opened at Hill-side House, in Prestwich Park, close to the Robinsons’ home. Although Annie would have been then too old, it’s unlikely that even her younger sisters were pupils, as Its fees, even for day girls, were high, 16-20 guineas per annum. Miss Dickinson stressed that she had chosen Prestwich Park for its ‘beautiful scenery, its rural glens, its retired walks, and salubrious breezes – as well as ‘its kind-hearted inhabitants’. Miss Dickinson, Thoughts on Woman and Her Education, Longman Green, 1861, p2

[xi] The Queen, 15 March 1890.

[xii] No firm, primary, evidence has come to light as to when exactly the sisters – either individually or together – enrolled at the School of Art. However, Allen and Morris (p. 19) have established very persuasively that Emily ‘was certainly there from at least autumn 1868’ and that Annie, too, had probably been enrolled in 1868, and Julia certainly by 1869-70.

[xiii] Manchester Evening News, 20 August 1873.

[xiv] Manchester Courier, 13 July 1874.

[xv] It was only in 1875 that  9 ‘Lady exhibitors’ were elected for the first time – among whom were Annie Robinson and Isabel Dacre.

[xvi] ‘Miss Annie L. Robinson has a large full-length portrait of Mrs. Eason Wilkinson … and although defective in some respects, gives promise of better work in the future.’ (The Manchester Courier, and Lancashire General Advertiser, 8 March 1878.)

[xvii] Rev. Gaskell quoted in B. Brill, William Gaskell, 1805-84: a portrait, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Publications, 110-11.

[xviii] The portrait of the Rev. Gaskell now hangs in the Gaskells’ former home – see https://elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk/

[xix] Manchester Times, 6 October 1877. Dr Wilkinson was that year president of the British Medical Association, whose meeting had been held that summer in Manchester. The portrait bust may have been intended to mark this achievement. I have no knowledge of what has become of it. Swynnerton’s studio was at 35 Barton Arcade. In 1880 the address of the Manchester Society for Women Painters was 10 Barton House, Deansgate, which must have been close to the Arcade.

[xx]  The Atheneum, 5th and concluding notice of RA Summer Exhibition, 7 June 1879,734.

[xxi] Pall Mall Gazette, 1 May 1889. At this time both artist and sitter had moved from Manchester; Annie had a London base at the Avenue Studios, 76 Fulham Road, W. and Louisa Wilkinson was living, with her sister Fanny, at 15 Bloomsbury St, WC.

[xxii] Birmingham Daily Post, 18 May 1889.

[xxiii] Annie gave the St Anne’s Grove address when she submitted work in 1888 to the Society of Women Artists and the Swynnertons were still living there in 1891. However, it is only Annie’s name – and that of her Aunt Mary and their one servant – that appears on the census (as shown on Ancestry and Findmypast) because the previous page, which must include Joseph as the last entry, is missing – or has been missed when scanning. The page reference that shows Annie’s presence at 18 Queen Anne’s Grove is RG12/1038 folio 8 page 33 schedule 193. Information on the Swynnertons’ occupation of these addresses can be found in the London Electoral Register via Ancestry.

[xxiv] Mrs Wilkinson was living in Bedford Park from at least 1886 and died there in 1889. Her house is only referred to as ‘The Chestnuts’ and I have been unable to discover the exact address.

[xxv] The Queen, 28 April 1894.

[xxvi] Manchester Evening News, 21 April 1894.

[xxvii] The double portrait of ‘Gladys and Jean’ may be dated, but at the moment that information is not accessible.

[xxviii] Alas, I have not yet been able to consult the catalogue for this exhibition. If anyone does know if a portrait by Miss Robinson of two young girls was included do, please, let me know.

[xxix] For information about the change of signature see https://annielouisaswynnerton.com/ordered-by-date/

[xxx] . Unfortunately, neither of the East Anglian auction houses which sold the painting holds records as far back as 2014 and I’ve been unable to discover any more information about the portrait, or its current whereabouts.

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Suffrage Stories and The Garretts and their Circle: Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Selected Writings – Zoom Talk

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories, The Garretts and their Circle on October 5, 2022

Here is a link to the recording of the Zoom Book Launch of Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Selected Writings.

My co-editor, Prof Melissa Terras, and I discuss, in some detail, Millicent Fawcett’s life, work, and writings – and the importance of the digital to the archival as a means of undertaking this act of feminist interpretation and exposition. There are pictures!

We are in conversation with Prof Fiona Mackay (University of Edinburgh School of Political Science), the event hosted by the University of Edinburgh Centre for Data, Culture and Society.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Selected Writings is published by UCL Press and is available to download, with free open access, or to buy in hard copy – for details see here.

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The Garretts And Their Circle: Millicent’s Writings (soon to be published) And Agnes’ Furnishings (work in progress)

Posted by womanandhersphere in The Garretts and their Circle on March 8, 2022

This International Women’s Day I would like to celebrate, once again, the work of the women of the Garrett family.

In a couple of months’ time UCL Press will be publishing Millicent Garrett Fawcett: Selected Writings on which I have had the pleasure of working, alongside the lead editor, Prof Melissa Terras. In the volume, which will be open access as one of the publishing options, 35 texts and 22 images are contextualised and linked to contemporary news coverage, as well as to historical and literary references. This is the first opportunity to study in one volume Millicent Fawcett’s thinking on a range of topics concerning the advancement of women, of which the women’s suffrage campaign is only one.

In the photograph we chose as the cover for the book you see Millicent Fawcett seated at her desk in a corner of the first-floor front drawing-room of her home at 2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury. It may be the very same desk as that of which we catch a glimpse, to the right of the fireplace in the illustration below, taken from Suggestions for House Decoration (1876) by Rhoda and Agnes Garrett. Many years ago, after visiting 2 Gower Street when researching Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle, I came to the conclusion that the illustrations in House Decoration were taken directly from real life, that is they were pictures of the rooms in 2 Gower Street, as arranged by Rhoda and Agnes. Recently I have been delighted to have my educated guess vindicated by discovering that Lady Maude Parry, a friend of the Garretts, stated in an obituary article on Rhoda, published in Every Girls’ Annual 1884, that in Suggestions for House Decoration ‘are illustrations of their house in Gower Street’.

Rhoda died in 1882, but Agnes carried on the business of ‘R & A Garrett’, house decorators, until 1905, although in 1899 the lease on the firm’s warehouse in Morwell Street came to an end, necessitating the sale of its contents and, presumably, a reduction in the work undertaken. Incidentally the Morwell Street building and its neighbours has recently, 2022, been approved for demolition, to be replaced by a 6-storey building. When I first noted it c 2000, the Garrett’s ‘warehouse’ retained its original façade (illustrated in Enterprising Women), which has subsequently been altered – now another Garrett link will be utterly obliterated. However, that furniture sale, held at Phillips, Son and Neale on 27 July 1899, has provided me with considerable scope for research – allowing me to identify a number of individuals keen to buy furniture and house accoutrements that had the Garrett seal of approval – in that they had passed through Agnes’ hands – and to muse a little on the state of the ‘house furnishing’ market at the end of the 19th century. That research will appear in a subsequent post on this website.

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Collecting Suffrage: Photograph of Mrs Fawcett, 1890

Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 3, 2020

 

Today I offer you a studio photograph of Millicent Garrett Fawcett by W & D Downey. Published by Cassell & Co, 1890. She was 43 years old and had already been a leading light of the women’s suffrage movement for over 20 years.

A very good image – mounted. Suitable for framing. £40 + VAT in UK & EU.

In the past I have been concerned about the low profile afforded popularly to Mrs Fawcett. Indeed, in 2013 I wrote a post on the subject: Make Millicent Fawcett Visible. 

And in 2016 when there was a suggestion that there should be a statue of a ‘suffragette’ in Parliament Square I did point out that there was already one nearby to Mrs Pankhurst (which I was also determined would not be moved) and one, so often forgotten, to the suffragette movement in general, just down Victoria Street in Christchurch Gardens. That resulted in another post – on Suffragette Statues.

As we all know, the idea of a ‘suffragette’ statue in Parliament Square morphed, thanks to input from Sam Smethers and the Fawcett Society, into the already well-loved statue of Mrs Fawcett. So that she is now indeed publicly visible.

Yesterday’s photograph of Mrs Pankhurst proved very popular, but if you would like demonstrate your loyalty to Mrs Fawcett, here is an excellent opportunity to acquire a photograph of her with which to adorn your desk or wall.

Do email me if you’re interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com

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Suffrage Stories: Portcullis House, Millicent Fawcett And The 19th-c Suffrage Movement

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories, The Garretts and their Circle on October 12, 2016

mgf-display-2

Those of you who might happen to be passing through the Atrium of Parliament’s Portcullis House between now and early November can view a compact display that I have curated there. The subject is Millicent Garrett Fawcett and the Early Women’s Suffrage Movement: 1867-1897.

There is also an online version of the exhibition – which you can view here.

mgf-display-1

 

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Suffrage Stories: Woman’s Hour Discussion: Who Won The Vote For Women – Suffragists or Suffragettes?

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories on June 10, 2016

Millicent Fawcett c 1912

Millicent Fawcett c 1912

In the week that marked the 150th anniversary of the presentation of the first women’s suffrage petition, Woman’s Hour invited June Purvis and me to ‘debate’ the issue of whether the vote was won by the constitutional Suffragist campaign or by that of the millitant Suffragettes.

I spoke for the Suffragists.

You can listen to the conversation here (at c 28 min).

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Suffrage Stories: ‘Endless Endeavours’: From The 1866 Women’s Suffrage Petition To The Fawcett Society

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories on May 6, 2016

With Ann Dingsdale and Jane Grant I shall be talking suffrage at LSE today – entry free, unticketed – just come along – see here for details.

EndlessExhibitionWebsite15-0998-Poster-LR-page-001

Last year I was delighted when The Women’s Library@LSE asked if I would help to shape an exhibition planned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the presentation of the first women’s suffrage petition on 7 June 1866. Ever since discovering a printed copy of that petition on a stall in the Portobello Road over 25 years ago I have been very fond of all it represented and of the treasury of names it contains, so it was a particular pleasure to be asked to suggest ways of highlighting its importance.

The LSE team (Indy Bhullar, Heather Dawson, Gillian Murphy and Eleanor Payne) and I had several very enjoyable and productive meetings  during which we selected items to include in the exhibition and brainstormed ideas for the moving background to the main showcase and for wallboards. It is a real pleasure to be able to show items of what we now know to call ‘material culture’ – such as Lydia Becker’s dress and Millicent Fawcett’s gladstone bag – alongside the very letters in which the idea for the petition developed. The personal adds particularity to the political.

 

This is the petition exhibited in 'Endless Endeavours'.

This is the petition exhibited in ‘Endless Endeavours’.

In addition, the descendants of the couple to whom I sold that printed copy of the petition have been kind enough to lend it to the exhibition. It is the only known copy other than that held in Girton Archives. The latter was Emily Davies’ own copy and it was she who had organised its printing. What became of the hundreds of others that Miss Davies arranged to be sent to all newspaper editiors, MPs and members of the House of Lords? Straight into the wastepaper basket I shouldn’t wonder.

 

Two sample pages from the Petition

Two sample pages from the Petition

The LSE designer has done an excellent job of translating our ideas for demonstrating the range both geographically and socially of the women who signed the petition and of giving a clear rendering of the complicated ‘family tree’ of suffrage societies that carried the campaign from 1866 to 1928 and then, in the shape of the Fawcett Society, on into 2016.

fawcett

For the ‘1866 petition’ part of the exhibition morphs into a celebration of the Fawcett Society, which traces its foundation back to 1866 and is, therefore, this year celebrating its 150th anniversary.  To mark the occasion Jane Grant has written a history of the Fawcett Society, In the Steps of Exceptional Women – for full details see here.

To accompany ‘Endless Endeavours’ The Women’s Library@LSE has launched a Flickr Album, which includes scans of many of the letters that flew backwards and forwards as the idea for the petition gathered momentum, as well as of the personalities attracted to the campaign and artefacts produced over the years.

Brooch presented by the NUWSS to Millicent Fawcett in 1913 (image courtesy of the Fawcett Society)

Brooch presented by the NUWSS to Millicent Fawcett in 1913 (image courtesy of the Fawcett Society)

One of the most beautiful of the latter is a brooch that recently surfaced in the Fawcett Society office. It was presented to Millicent Fawcett in 1913 and is rendered in the NUWSS colours of red, white and green. For a lively account of why, where and how the brooch was presented see here. This is a real piece of ‘suffrage jewellery’ – to put all the spurious examples so catalogued by auction houses, Ebay etc in the shade. [For my gripe about the mis-cataloguing of suffragette jewellery see here.]

For full details of the ‘Endless Endeavours’ exhibition see here.

STOP PRESS  7 June 2016 I have just discovered a studio photograph by the celebrated photograper Lena Connell that shows Millicent Fawcett wearing the Fawcett Society ‘brooch’ as a pendant. She was making her ass ociation with the NUWSS visible.

 

 

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The Garretts And Their Circle/Suffrage Stories: Millicent Fawcett And Salisbury

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories, The Garretts and their Circle on February 15, 2016

When we booked to stay for a few days at a Landmark Trust apartment (see here) at the top of a venerable building in The Close in Salisbury I was relishing a brief immersion in the world of Trollope and had entirely forgotten that even here I would be treading on the heels, as I do in London, of one of my heroines – Millicent Garrett Fawcett.

But I soon remembered that at the end of 2013 (a lot has happened in between) I had travelled down to Salisbury to give a talk on the Garretts to the Salisbury Local History Group. I had come and gone in the dark and had seen nothing of Salisbury. But now, in February 2016, armed with my research for that talk, I was able to follow a brief Garrett/Fawcett trail around the city.

27 The Close, Salisbury

27 The Close, Salisbury

For this is the house in which 23-year-old Millicent Fawcett was staying on the night of 2 April 1871. The census records her here, together with her husband, Henry, his sister, Sarah Maria, and her parents-in-law, William and Mary Fawcett. The household was supported by one 16-year-old housemaid. William Fawcett is described as ‘J.P. and Alderman’ and Henry as ‘Professor of Political Economy’; the women have no occupation. Millicent and Henry’s daughter, Philippa, who would have been nearly three years old, is not visiting her grandparents on this occasion. She had been left at home in London in the care of three servants.

Nor, ten years later, did she join her parents when, on 3 April 1881, Millicent and Henry are once again paying a visit to Salisbury and staying in this house with his parents. Philippa, now a 12-year-old schoolgirl, is back home at 51 The Lawn, Vauxhall. Henry is now ‘Postmaster General and MP’, Millicent is ‘Authoress’ and the elderly Fawcetts now have two servants.

Saisbury CathedralThese sightings on the census forms demonstrate that Millicent was no stranger to Salisbury and its Cathedral. The Close is a quiet world, dominated by the soaring building at its centre  – a building that would all too soon have a poignant association for her. For Henry did not live to feature in another census, dying in 1884.

Fawcett cathedral memorials

Here is the memorial tablet placed on the interior Cathedral wall, together with one to his sister, with whom Millicent was always on friendly terms.

William Fawcett

Henry’s parents did not long outlive him.

Fawcett statue

Besides his tablet inside the Cathedral Henry was given a very much more prominent memorial – a statue in Salisbury’s Market Place. It so happened that his back was at the centre of my view as I ate a celebratory meal at a restaurant in Ox Row overlooking the Market Place – clearly I am fated never to be far from the world of the Garretts. Rather oddly, however, Henry Fawcett is positioned on the edge of the large open space and appears to be addressing a crowd waiting at the bus stop outside Debenhams. One might have imagined that he could have been placed facing the other way, into the Market Place where crowds might have gathered to listen to him. But I did note that the elucidatory plaque at the foot of the statue (which is also written in Braille) does include mention of his wife, Millicent, as leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

HEnry Fawcett plaque

Another Garrett associate – the sculptor Ellen Rope – has a work in Salisbury Cathedral – although you’d be hard pressed to find it if you didn’t know it was there.

Moberley memorial

Here it is. Although they knew nothing of it by name, the Cathedral staff have access to a list of the building’s memorials and were very helpful in taking me to find it. The rectangular plaque is the work of Ellen Rope and is dedicated to the memory of Mrs Moberly, wife of George Moberly, bishop of Salisbury. As you see, it is hidden behind a cupboard (in the Vestry). I wonder if there are pieces by any other woman sculptor in the Cathedral? Is it just fate that it is a woman’s work that is hidden in this way?

You might also be interested in reading my book – Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle – for details see here.

Enterprising Women 1

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All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

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Suffrage Stories/The Garretts And Their Circle: The ‘Ascent Of Woman’ and Millicent Fawcett

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories, The Garretts and their Circle on September 24, 2015

In four programmes shown on BBC 2 Dr Amanda Foreman has roamed the globe and travelled through the millenia to uncover stories of women who have made and changed human history from 10,000 BC to the present day.

You can – for a short time – view all four programmes on the BBC iPlayer – click here.

ifawcet001p1Episode 4 – ‘Revolution’ – includes a section in which I talk to Amanda about Millicent Fawcett – highlighting her work as a champion of women’s education.

The filming was done in my drawing room – and it was an interesting and enjoyable way to spend a morning – talking about such an agreeable subject with someone so passionate and knowledgeable. Especially so as barely a month previously I had been lying on an operating theatre table. It was good to get back to ‘work’.

For much more about Millicent Fawcett – and all the other Garretts – see Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle.

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All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

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Mrs Hartley Brown And Miss Townshend -19th-c Interior Decorators: Who Were They?

Posted by womanandhersphere in The Garretts and their Circle on February 27, 2015

Travels in S KensingtonIn a chapter on ‘Decorative Art in England (Travels in South Kensington, 1882) Moncure Conway commended Rhoda and Agnes Garrett for their ‘admirable treatment of the new female colleges connected with English Universities’. It has always been a niggle that neither I – or anyone else – as far as I know – has ever been able to find any evidence that the Garretts did work on the interior of any women’s college.

As one member of the Garrett family, Elizabeth, was a close friend and supporter of Emily Davies, founder of Girton, another, Millicent, was a founder of Newnham, and Rhoda and Agnes had received their training in the office of J.M. Brydon, sharing an office with Newnham’s architect, Basil Champneys, it would not have been at all surprising if they had been involved with the interior decoration of one or other of the colleges. But neither in  Garrett family letters nor in the press is there any mention of Rhoda and Agnes working on the interior of Newnham – or of Girton.

Merton Hall, Cambridge. (Photo courtesy of Cambridge 2000)

Merton Hall, Cambridge. (Photo courtesy of Cambridge 2000)

In fact the only mention of work being done by women interior decorators on a Cambridge women’s college relates to furnishings for an early incarnation of Newnham –  when, between October 1871 and 1874,  it was housed in an ancient, rambling house, Merton Hall. The house belonged (and still belongs) to St John’s College, whose Master was very sympathetic to the Lectures for Ladies’ scheme that had been instigated in Cambridge by Millicent Fawcett, Henry Sidgwick and Jemima Anne Clough.

Merton Hall is first mentioned by Moncure Conway in ‘Decorative Art and Architecture in England’, an article published in Harpers New Monthly Magazine, November 1874. In this, after discussing the work of Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, he tells us that Mrs Hartley Brown and Miss Townshend had set up in the same business as the Garretts, in premises at 12 Bulstrode Street. He then goes on to say that ‘These ladies, who have been employed to decorate the new ladies’ College (Merton) at Cambridge, have not only devised new stuffs for chairs, sofas and wall panels, but also for ladies’ dresses.’ The fact that he uses the past tense seems to indicate that the work was already complete.

A further allusion to this partnership is made by Emily Faithfull when discussing new trade opportunities that have been opening for women. In Three Visits to America (1884) she mentions that ‘Mrs Hartley Brown and Miss Townshend, soon after entering into partnership, were appropriately employed in decorating Merton College, and devised with much success some new stuffs for the chairs and sofas for the use of Cambridge girl graduates.’

That seems quite clear: Mrs Hartley Brown and Miss Townshend had been involved with furnishing Merton Hall (later Newnham) and neither Conway or Faithfull, although discussing the Garretts’ work, made any mention of the Garrtts being similarly employed.

However, when Moncure Conway came to publish Travels in South Kensington in 1882 the Garretts were going from strength to strength and, if the silence in the press is anything to go by, Mrs Hartley Brown and Miss Townshend had gone out of business. One construction might be that, while making no mention of the latter two, Conway lauds the success of the Garretts and, carelessly assigns to them the ‘admirable treatment of female Colleges’. It may be that only one firm of female interior decorators worked on the furnishings of a female college – and that was the partnership of Mrs Hartley Brown and Miss Townshend.

But who were Mrs Hartley Brown and Miss Townshend? I have to confess to drawing a blank on Mrs Hartley Brown – but can make an educated guess at the identity of Miss Townshend.

In his Harper’s 1874 article Conway (who, as we see was prone to getting things a bit muddled) mistakenly describes Mrs Hartley Brown as ‘a sister of Chambray Brown, Esq – a very distinguished architect’. In fact what he meant was that ‘Miss Townshend was a sister of Chambray Townshend…’. The latter was indeed an architect, although not even his wife – indeed particularly not his wife – would have called him distinguished. Unfortunately for us Chambray Townshend had eight sisters. And the question is ‘which one went into business as an interior decorator?’

Well three can be discounted, being in 1874 already married. Of the remaining five, very little is known of the lives of three, although Alicia, who didn’t marry until 1880, is known to have studied art at the Slade and is I suppose a possibility. However I suspect that the two strongest candidates of the five are Isabella (1847-1882) and Anne (1842-1929).

Anne certainly seems to have the most productive work record. According to family information she trained as a nurse at London’s Foundling Hospital and was later Matron at the Hospital for Hip Disease in Childhood (Queen’s Square). When and for how long she was engaged in nursing I don’t know. By 1882 she had moved into philanthropic administration and was secretary of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants (MABYs).

Then in 1888 she became the first secretary of the Ladies’ Residential Chambers Co (the founders of which included Agnes Garrett and Millicent Fawcett) and remained involved with the company until 1910. In 1890, when the company was planning a new set of chambers in York Street, Marylebone, it was Anne Townshend who was deputed to consult with Thackeray Turner, the architect, over the company’s specifications for the new building. However nowhere in the minutes of the Ladies’ Residential Co is there any suggestion that she was ever involved with the interior design of either of the buildings.

Isabella Townshend is the more artistic candidate – and she does have a very clear Cambridge connection- being one of the Girton Pioneers. In 1869 she was one of the first five to join Emily Davies at her new college at Hitchin (it was not yet ‘Girton’). She left without taking a Tripos at Easter 1872. Could she then have gone into the interior decorating business?

In Girton College, Barbara Stephen comments that ‘Miss Townshend was not striking in either appearance or manner‘, while reporting Barbara Bodichon’s opinion that [Isabella’s] ‘interests were wide and her mind original’ Barbara Stephen was too young ever to have met Isabella; perhaps she made her rather harsh judgement on the basis of this photograph she included in her book

girton PioneersHowever, Isabella certainly made a very strong  impression on her fellow Pioneers  – particularly on Emily Gibson. When Isabella left Hitchin in the 1872 without taking a Tripos (perhaps it was this high-handed approach to all that Miss Davies had to offer that attracted Barbara Stephen’s disapproval) Emily followed suit and the following year married Isabella’s brother, Chambray Townshend.

In Some Memories for Her Friends., Emily wrote of Isabella: ‘She was more mature than many of us, and in quite a different stage of development, but the sort of position she held among us, the sort of influence she exercised over me was chiefly due to her having been swept over by a very early wave of that current of aestheticism which was then just beginning to gather force. The sort of doctrine she taught, or rather that she gave living expression to, was, that the most valuable means of culture was to be found in the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art, that a beautiful combination  of colours, a delicate bit of decorative work seen and cared for in a reverent and appreciative spirit, could do more for us in the way of training and development than much steady grinding away at mathematics and classics.’

‘She had considerable ability, indeed, many of us gave her credit for a touch of genius, yet she never accomplished much definite work of any kind.’..Isabel took the utmost pains to live from hand to mouth. She would work hard now and again when she felt the subject in hand to be worth working at, but she scorned to tie herself down to do things against inclination for the sake of obtaining some definite mundane good.’

Isabella Townshend, self-portrait, (c) Girton College, University of Cambridge. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Isabella Townshend, self-portrait, (c) Girton College, University of Cambridge. Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Isabella Townshend was undoubtedly ‘artistic’. Isn’t this a wonderful self-portrait – bequeathed to Girton by Emily Townshend? It wouldn’t at all surprise me if Isabella had not ‘devised new stuff’ for her dress and designed it herself. But did she have the stamina to set up in business?  Emily Gibson mentions that in the period between leaving Cambridge and her marriage to Chambray Townshend, he and Isabella were particularly friendly with Walter and Lucy Crane – so she was certainly moving in art design circles.

There is no doubt that interior decorating ran in the family veins. In his Harper’s article Moncure Conway wrote  ‘I have become convinced by a visit to a beautiful house which Chambrey Townshend arranged at Wimbledon, that there can be nothing so suitable for somewhat dark corridors and staircases as a faint rose tint. In Mr Townshend’s house, however cold and cheerless the day may be, there is always a glow of morning light. This gentleman has shown that a sage-gray paper with simple small squares (such as Messrs Marshall & Morris make) furnishes a good dado to support the light tints upon walls not papered.’

The house may well have been the Townshend family home at 12 Ridgway Place, Wimbledon, where the unmarried sisters lived with their mother.

Unfortunately Chambray Townshend took the same laissez-faire approach to work as did Isabella. Of  him Emily, his wife, later wrote  ‘Chambrey Townshend had little push and no business ability to back up his remarkable artistic abilities.’ After his death she regretted she hadn’t devised some opening for his remarkable talent for house decoration ‘when architectural work was not forthcoming’.

If the interior decoration business was run by Mrs Hartley Brown and Isabella Townshend, it may be that Isabella soon lost interest. In the early 1880s she went to Italy to study painting and died in 1882. The Girton Register has it that she died in Italy, ‘of typhoid fever contracted at Capri’. It may well be that she became ill in Italy, but the Probate Register shows that she died on 20 July 1882 at Ealing and was buried at Perivale on 25 July 1882.

So, although Anne Townsend had the stamina and application to run a business, I’m inclined to think that it was Isabella Townshend who, for a brief period, was in partnership as an interior decorator with Mrs Hartley Brown and who provided the furnishings for Merton Hall, the early incarnation of Newnham.

For more about the interior decoration business run by Rhoda and Agnes Garrett see here.

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Suffrage Stories: 100 Years Ago Today – 17 July 1914: The National Portrait Gallery and Thomas Carlyle

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories on July 17, 2014

One hundred years ago today – on 17 July 1914 – a suffragette, Margaret Gibb, who also went by the name of Ann Hunt, took a cleaver to a portrait of Thomas Carlyle that was hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. See the damaged portrait here.

Margaret Gibb was held by an attendant, charged and, on 21 July, sentenced to six months imprisonment. She was released on 27 July – presumably under the Cat and Mouse Act, having gone on hunger strike. See here for a surveillance picture of Margaret Gibb taken in the exercise yard at Holloway. On 31 August she was spotted again at the Gallery and, although the WSPU had called a halt to its campaign, was refused admission then – and in the future.

One hundred years later the NPG has  mounted al display case exhibition – in Room 31 –  showing something of the effect of WSPU militancy on the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Margaret Gibb’s story is related and includes a comment to the effect that it was doubted that the picture’s attacker knew that Carlyle was a particular hero of Emmeline Pankhurst – an aperçu I remember making when referring to the damaged portrait in the entry on Emmeline Pankhurst’ in my The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide. I’d be rather thrilled if I was the originator of the comment – but I daresay others have thought of it independently. I was particularly struck by two small photographs of Mary Richardson in the display that date from 1918 and show her sitting, delicate and pretty, in a room neatly furnished with flowers and 18th-century furniture. This is an image far removed from the chopper-wielding attacker of the ‘Rokeby Venus’ – (see here for a post on Mary Richardson).

Christabel Pankhurst by Ethel Wright, 1909 (c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Christabel Pankhurst by Ethel Wright, 1909 (c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

In the entrance – Room 30 – to the gallery that contains this display case the National Portrait Gallery has now hung the full-length  portrait of Christabel Pankhurst by Ethel Wright – opposite the Brackenbury portrait of her mother – Emmeline Pankhurst.  Christabel’s portrait, in which she is wearing a green dress – apparently a favourite colour – was painted in 1909 and first shown at the WSPU Skating Rink Exhibition. It was bought by Una Duval and remained in her family before being  bequeathed recently to the NPG.

Good as it is to raise the profile of the women’s suffrage campaign – all this attention on the WSPU only highlights for me the lack of attention given to the constitutional campaigners – those who worked for sixty years without wielding cleavers. So let me take the opportunity here of repeating my mantra  – and drawing attention to my post on the subject –  Make Millicent Fawcett Visible.

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Kate Frye’s Diary: The Lead-Up To War: 17 July 1914

 

On 7 August 2014 ITV will publish an e-book, Kate Parry Frye: The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette.  Based on her prodigious diary, this is my account of Kate Frye’s life and is a tie-in with the forthcoming ITV series ‘The Great War: The People’s Story’. For details of the TV series and its accompanying books see here.

KateAs a lead-up to publication I thought I’d share with you some entries from Kate’s diary from the month before the outbreak of war. Through her day-to-day experience we can see how the war stole up on one Everywoman.

Kate was at this time 36 years old, living in a room at 49 Claverton Street in Pimlico and working in the Knightsbridge headquarters of the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage. It was now nine years since she had become engaged to (minor) actor John Collins. Her father died in March 1914 and her mother and sister, Agnes, now all but penniless, are living in rented rooms in Worthing. John has a room along Claverton Street, at number 11.

Friday July 17th 1914

John arrived unexpectedly early, before I was up, but I just let him in to hear the news – he has had a letter from Benson saying he would see him, so was off. I had received a letter from Mr Dingle saying he could not speak – so as soon as I was up I went off to the Men’s League at Westminster and saw someone there who called Mr McKillop in from an office next door, and he like a lamb said he would come to Isleworth in Mr Dingle’s place. I expected to have to rush round London.

So I walked up to the A.A. and found John just having lunch with a very pretty woman and joined them as I wanted to hear what Benson said, but it was a very short interview. John saw me to Charing Cross then went off to a meeting and I came back to Victoria and bought some food then came in and had a rest and fell asleep.

John came in at 5 and we had a meat tea and then off together, Bus to Victoria – train to Hammersmith – train to Isleworth arriving at 7.15 – at the Upper Square. There were hundreds of children ready to greet us, I got a friendly feeling and they were very good but a great nuisance. John went off to find the Lorry as it was not punctual, but he missed it and it arrived alright and I got it fixed up.

By the time the speakers, Miss Dransfield in the Chair, Mrs Merivale Mayer and Mr McKillop and Miss Fraser to help had arrived we were absolutely mobbed – and we got a huge gathering. The first Suffrage meeting of any kind which had been held in Isleworth.

Mrs Mayer as usual was very disagreeable when she arrived, but it was really such a magnificent meeting she was quite pleased at the end, and as usual she spoke splendidly and we quite got the people round.

Having settled up early well came away together – Mr McKillop left us from the train, we parted from Mrs M.M. at Hammersmith and Miss Fraser at Victoria.

John and I were starving and we went into a restaurant at Victoria. John had salmon and cucumber – at 11.15! It was a lovely day.

John Collins was ‘resting’ at the moment – as is clear from the amount of time he was able to devote this month to helping Kate with her suffrage work. He would have been very excited about the prospect of employment in Frank Benson’s Company. The A.A., where Kate surprised him lunching with ‘a very pretty women’, was the Actors’ Association, the club in Covent Garden to which they both belonged.

The Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage to whose office Kate went for help when her speaker had failed was at 136 St Stephen’s House on the Embankment. The massive building was demolished, apparently in the early 1990s. We have already met the obliging Mr McKillop, who had for some years earlier been librarian to the fledgling London School of Economics. Kate had warmed to him after he praised her public speaking.

Upper Square, Isleworth (image courtesy of Hounslow Local studies website)

Well, this must have been the site of Isleworth’s first ‘Votes for Women’ meeting – or, at least, the first of which Kate had heard tell. Presumably during her canvassing she had met with plenty of local people who would have given her this kind of information. By ‘fixing up’ the Lorry Kate meant that she decorated it with posters – inquisitive children were suffragettes’ constant companions.

Calra Merivale Mayer

You can read about Mrs Merivale Mayer in Campaigning for the Vote – suffice it to say that Kate found her a great trial and, I am sure, knew nothing of her somewhat scandalous history. If she had known she would doubtless have felt vindicated in her dislike for this most difficult of the New Constitutional Society’s speakers. But Kate gave credit where it was due and often commented, as she does here, that despite the ructions she caused Mrs Mayer was an excellent speaker.

 

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Suffrage Stories: Words – As Well As Deeds

Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage, Suffrage Stories on May 7, 2014

This article was published in the March 2003 issue of Antiquarian Book Review.

‘Deeds Not Words’ was Mrs Pankhurst’s motto. The slogan flourished in the early 20th century – it was even embroidered on a banner – a reaction to the apparently unproductive campaign for the enfranchisement of women that had already been waged for nearly 40 years.

Hammersmith deeds The debate as to whether the vote was won by the slow drip of reasoned argument or by the sharp crack of breaking glass is one that still occupies historians. Although it is the deeds of Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes – the spectacle of processions, the breaking of windows, the burning of houses and churches – that has coloured the popular perception of the suffrage campaign, without the ‘words’ that had over many years shaped the idea that women had an equal right with men to citizenship, the ‘deeds’ would have been committed in a vacuum. The women’s suffrage campaign was, during its entire 62 years, underpinned by ‘Literature’ in all its guises.

Works written in support of women’s enfranchisement had little difficulty in achieving publication. The instigators of the movement were members of the articulate radical middle class and were in close contact with communicators. A tentative beginning had been made in 1851 with Harriet Taylor’s article The Enfranchisement of Women, which, shortly after her marriage to John Stuart Mill, was published anonymously in the Westminster Review ( a journal of which Mill had in the past been editor). This was followed in 1855 by a pamphlet, The Right of Women to the Elective Franchise, written by Agnes Pochin, wife of a future Liberal MP, and published by John Chapman, that ‘Publisher of Liberalisms’.

Among the names of the 1500 women who signed the suffrage petition that Mill presented to parliament in June 1866 (marking the formal beginning of the campaign), were several with connections to the publishing or bookselling trades – including  Elspet Strahan, sister of Alexander Strahan, a liberal with a zeal for social reform and the publisher of the eponymous publishing house. He had recently launched the Contemporary Review, in which he published an article on ‘female suffrage’ in March 1867, written by Lydia Becker.

Lydia Becker

Lydia Becker – with books

Based in Manchester, Lydia Becker was to be the driving force behind the 19th-century campaign. Among other signatories to the petition were Louisa Farrah, wife of a radical publisher and bookseller (282 Strand, London); Eliza Embleton, a bookseller from Leeds (Burley Street);  the wife of James Renshaw Cooper, a radical Manchester bookseller (1 Bridge Street); and the wife and daughter (both named ‘Harriet’) of Edward Truelove, radical publisher and antiquarian bookseller (2240 Strand), who had been imprisoned for publishing Robert Owen’s Physiology in Relation to Morals. (See here for an interesting blog by Dr Tony Shaw about Truelove and his grave, on which the two Harriets both appear.)

Edward Truelove's grave in Highgate Cemetery. Photo courtesy Dr Tony Shaw

Edward Truelove’s grave in Highgate Cemetery. Photo courtesy Dr Tony Shaw

Once the campaign had been launched, ‘words’ in support of women’s enfranchisement multiplied rapidly. The societies that had formed to promote the cause published a plethora of pamphlets – one of the first, of which 4500 copies were distributed, was a reprinting of the speech made by Mill to Parliament during the debate on the second reform bill in May 1867.

The accounts of the earliest Enfranchisement of Women Committee show that in its first year of existence over £94 was spent on printing. This was set against receipts from the sale of pamphlets of only £6 11s. Political publishing was not a profitable business. In reality, political publishers who were prepared to put their imprint on books and journals to promote the woman’s cause were not so unworldly as to risk their money. A study of the ledgers of companies, such as Trubner and H.S. King, reveals that many of the suffrage publications, including Lydia Becker’s The Women’s Suffrage Journal, were published only on a commission basis.

Under this arrangement, the author or the society undertook all the risk of publication, while the publishers merely provided the service of printing, binding and distribution, for which they gave the book their imprint, charged a fee and took a percentage of sales. Publishers’ ledgers, where they have survived, provide an interesting keyhole through which to view the suffrage campaign. Lists of payments make it possible to identify an author who published anonymously, the print order for a  book, journal or pamphlet can give us an idea of the ambition of the author or society; and the number of pulped gives a reason why so many of the items are now extremely scarce – and expensive.

The suffrage campaign appeared to have made such considerable progress in its first years that Mill, a canny businessman as well as philosopher, felt the time was ripe to publish the work that he had first drafted in the early 1860s on ‘the woman question’. As he wrote in a letter to The Times on 9 April 1869: ‘It is not specially on the Suffrage question, but on all the questions relating to women’s domestic subordination and social disabilities, all of which it discusses more fully than has been done hitherto. I think it will be useful, and all the more, it is sure to be bitterly attacked’. Mill knew full well the publicity value of controversy.

John Stuart Mill remained a hero to the more constitutionally-minded elements in the suffrage campaign

John Stuart Mill remained a hero to the more constitutionally-minded elements in the suffrage campaign

The Subjection of Women was published by Longmans in May 1869, went into a second edition in the same year, and has remained ever since a central text of the women’s movement.

Helen Blackburn, Women's Suffrage, 1902

Helen Blackburn, Women’s Suffrage, 1902

It took until 1902 for the first history of the campaign to appear. Women’s Suffrage: a record of the women’s suffrage movement in the British Isles with biographical sketches of Miss Becker was painstakingly compiled by Helen Blackburn, who had for many years worked as secretary of the Central Committee for Women’s Suffrage.

The new force that emerged in 1903, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, did not delay so long before giving itself a distinctive history. A series of articles written by Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of Emmeline, as The History of the Suffrage Movement, appeared in the WSPU’s new paper, Votes for Women, starting in the first issue in October 1907 and concluding in September 1909.

Pankhurst SuffragetteThis history was, naturally, shaped to emphasise the Pankhursts’ centrality to the movement. Bibliophiles might like to note that the book that emerged from the articles, The Suffragette: the history of the women’s militant movement, was first published in America in 1911 by Sturgis & Walton and sheets where only then shipped back to Britain, where it was subsequently published by Gay & Hancock.

The publication in 1912 of Women’s Suffrage: a short history of a great movement (TC & EC Jack), written by Millicent Fawcett, did something to redress the balance. She had been involved with the campaign since its earliest days and since 1907 had been leader of those who described themselves as ‘law-abiding’ in contradistinction to the militants.

Metcalfe Woman's EffortAgnes Metcalfe’s Woman’s Effort: a chronicle of British Women’s Fifty Years Struggle for Citizenship (1865-1914), published in 1917, gives a detailed overview of the campaign, concentrating on the efforts of the militants.

womensvictoryaft00fawcuoft_0009

In 1920 Mrs Fawcett completed her history of the suffrage campaign, begun in A Short History, with another pithy summary of events that had led to the passing of the Representation of the People Act, 1918,  granting the vote to women over the age of 30.

All these books were bought (as ownership inscriptions found in them testify) by sympathisers to the cause, were part of the stock of the small lending libraries run by many of the local suffrage societies and also found their way into the public library systems and even into prison libraries. While imprisoned, suffragettes were able to read lives, such as those of Joan of Arc and Garibaldi, that they considered (by analogy) relevant to their cause – the cult of the ‘hero’ clearly appealed to those conscious of their role in history.

Daniel Maclise, John Francis Maguire

Daniel Maclise, John Francis Maguire

Alongside the polemics, the women’s suffrage campaign also provided a rich seam mined by writers of fiction. John Francis Maguire, MP for Cork and an active supporter of the woman’s cause, was the first, publishing in 1871, a year before his death, a three-decker, The Next Generation (Hurst & Blackett). The action was set in 1891, by which time the ‘Rights of Woman’ movement..was a wonderful success [and had] long since been accepted with satisfaction almost universal’. Eighty-nine women MPs sat in parliament and Mrs Bates was chancellor of the exchequer.

The following year, ‘Arthur Sketchley’ in Mrs Brown on Women’s Rights (George Routledge) worked what Maguire had correctly identified as a ‘fruitful theme’, and demonstrated that his comic heroine, Martha Brown, had already got the measure of ‘women’s sufferages’. Mrs Brown surveys her first suffrage meeting: ‘Why, surely no Members of Parlyment aint a-coming to sich a ‘ole as this; for I’d ‘eard Miss Snapley a-braggin’ as Professor Fairplay were a-goin’ to take up the question in the chair, along with a old lady in the name of Mill, and a good many more as all ‘oped to be in Parlyment afore they died.’

The subject also, of course, lent itself to melodrama as well as to comedy. Emily Spender published in 1871 a novel, Restored (Hurst & Blackett, 1871) dedicated to the leader of the Bath society for women’s suffrage, of which she herself was an active member. In the novel a wicked husband, repossessing his young wife, declaims ‘If you had read your Bible a bit more, and John Stuart Mill, a little less, you would have been a better woman, Frederica.’ [Incidentally Emily Spender, the great-aunt of Sir Stephen Spender, spent her later years in Italyand was the model for E.M. Forster’s ‘Miss Lavish’ in Room with a View.]

Throughout the 19th century, a stream of novels used support for, or antipathy to, the suffrage cause as a shorthand by which to delineate characters or to put plot machinery into gear. An indication that the campaign was losing its momentum at the end of the century may be surmised from the fact that between 1900 and 1906 no ‘suffrage’ novels were published.

Robins, The Convert. Photo courtesy of Lorne Bair

Robins, The Convert. Photo courtesy of Lorne Bair (click here to find a 1st US ed for sale)

However, in 1907, the year after the WSPU took its campaign to London, three novels appeared. The most famous of these is The Convert (Methuen) written by Elizabeth Robins, who was a keen supporter of the WSPU and based her scenes and personalities on activities of which she had been an eyewitness. Describing a suffrage rally in Trafalgar Square she drummed home the argument for the existence of the WSPU:

‘You’re in too big a hurry’, someone shouted, ‘All the Liberals want is a little time.’

‘Time! You seem not to know that the first petition in favour of giving us the Franchise was signed in 1866…We must try some other way. How did you working men get the suffrage?, we asked ourselves. Well, we turned to the records and we say. We don’t want to follow such a violent example. We would much rather not – but if that’s the only way we can make the country see we’re in earnest – we are prepared to show them.’

The Convert was in fact Elizabeth Robins’ novelisation of her play Votes for Women!,  written during the autumn of 1906 and  first staged at the Royal Court Theatre in April 1907. For Kate Parry Frye’s description of a visit to see the play on 16 April 1907 click here.

Elizabeth Robins, as author of 'Votes for Women!' featured on a card in 'The Game of the Suffragette'

Elizabeth Robins, as author of ‘Votes for Women!’, featured on a card in ‘The Game of the Suffragette’

In the years that followed, the real-life activities of the suffragettes were reflected by the derring-do of their fictional equivalents in a steady stream of novels. Novelists could now take their middle-class readers into places they might not previously have sought to enter – even the prison cell – and were given legitimate reason to describe the indignities that might be wrought on women’s bodies, whether through the horrors of force-feeding or at the hands of policemen in battle outside the House of Commons. A hero of one such tale (A. Mollwo, A Fair Suffragette) is racked by ‘the picture of [a] fragile, slender little body at the mercy of this yelling, excited crowd, torn first one way, then another, insulted by angry policemen, knocked under the feet of horses.’

Words describing the WSPU Deeds - from Kate Frye's diary

Words describing the WSPU Deeds – from Kate Frye’s diary

All in all, the wide range of  ‘suffrage’ literature published during the course of the campaign – histories, tracts, speeches, leaflets and novels – offers historians and collectors a fascinating lens through which to view not only the political battle in all its complication, but also the changing perception of the position of women that in the end was so necessary to the winning the vote.

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WALKS/Suffrage Stories: Millicent Fawcett and Queen Elizabeth I

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories, Walks on April 3, 2014

Now that the Women’s Library Reading Room is open on the 4th floor of LSE Library, here is another idea  for those who might want to stretch their legs during their visit.

Why not take a gentle meander along Fleet Street and visit Queen Elizabeth I as she stands in her niche over what was the entrance to the Parochial School attached to the church of St Dunstans in the West? Not only is this thought to be the only surviving statue of the Queen carved in her lifetime, but she has a very close connection to Millicent Fawcett, in whose honour the Fawcett Library (as the Women’s Library was originally known) was named.

 

Statue of Queen Elizabeth I at St Dunstan's in the West

Statue of Queen Elizabeth I at St Dunstan’s in the West

It is thought that the statue was carved in 1586. It then led a rather adventurous life before coming to rest in this niche on the facade of St Dunstans in the West when the church was rebuilt here in the 1830s. Nearly a century later it was in a dilapidated state and its restoration was financed by Dame Millicent Fawcett and her sister, Agnes Garrett, together with ‘Miss Jones of Lincoln’s Inn’ and Gwen John. The latter was not, as is sometimes stated, Gwen John the artist, but Gwen John, playwright and actress, author of a biography ‘Queen Elizabeth’ and a play ‘Gloriana’. Gwen John, whose real name was Gladys Jones, lived with Winifred Jones (‘Miss Jones’), presumably her sister, at 9 Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn. See here for National Portrait Gallery of this Gwen John.

Millicent Fawcett, c 1928

Millicent Fawcett, c 1928

In a rather neat sequence of events, on 28 June 1928 Dame Millicent Fawcett presided at the Annual General Meeting of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, at which the preservation of old churches was the topic of discussion, on 2 July the  Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, for which she had been campaigning since 1866, became law, and on 31 July she unveiled the restored statue of Queen Elizabeth I. See the unveiling here, although Millicent Fawcett, modest as ever, cannot be seen. However the curtain she caused to be moved, moves. Which is sort of symbolic of the influence she exerted during her long life.

While the statue was undergoing restoration it was discovered that it had originally been coloured. So, the statue was repainted, following the original colours as closely as possible. The farthingale and corsage were white, the face was tinted a flesh colour and her crown was gilded.  Alas, this colouring is no longer obvious to the passer-by and the Queen has rather faded back into the facade of the building.

Millicent Fawcett died just a few days over a year after unveiling the statue and in her will left £700 towards its upkeep, although that fund may now have been exhausted and wound up.

If you wanted to pause, you could combine veneration of the Virgin Queen and thoughts of the venerable suffrage campaigner with a coffee from the stall that is now a permanent fixture just below her niche.

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Christmas List 2013 – To Give Or Receive

Posted by womanandhersphere in Books And Ephemera For Sale, Collecting Suffrage on December 8, 2013

Woman and her Sphere

 

List for Christmas 2013

 

Elizabeth Crawford

5 Owen’s Row

London EC1V 4NP

 

Send orders to me by email: e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk

Payment may be made by cheque, Paypal or by direct bank transfer

FRYE Xmas card 1903 front 001Frye xmas card 1903 inside 001

Item 178

During those ground-hog days between Christmas and the New Year why not lose yourself in the pre-First World War suffrage world. 

 I can send a signed copy of my latest book to you or, as a gift from you, to anyone you choose.

Kate Frye cover

 

Campaigning for the Vote: The Suffrage Diary of Kate Parry Frye

Edited by Elizabeth Crawford

An extract

‘Saturday June 14th 1913. [Kate is lodging in Baker Street, London]

I had had a black coat and skirt sent there for Miss Davison’s funeral procession and the landlady had given me permission to change in her room. I tore into my black things then we tore off by tube to Piccadilly and had some lunch in Lyons. But the time was getting on – and the cortege was timed to start at 2 o’clock from Victoria. We saw it splendidly at the start until we were driven away from our position and then could not see for the crowds and then we walked right down Buckingham Palace Rd and joined in the procession at the end. It was really most wonderful – the really organised part – groups of women in black with white lilies – in white and in purple – and lots of clergymen and special sort of pall bearers each side of the coffin. She gave her life publicly to make known to the public the demand of Votes for Women – it was only fitting she should be honoured publicly by the comrades. It must have been most imposing. [Plus much more description of the procession as Kate follows it into King’s Cross station]

Campaigning for the Vote tells, in her own words, the efforts of a working suffragist to instil in the men and women of England the necessity of ‘votes for women’ in the years before the First World War. The detailed diary kept all her life by Kate Parry Frye  (1878-1959) has been edited to cover 1911-1915, years she spent as a paid organiser for the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage. The book constitutes that near impossibility – completely new primary material, published for the first time 100 years after the events it records.

With Kate for company we experience the reality of the ‘votes for women’ campaign as, day after day, in London and in the provinces, she knocks on doors, arranges meetings, trembles on platforms, speaks from carts in market squares, village greens, and seaside piers, enduring indifference, incivility and even the threat of firecrackers under her skirt.

Kate’s words bring to life the world of the itinerant organiser – a world of train journeys, of complicated luggage conveyance, of hotels – and hotel flirtations – , of boarding houses, of landladies, and of the ‘quaintness’ of fellow boarders. This was not a way of life to which she was born, for her years as an organiser were played out against the catastrophic loss of family money and enforced departure from a much-loved home. Before 1911 Kate had had the luxury of giving her time as a volunteer to the suffrage cause; now she depended on it for her keep.

No other diary gives such an extensive account of the working life of a suffragist, one who had an eye for the grand tableau – such as following Emily Wilding Davison’s cortege through the London streets – as well as the minutiae of producing an advertisement for a village meeting. Moreover Kate Frye gives us the fullest account to date of the workings of the previously shadowy New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage. She writes at length of her fellow workers, never refraining from discussing their egos and foibles. After the outbreak of war in August 1914 Kate continued to work for some time at the society’s headquarters, helping to organize its war effort, her diary entries allowing us to experience her reality of life in war-time London.

Excerpts from Campaigning for the Vote featured in ‘The Women’s Rebellion’, episode 2 of Michael Portillo’s Radio 4 series, 1913: The Year Before –listen here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02mxyyz

ITV has selected Kate Frye – to be portrayed by a leading young actress – as one of the main characters in a 2014 documentary series to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

 And there are plans under discussion to make Kate’s story more widely known…..

Published by Francis Boutle Publishers – http://www.francisboutle.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=102&osCsid=f25354bc872ffc120b251b6b63915492

Wrap-around paper covers, 226 pp, over 70 illustrations, all drawn from Kate Frye’s personal archive.ISBN 978 1903427 75 0

 Signed copies available from me: £14.99 plus £3 postage to UK addresses.

Signed copies also available of:

Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle

Enterprising Women

Enterprising Women tells the story of a group of women around the Garrett family, who in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth changed the position of women in Britain forever. Pioneering access to education at all levels for women both in academic and vocational subjects as well as training for the professions – medicine, architectural decoration, landscape design – they also involved themselves in politics and the campaign for women’s suffrage. As well as discussing in detail the work of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Emily Davies, this book brings to the foreground the careers of some less well known members of the group, including Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, the first women interior decorators, and Fanny Wilkinson, the first professional woman landscape gardener

 ‘Crawford’s scholarship is admirable and Enterprising Women offers increasingly compelling reading’ Journal of William Morris Studies

Francis Boutle, 2002 338pp 75 illus paperback

http://www.francisboutle.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=17&products_id=7

Signed copies available from me: £14.99 plus £3 postage to UK addresses.

** 

Woman and her Sphere List for Christmas 2013

NON-FICTION: WOMEN

1.       BLAIR, Kirstie Form & Faith in Victorian Poetry & Religion  OUP 2012 [13415] By assessing the discourses of church architecture and liturgy the author demonstrates that Victorian poets both reflected on and affected ecclesiastical practices – and then focuses on particular poems to show how High Anglican debates over formal worship were dealt with by Dissenting, Broad Church, and Roman Catholic poets and other writers. Features major poets such as the Browning, Tennyson, Hopkins, Rossetti and Hardy – as well as many minor writers. Mint in d/w (pub price £62)                                                      £35

2.       BOUCHERETT, Jessie and BLACKBURN, Helen Conditions of Working Women and the Factory Acts  Elliot Stock 1896 [13341] An extremely scarce and interesting study. Boucherett and Blackburn were particularly concerned that women should not be barred from trades  by the dictat of Parliament – rather that their working conditions should be improved. The final chapter consists of ‘The Report to the Society for the Employment of Women on the work of women in the white lead trade, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, March, 1895. With illustrations. Good (back cover marked) – and very scarce (I have never – in nearly 30 years – previously had a copy in stock)                                                                      £55

3.       BROWN, Mike The Day Peace Broke Out: the VE experience, Sutton Publishing 2005 [8936] Describes VE-Day celebrations in Britain and across the world through the memories of those who were there.  Illustrated with photographs, adverts, posters and cartoons. Soft covers – large format – mint £10

4.       CLAPP, Elizabeth and JEFFREY, Julie Roy (eds) Women, Dissent and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America, 1790-1865  OUP 2011 [13422] Essays by David Turley, Timothy Whelan, Alison Twells, Clare Midgeley, Carol Lasser, Julie Roy Jeffrey, Stacey robertson and Judie Newman – with an Introduction by Elizabeth Clapp. Mint in d/w (pub price £60)                                                                           £25

5.       CLARK, Margaret Homecraft: a guide to the modern home and family Routledge, 3rd ed 1978 (r/p) [10288] The author was senior adviser for Home Economics for Derbyshire. The book was a textbook, suitable for school Home Economics courses. First published in 1966. Soft covers – very good £6

6.       DAVID, Deirdre (ed) The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel  CUP 2012 (2nd ed) [13411] This second edition includes essays by Kate Flint, Caroline Levine, Nancy Armstrong, Lyn Pykett and Clare Pettit – amongst others. Soft covers – mint                                                                       £15

7.       GOOD HOUSEKEEPING’S HOME ENCYCLOPAEDIA   Ebury Press 1968 (r/p) [10297] Packed with information and illustrations. How very retro. Large format – very good in rubbed d/w – heavy                                                                                                                                                    £10

8.       GREGORY, James Victorians Against the Gallows: capital punishment and the abolitionist movement in 19th-century Britain I.B. Tauris 2011 [13421] The first comprehensive study on the movement against Capital Punishment in Victorian Britain. Mint in d/w (pub price £65)                                      £35

9.       HILEY, Michael Victorian Working Women: portraits from life,  Gordon Fraser 1979 [13340] Photographs of working women most of them collected during the second half of the 19th century by A.J. Munby. Paper covers – very good                                                                                      £12

10.     LARSEN, Timothy A People of One Book: the Bible and the Victorians OUP 2011 [13407] Case studies of representative figures, from Elizabeth Fry to Florence Nightingale, from C.H. Spurgeon to Grace Aguilar to demonstrate the scripture-saturated culture of 19th-century England. Mint in d/w (pub price £76)                                                                                                                                   £25

11.     LEE, Julia Sun-Joo The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel  OUP 2010 [13436] Investigates the shaping influence of the American slave narrative on the Victorian novel in the years between the British Abolition Act and the American Emancipation Proclamation – and argues that Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thackeray and Dickens integrated into their works generic elements of the slave narrative. Mint in d/w (pub price £40)                                                                   £15

12.     LOANE, M. An Englishman’s Castle  Edward Arnold 1909 [9060] Martha Loane was a district nurse – this study of the homes of the poor is the result of her social investigation. Good                  £18

13.     LOFTIE, W.J. A Plea for Art in the House: with special reference to the economy of collecting works of art, and the importance of taste in education and morals Macmillan 1879 (r/p) [13338] First published in 1876 – around the same time as Rhoda and Agnes Garrett’s book in the same series ‘Art at Home’ – and evincing many of the same touchstone’s of taste in home decoration. Goodish – a little rubbed and bumped                                                                                                                                                    £18

14.     ORRINSMITH, Mrs The Drawing Room: its decoration and furniture Macmillan 1877 [9344] In the ‘Art at Home’ series. ‘The author has endeavoured to give more particular directions as to the furnishing and adornment of the Drawing-Room than was possible in the Miss Garretts’ volume treating of the whole subject of ‘House Decoration’ .’ Very good – missing free front end paper many illustrations – a scarce book                                                                                                                                                    £45

15.     PALMER, Beth Women’s Authorship and Editorship in Victorian Culture  OUP 2011 [13432] Draws on extensive periodical and archival material to bring new perspectives to the study of sensation fiction in the Victorian period. Mint in d/w (pub price £60)                                                                     £35

16.     RAPPOPORT, Jill Giving Women: alliance and exchange in Victorian culture OUP 2012 [13413] examines the literary expression and cultural consequences of English women’s giving from the 1820s to the First World War – in the work of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell and Christina Rossetti – as well as in literary annuals and political pamphlets. Through giving, women redefined the primary allegiances of teh everyday lives, forged public coalitions, and advanced campaigns for abolition, slum reform, eugenics, and suffrage. Mint in d/w (pub price £45.99)                       £32

17.     RODENSKY, Lisa (ed) The Oxford Handbook of the Victorian Novel  OUP 2013 [13431] A cornucopia! Mint in d/w – heavy – 808pp. (pub price £95)                                                        £50

18.     SLATER, Michael The Great Dickens Scandal  Yale University Press 2012 [13420] How Dickens sought to cover up his relationship with Ellen Ternan. Mint in d/w (pub price £20)                   £8

19.     STONE, S. A. Home-Making: practical household hints C. Arthur Pearson 1915 [13570] One quails at the amount of routine work that was expected of the housewife and clearly, even when dirt was so much more of a threat and smoke pollution so much more damaging, it can’t really have been necessary to do all that the writers of such guides stipulated. I’m exhausted just reading it. Good reading copy   £8

20.     STOREY, Joan Home Service Book: the answers to your everyday problems in the home Hodder & Stoughton 1955 [10275] With numerous photographs of, for instance, heating equipment – v. evocative. Good                                                                                                                                            £6

21.     TINDALL, Gillian Three Houses, Many Lives: the story of a Cotswold vicarage, a Surrey boarding school and a London home Vintage 2013 [13417] Once again Gillian Tindall works her magic. I loved it (I bought my own copy!)                                                                                                             £5

22.     VANCE, Norman Bible & Novel: narrative authority and the death of God OUP 2013 [13412] ‘In our increasingly secular society novel-reading is now more popular than Bible-reading. Serious novels are often taken more seriously than scripture. The author looks at how this may have come about as an introduction to four best-selling late-Victorian novelists: George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Mary War, and Rider Haggard.’ Mint in d/w (pub price £55)                                                                                                       £28

23.     VINCE, Mrs Millicent Decoration and Care of the Home  W. Collins 1923 [12870] Mrs Vince had been a pupil of the pioneer ‘House Decorator’, Agnes Garrett. Very good in rubbed d/w                £18

         

 

BIOGRAPHY

24.     (ADDAMS) Louise Knight Jane Addams: Spirit in Action Norton 2011 [13405] Biography of the US campaigner for international peace and social justice. Mint in d/w                                           £10

25.     (BRONTE) Margaret Smith (ed) Selected Letters of Charlotte Bronte  OUP 2010 [13426] With a new introduction by Janet Gezari. Soft covers – mint                                                                         £3

 

26.     [GARDINER] Sarah Gardiner (ed) Leaves from a Young Girl’s Diary:  the journal of Margaret Gardiner 1840-41 Tuttle, Moorhouse & Taylor Co (NY) 1927 [13478] The journal kept by Margaret Gardiner who, with her father, a NY State Senator, her mother and her sister (who was to become the wife of a US President), sailed across the Atlantic to Europe. They landed at Liverpool and then proceeded to ‘do’ Europe. Delightful. Very good – scarce                                                        £45

 

27.     (LIDDELL) Simon Winchester The Alice Behind Wonderland  OUP 2011 [13406] ‘Using Charles Dodgson’s published writings, private diaries, and of course his photographic portraits, Winchester gently exposes the development of Lewis Carroll and the making of his Alice.’ Mint in d/w               £6

28.     (ROBINS) Octavia Wilberforce Backsettown & Elizabeth Robins  published for private circulation 1952 [13258] A little tribute – telling how Elizabeth Robins came to set up the retreat at Backsettown in Sussex. With lovely photograph of Elizabeth Robins tipped in as frontispiece. Fine in paper wraps – with a birthday inscription on free front endpaper – scarce                                                                                £38

29.     (SIMPSON) Morrice McCrae Simpson: the turbulent life of a medical pioneer Birlinn 2011 [13433] The discoverer of ‘the blessed chloroform’ and, as such, an important figure in ‘woman’s sphere’. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                                                £5

30.     (STOREY)  STOREY, Joyce Joyce’s War 1939-1945  Virago 1992 (r/p) [13482] Soft covers -very good                                                                                                                                                      £4

31.     (STUART) Hon. James A. Home (ed) Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton   David Douglas (Edinburgh) 1901 & 1903 [13335] Two volumes – complete set. The first volume covers the period 1817 to 1825 and the second volume (called ‘Second Series’) that from1826 to 1834. Society observed. Very good – two volumes together                                                                           £38

32.     (THACKERAY) John Aplin Memory and Legacy: A Thackeray Family Biography 1876-1919 Lutterworth Press 2011 [13409] Draws extensively on private collection of descendants of the 19th-century Thackerays and focuses principally on the later years of Anne Thackeray Ritchie, whose  amazingly intricate network of family and friendships offers fresh insights into the artistic milieu of the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras. Soft covers – very good                                                    £15

 

EPHEMERA

33.     The Home Friend (New Series)  SPCK 1854 [8313] 4 vols of miscellany of fact and fiction. Very good in embossed decorative original cloth – together                                                                       £45

34.     HOSMER, Harriet     [13465] 2pp handwritten letter, on black-edged note paper, written by the American sculptor, Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908), from her studio in Rome – at ’38 Gregoriana’. She is inviting ‘Mrs Newton’ to her studio and giving details of the times of her ‘open house’. Mrs Newton, with her husband, is in Rome on a visit. There is no date – but probably 1860s or 1870s? Fine       £20

35.     LONDON (ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL) SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN (UNIVERSITY OF LONDON)     [13520] An appeal to build an extension – c 1915. Consists of  a brief history of the School and photographs -interior and exterior – of the building and its begetters. Fine                                                                                                                                                    £25

36.     THE HOME ARTS & INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION A Collection of the Association’s Reports    [13332] The Home Arts & Industries Association was founded in 1884 by Eglantyne Jebb and was instrumental in spearheading a revived interest in the craft movement. The Association had its office and studios in the Royal Albert Hall. The collection comprises the Reports for 1902, 1905, 1906 (1 two-sided leaflet and a 4-pp leaflet setting out barest details of the Association, which appears to have been undergoing a financial crisis. I am not sure whether there were reports for 1907 and 1908), 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918. Most in very good condition (that for 1902 may be disbound, front page is present, but loose). – ex-Board of Education Library. Together          £55

37.     BEDFORD COLLEGE  The Common Room    [13254] Real photographic card – I can see a print of G. F.Watts’ ‘Hope’ among the pictures – and is that a portrait of Emily Penrose over the fireplace? I’m not sure. Very good – printed in Berlin so probably dates from pre-1914 – unposted                     £10

38.     GEORGE LANSBURY, MP, LCC     [13279] real photographic postcard published by the Church Socialist League, London branch, pre – First World War. Fine – unposted                               £25

39.     KITTY GILLOW     [10700] poses in top hat and tails – with cigar. A latter-day music-hall actress, she has signed her photograph – which was taken in Jersey in 1964                                                 £5

40.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS   B. Feldman 1914 [10675] sings ‘Just One Kiss – Just Another One’ and is photographed in top hat and tails on the cover of the sheet music. The song was written by William Hargreaves and Dan Lipton. Very god                                                                                       £7

41.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS   Campbell, Connelly & Co 1925 [10678] sings ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, written by Irving King, and is photographed as an awkward young man on the cover of the sheet music. Good                                                                                                                                            £6

42.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS   Lawrence Wright 1925 [10681] sings ‘When the Bloom is On the Heather’ and is photographed in top hat and tails on the cover of the sheet music. Very good                       £6

43.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS   Francis, Day & Hunter 1927 [10682] sings ‘I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover’ and is photographed in close up on the cover wearing her top hat and white bow tie. Fair – some marks on cover                                                                                                                             £5

44.     MISS ELLA SHIELDS   Lawrence Wright 1929 [10688] sings ‘Home in Maine’ and is photographed in sailor attire on cover of sheet music. Good                                                                                 £6

45.     MISS HETTY KING   Francis, Day & Hunter 1908 [10684] sings ‘I’m Afraid to Come Home in the Dark’ and is photographed on the cover of the sheet music in extravagantly elegant top hat and tails. Very good                                                                                                                                             £7

46.     MISS NORA DELANEY   Lawrence Wright 1929 [10687] sings ‘Glad Rag Doll’ and is photographed in male evening dress on the cover of the sheet music. Good                                                     £5

47.     MISS VESTA TILLEY     [10695] photographic postcard of her in waistcoat and trilby, together with a cigarette card of woman in male evening dress. Good – card posted in 1907                          £6

48.     MISS ZENA DARE     [10693] photographic postcard of her in male attire. Very good – posted in 1906                                                                                                                                                      £5

49.     ‘MR WINIFRED WARD’     [10697] as she signs in ink (real signature) a photograph of herself in evening dress. She was an acclaimed male impersonater in the early 20th century. Fine           £7

50.     VESTA TILLEY   Francis, Day & Hunter 1905 [10670] sings ‘Who Said, “Girls”?’. Sheet music featuring photograph on cover of Vesta Tilley in smart male attire. The ditty begins: ‘One day on a Western claim/Miners vow’d their lives were tame, For in that lonel spot there seldom girls had been.’ Good                                                                                                                                                      £7

51.     VESTA TILLEY   Francis, Day & Hunter 1896 [10672] sings ‘He’s Going In For this Dancing Now’, sheet music, written by E.W. Rogers. Very good – except that the front cover is semi-detached £5

52.     VESTA TILLEY   Francis, Day & Hunter 1894 [10683] sings ‘By the Sad Sea Waves’ and is photographed in colour on the cover of the sheet music. Good – though spine strengthened    £7

 

FICTION

53.     BRONTES, The Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: selected writings OUP 2010 [13427] Edited  with Introduction and Notes by Christine Alexander. Soft covers – mint                     £6

54.     GASKELL, Elizabeth Cranford  OUP 2011 [13428] With introduction by Dinah Birch. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                                                              £4

55.     NELSON, Cary (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Modern and Contemporary American Poetry  OUP 2012 [13429] Mint in d/w – heavy – 716pp (pub price £95)                                                      £50

56.     VYNNE, Nora The Pieces of Silver  Andrew Melrose 1911 [13337] One of the dedicatees of this novel is Franklin Thomasson, whose family had a long association with the women’s suffrage movement. The heroine is a feminist journalist and political campaigner – as was the author, who co-authored, with Helen Blackburn, ‘Women Under the Factory Acts 1903’ (see item # ). While not being categorically ‘suffrage’, it is so very close to that genre that I have included it in this section. A scarce book              £48

 

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

 

57.     DOBBIE, B.M. Willmott Dobbie A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset: Eagle House, Batheaston Batheaston Society 1979 [13585] The story of the Blathwayt family and their involvement in the women’s suffrage movement – copiously illustrated by the photographs taken by Col Blathwayt. Soft covers – quite scarce                                                                                                                                         £26

58.     KING, Elspeth The Scottish Women’s Suffrage Movement  People’s Palace, Glasgow 1978 [13272] Soft-covered booklet that was published to accompany the ‘Right to Vote’ exhibition organised by the People’s Palace Museum to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1928 Representation of the People Act. Very good                                                                                                                          £12

59.     (PANKHURST) Emmeline Pankhurst My Own Story  Eveleigh Nash 1914 [13265] Mrs Pankhurst’s authobiography, written with the help of the American journalist, Rheda Childe Dorr. Good – scarce                                                                                                                                                    £55

60.     HINE, Muriel The Man With the Double Heart  John Lane 1914 [13336] A ‘suffrage’ novel. The heroine’s mother is a Militant Suffragette; she is not. Good                                                     £18

 

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE: EPHEMERA

61.     A Brief Review of the Women’s Suffrage Movement since its Beginning in 1832  [NUWSS], printed by Vacher & Sons April 1911 [13505] 16-pp pamphlet.  Very good – would be fine but it has lost its staples. With the ownership inscription of a ‘Mrs Kerr’ on the cover.                                                    £35

62.     ADA HINES      [12587] (1872-1949) of ‘The Nook’, Ashton-on-Mersey, was an artist and a suffragette – the joint founder, in 1909, with her friend and fellow artist, Lucy Fildes, of the Manchester branch of the Women’s Freedom League. Here is an opportunity to acquire a small oil painting by her – unframed – on board – entitled ‘Sunset’. Signed but undated – rather atmospheric.                                     £75

63.     BODICHON, Mrs Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women  London National Society for Women’s Suffrage, no date late 1860s? [9519] Printed by Head, Hole & Co, Farringdon Street and Ivy Lane, E.C. Scarce and important pamphlet -8pp – good                                                                            £250

64.     CORONATION PROCESSION 17 June 1911     [11274] A stereoscope photograph of ‘The Empire Car’ – part of the ‘Pageant of Empire’ part of the procession staged by the suffrage societies to mark the Coronation of George V. Very good                                                                                         £95

65.     ELMY, Elizabeth Wostenholme  Woman’s Franchise: the need of the hour  ILP 2nd ed, no date [1907] [12760] A campaigner for women’s suffrage since the mid-1860s, she had put aside a lifetime’s aversion to party politics and joined the Manchester ILP in 1904. This article was originally published in the ‘Westminster Review’. In her concise style she analyses the events of the previous 40 years and demands that Liberal MPs who profess to support women’s suffrage honour their pledges.                   £65

66.     HILL, MISS OCTAVIA Women and the Suffrage   1910 [13150] 2-sided leaflet, reproducing a letter from Octavia Hill to the Editor of the ‘Times’, dated 14 July 1910. In this she repudiates the necessity of votes for women – ‘Let the woman seek the quiet paths of helpful real work, be set on finding where she is wanted, on her duties, not on her rights…’ The 2-sided leaflet was printed by the National Press Agency Ltd and does not carry the imprimatur of the anti-suffrage society, although I imagine that group was probably behind its publication, the NPA being their usual printer. Good – very scarce          £68

67.     IN MEMORIAM  Rt Hon Lord and Lady (Emmeline) Pethick-Lawrence of Peaslake    [13195] 4-pp leaflet describing the various commemorations of the lives of the Pethick-Lawrences. Issued by the Suffragette Fellowship under the names of Lady (Helen) Pethick-Lawrence and Grace Roe. Good £15

68.     LEIGH SMITH, Barbara A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women; together with a few observations thereon Holyoake & Co, 2nd edition revised with addition 1856 [9033] Barbara Leigh Smith (later Barbara Bodichon) was 27 years old when she wrote this pamphlet, first published in 1854 as part of her campaign to change the Married Women’s Property Acts. This pamphlet is extremely scarce (I have never had a copy for sale before), bound inside recent paper covers. Rather amusingly, the printed price of ‘Threepence’ has been scored through and ‘1 1/2 d’ added – a comment, presumably, then on the interest being shown in the campaign by a public not yet awakened to the cause. Very good                                                                                          £280

69.     LYDIA BECKER     [12607] Letter from Lydia Becker to ‘Mr Levi’ – written from 85 Carter St, Greenyes, Manchester on ‘Oct 16’ – I have worked out that the year is1868. ‘Mr Levi’ is probably Prof Leone Levi, to whom she had sent a pamphlet a few days earlier. I think, in response, he had written to her in admiration asking for some material from her for his autograph book. In this letter, in return, she writes ‘I have written out my three Norwich prospositions ,[these are drawn from her address at Norwich to the British Association Section F on 25 Aug 1868] which I hope may serve your purpose as a curiosity! for your autograph book, and a bone of contention for your friends.’ These ‘three Norwich propositions’ are set out on a separate sheet. But, in addition, in her  4-pp mss letter she sets out ‘my general wishes and conclusions as to the rights of women’.. All the material has been carefully attached to a sheet that once was page 77 in a collection of autograph material. Incidentally the material on the reverse, p 78, is in Italian, lending credence to my supposition that the correspondent was Leone Levi, who had left his native Italy for Liverpool in 1844. A very interesting letter – very good                                  £95

70.     MEN’S LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Gladstone on Woman Suffrage  MLOWS c. 1909 [13146] The Men’s League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was founded in early 1909 and in 1910 merged with the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League to form  the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. This pamphlet – reproducing the Grand Old Man’s words on the subject is pamphlet no 3 issued by the Men’s League, presumably quite soon after its founding in 1909. 4-pp – good, with some foxing, scarce                                                                                                           £78

71.     MEN’S LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Is Woman Suffrage A Logical Outcome of Democracy?  MLOWS c 1909 [13147] Pamphlet no 6 published by the short-lived Men’s League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. 4-pp – very good – scarce                                                             £60

72.     MISS MORGAN, OF BRECON The Duties of Citizenship  Women’s Local Government Society c 1912 [12946] Extracts reprinted from a paper read at the Annual Conference of the National Union of Women Workers, Manchester, October 27th 1896. By the time this leafet was issued Miss Morgan had been Mayor of Brecon, 1911-12. 4-pp – good – withdrawn from the Women’s Library                               £15

73.     NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Mr J.R. Tolmie’s Reply to Mr L. Housman’s Pamphlet  NLOWS no date (1913) [13145] The pamphlet of Laurence Housman’s to which this refers is ‘The Physical Force Fallacy’. Pamphlet no 37 issued by the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. 4-pp – very good                                                                                           £65

74.     NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Woman Suffrage and the Factory Acts  NLOWS no date [13155] A 4-pp leaflet, no 8 in the NLOWS series,  pointing out that the ‘Women’s Party’ (ie pro-suffrage campaigners) were opposed to the ‘humane acts’ limiting women’s work in factory etc because ‘most of them harbour such a jealous mistrust of men that they suppose even their evidently disinterested actions to be prompted by insidious and harmful motive.’ The leaflet concludes ‘To grant women the franchise would therefore be to raise a fresh obstacle in the way of progress and to defer reforms still necessary for the welfare of the working classes..’ Very good – very scarce         £75

75.     NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE CENTRAL COMMITTEE: First Report of the Executive Committee presented at the General Meeting of the Central Committee held on Wednesday 17 July 1872  National Society for Women’s Suffrage 1872 [12931] See my ‘Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide’ as to how and why the Central Committee came into being. This – the Committee’s first report, contains lists of names of members of the Committee, of subscribers, and of the Local Committtes around England and Scotland that affiliated to the Central. In original paper covers – rubbed – very scarce                                                                                                                   £95

76.     PANKHURST, Christabel A Challenge    [13508] ‘Miss Pankhurst’s unpublished Articcle in this week’s ‘Votes for Women’, 8 March 1912. This was the week that Christabel eluded the police and escaped to Paris – and ‘Votes for Women’ was censored. The article that was to have been included was, instead, issued by the WSPU as a leaflet. It ends by promising ‘Repression will make the fire of rebellion burn brighter. Harsher punishment will be a direct invitation to more drastic acts of militancy.’ I don’t remember ever seeing this leaflet before. one-sided – chipped at one edge and with a slight slit – but with no loss of text. Good – and very scarce                                                                                                      £75

77.     PANKHURST, Christabel International Militancy  WSPU 1915 [13502] ‘A speech delivered at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 13th, 1915’. 24-pp pamphlet, paper covers (with photograph of Christabel Pankhurst). Fine – just with a couple of rust marks from spine staples – in original paper wrappers. Scarce                                                                                                                      £100

78.     PETHICK-LAWRENCE, Emmeline and Frederick (eds) VOTES FOR WOMEN VOL III Oct 1909-Sept 1910     [12407] Hefty bound volume of the WSPU weekly newspaper, in original Sylvia Pankhurst-designed boards. Signs of wear at leather corners – spines rebacked – ex Reading University Library – with library label on back boards. Internally very clean and tight, except for page of the Index where paper has split, but with no loss of text..                                                                                           £900

79.     PHILLIPS, Mary The Militant Suffrage Campaign  privately printed 1957 [11357] ‘This pamphlet is designed to tell in a concise form the story of the ‘Votes for Women Canpaign’ and to explain the reasoned policy on which it was based.’ Mary Phillips had been a leading WSPU organizer. Soft covers – 15pp – scarce                                                                                                                                         £65

80.     POTT, Gladys Report of Lecture by Miss Pott on the Anti-Suffrage Movement    [13511] ‘Delivered at 67 Westbourne Terrace, W. on Tuesday December 12th 1911. Sir Bartle Frere presiding’. Gladys Pott was the Anti-Suffrage Movement strongest ammunition. In ‘Campaigning for the Vote’ Kate Frye gives a wonderful description of watching Miss Pott in action – ‘ a most harsh, repellent and unpleasing woman. She began by saying we should not get sentiment from her and we did not. ,,’ Certainly you get the flavour of her style from this Lecture – particularly in the treatment of questioners – all faithfully reported. The Lecture was published by the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. 16pp – very good – I am not sure whether it was issued with a paper wrapper but, if so, that isn’t present now. COPAC  records a copy held by LSE Library – and nowhere else. Scarce                                                              £95

81.     PUNCH CARTOON     [12767] 13 July 1910, full-page – the caption is ‘Excelsior!’ as Suffragist puts her shoulder to the boulder of ‘Women’s Suffrage’ and says, ‘It’s no good talking to me about Sisyphus; he was only a man’                                                                                                                     £10

82.     PUNCH CARTOON     [12768] 13 March 1912, full-page, suffragettes wield hammers in the background as Roman-type matron, bearing a paper labelled ‘Woman’s Suffrage’ comments ‘To think that, after all these years, I should be the first martyr’. the heading is ‘In the House of Her Friends’ £10

83.     PUNCH CARTOON     [12772] 10 January 1912 -full page – ‘United We Differ’. Lloyd George and Lewis Harcourt are back to back on a platform. Lloyd George addressing his side, where a Votes for Women’ banner is to be seen, cries ‘Votes for Women! Don’t you listen to my esteemed colleague!’. While addressing his, male, crowd cries ‘No Votes for Women! My esteemed colleague is talking nonsense!’. Asquith’s cabinet was split on this issue. Very good                                                                 £10

84.     PUNCH CARTOON     [12777] 21 January 1912 – full page – ‘The Suffrage Split’. Sir George Askwith (the charismatic industrial conciliator), as ‘Fairy Peacemaker’, has tamed the dragon of the Cotton Strike – and Asquith, wrestling to keep a seat on the Cabinet horse turns to him ‘Now that you’ve charmed yon dragon I shall need ye to stop the strike inside this fractious gee-gee.’                                     £10

85.     SUFFRAGETTE FELLOWSHIP Roll of Honour Suffragette Prisoners 1905-1914  Suffragette Fellowship no date [1966] [13107] 16-pp, double column, listing all the suffragette prisoners that the Suffragette Fellowship knew of. A couple of names have been added in ink. Internally fine – cover has shelf markings etc – withdrawn from the Women’s Library. Scarce                                        £150

86.     ‘THE VOTE’ POSTCARD ALBUM     [13274] An original green cloth-covered postcard album – sold by the Women’s Freedom League. It has a faded white and gold central panel containing its title ‘The Vote Album’  [ I think the design was by Eva Claire – showing the Suffragists at the door of the State, which is barred and bolted against them. Seeking entrance are the Women of the Nation; graduates in academic dress standing side by side with working women.] This particular album once belonged to Mrs Louisa Thomson Price, who was born Louisa Catherine Sowdon in 1864 and died in 1926. She was the daughter of a Tory military family but from an early age rebelled against their way of thinking and became a secularist and a Radical. She was impressed by Charles Bradlaugh of the National Secular Society. In 1888 she married John Sansom, who was a member of the executive of the NSS. She worked as a journalist from c 1886 – as a political writer, then a very unusual area for women, and drew cartoons for a radical journal, ‘Political World’. She was a member of the Council of the Society of Women Journalists. After the death of her first husband, in 1907 she married George Thomson Price. She had no children from either marriage.
Louisa Thomson Price was an early member of the Women’s Freedom League, became a consultant editor of its paper, The Vote,  and was a director of Minerva Publishing, publisher of the paper. She contributed a series of cartoons – including these 6 that were then produced as postcards. The ‘Jack Horner’ cartoon was also issued as a poster for, I think, the January 1910 General Election. Louisa Thomson Price took part in the WFL picket of the House of Commons and was very much in favour of this type of militancy. In her will she left £250 to the WFL. and £1000 to endow a Louisa Thomson Price bed at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. When she died Mrs Thomson Price was living at 17 Belsize Park Gardens, Hampstead, and her will was witnessed by Edith Alexander, a professional nurse, who, I’m sure, ran a nursing home at that address. Also living at that address were Miss Edith Alexandra Hartley and Miss Martha Poles Hartley, the latter being the elder sister of the father of the novelist, L.P. Hartley. Interestingly, when they were young,  the son and daughter (Olga and Leonard – born ‘Lion’) of Mrs Beatrice Hartley, leading light in the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage, to whom Kate Frye makes constant reference in her diary (see ‘Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary’) sent a birthday card to Edith Alexander at 17 Belsize Park Gardens, referring to her as ‘Aunty Edith’. They were no blood relations to Edith Alexander, their mother having married their father, Lion Herz, in 1880 and, after 3 children and a separation, at some time between 1893 and 1898 changed the family surname from ‘Herz’ to ‘Hartley’.. As far as I can tell there is no tie of blood between Mrs Beatrice Hartley and Miss Edith Alexandra Hartley  – I can only presume that, with Miss Edith Alexander, they were all close friends. The card from Olga and Leonard, together with many more addressed to Edith Alexander, are still held in the postcard album. I assume that after Mrs Thomson Price’s death ‘The Vote Postcard Album’ remained in 17 Belsize Park Gardens and was taken over by Miss Alexander as a place to put her own postcards – none of which have any suffrage relevance. But the Album itself is an extremely scarce example of Women’s Freedom League merchandise                                                    £750

87.     VOTES FOR WOMEN, 16 August 1912     [13190] Complete copy – although the pages are detached. The main news in this issue is of the sentencing in Dublin of Mary Leigh and Gladys Evans. Fair reading copy – scarce                                                                                                                              £60

88.     VOTES FOR WOMEN, 27 September 1912     [13176] At this date the paper, owned and edited by Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, was still the mouthpiece of the WSPU. However this issue contains both news of the Pethick-Lawrences’ imminent return from Canada and that of the WSPU’s move from Clement’s Inn to Lincoln’s Inn House. The two items – and that describing the large meeting to be held in the Albert Hall – were not unconnected, I think. This is one of the last issues of the paper before the Pethick-Lawrences were ousted from the WSPU. In fair condition – splits on spine – and some annotation, probably contemporary. Scarce                                                                               £95

89.     VOTES FOR WOMEN, 27 September 1912     [13496] Complete issue. Chipped and rubbed and with some – interesting – annotations                                                                                                 £60

90.     VOTES FOR WOMEN ADVERTISEMENT     [13262] for a WSPU meeting to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on 29 April 1909 – to be chaired by Mrs Pethick Lawrence, with Mrs Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst as speakers with a ‘Special Presentation to Women who have suffered Imprisonment for Woman Suffrage’. This ‘Special Presentation’ was that of the ‘Holloway’ brooches given, for the first time, to released prisoners. The advertisement appears in the programme for the Royal Adelphi Theatre in which John Galsworthy’s play ‘Strife’ was running. The play, produced by Granville Barker, had Lillah McCarthy in the cast and had had its first performance at the Duke of York’s Theatre on 9 March 1909. On the illustrated cover of this 4-pp programme is written in hand the date 1 April 1909. The proprietors of the Adelphi were A. & E. Gatti – and the coloured cover illustration shows happy customers doubtless enjoying an after-theatre supper at their restaurant.. In fair condition –                                    £25

91.     WOMEN’S NATIONAL ANTI-SUFFRAGE LEAGUE On Suffragettes: extracts from ‘What’s Wrong With The World’ by G.K. Chesterton WNASL c 1909 [13151] ‘They do not create revolution; what they do create is anarchy’. 2-sided leaflet – noo 30 in the WNASL’s series of leaflets – very good – very scarce                                                                                                                                 £78

92.     WOMEN’S NATIONAL ANTI-SUFFRAGE LEAGUE Woman’s Suffrage and Women’s Wages  WNASL c 1909 [13156] ‘The leaflet concludes Woman Suffrage therefore has nothing to do with wages, and the interests of woman workers can be promoted, and are constantly being promoted in quite other ways.’ One of the ways that the League thought would help solve the problem of the inequality of wages between the sexes would be ‘The more even distribution of the female population throughout the terrotory of the Empire, by means of emigration’. Two-sided leaflet – very good – very scarce              £65

93.     THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION A Reply to Mr Gladstone: Frog-marching in Liverpool Prison   [13396] One (no 65) of the large format leaflets produced by the WSPU during the Jan 1910 General Election. This one specifically addresses the Home Secretary on the treatment of Suffrage prisoners. Fine – has been folded and with tag where it has been fixed in Kate Frye’s diary                                                                                                                                                  £100

94.     ROBERTSON, Margaret Working Men and Women’s Suffrage  NUWSS Aug 1913 [12937] Margaret Robertson was a university graduate and NUWSS organiser. This pamphlet was written at a time when the NUWSS had set up its Election Fighting Fund to support Labour Party candidates – and was intended for distribution amongst trade unionists. Small format, 24pp in card covers                            £35

95.     ARREST OF CAPT. C.M. GONNE     [12914] Member of the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement, Parliament Square, November 18th, 1910.’ Capt Gonne was photographed by the ‘Daily Mirror’ being escorted by two policemen during the ‘Black Friday’ tumult. Capt Charles Melvill Gonne (1862-1926), Royal Artillery, was  the author of ‘Hints on Horses’ (John Murray, 1904), an active suffragist, who supported his wife, a tax resister, and was a cousin of Maud Gonne, the Irish nationalist heroine. Very good -unusual –  unposted                                                                                 £120

96.     CICELY HAMILTON     [12954] photograph by Lena Connell. Fine – unposted             £120

97.     COUNTESS RUSSELL     [13241] real photographic postcard – headed ‘Votes for Women’ of ‘Countess Russell Member of National Executive Committee Women’s Freedom League’. The card depicts Countess Russell photographed in a studio setting – and is signed in ink ‘Yours sincerely Mollie Russell’. She was the second wife of Frank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell, the elder brother of Bertrand. Mollie was described by George Santyana as ‘a fat, florid Irishwoman, with black curls, friendly manners and emotional opinions: a political agitator and reformer.’ The photograph in no way belies the physical description. She and Russell were divorced in 1915. Fine – unposted – scarce – I have never seen this card before      £120

98.     DESTRUCTION OF GRAND STAND BY SUFFRAGETTES AT HURST PARK SUNDAY JUNE 18 1913     [13542] Real photographic postcard by Young’s, Teddington. The scene left by Kitty Marion and Clara (Betty) Giveen after they had lit a beacon for Emily Davison – who had died, unbeknownst to them, a few hours earlier. (See full details https://womanandhersphere.com/2013/06/07/suffrage-stories-kitty-marion-emily-wilding-davison-and-hurst-park/). Fine – the message on the reverse is dated 5 July – the card was posted at Molesey Park – so the sender was clearly a local resident who, in fact, mentions that she (I’m sure it is a  ‘she’) had ‘just returned from Kingston’. Very scarce                                                                                      £180

99.     DR THEKLA HULTIN     [13168] The Finnish MP is photographed at her desk. She sent the card from Helsingfors (Helsinki) on 12 April 1917 to Mrs Louisa Thompson-Price of the Women’s Freedom League. From the message on the reverse it would appear that the two women shared a birthday ‘I wish you all the best (including the vote) in the following 50 years…’ Very good – posted – very unusual      £120

100.   EDITH CRAIG     [12955] photographed by Lena Connell, published at The Suffrage Shop, 31 Bedford Street (therefore the card dates from c 1910 – before its removal in 1911 south of the Strand). Fine – unposted                                                                                                                                  £120

101.   FORTISSIMO     [12875] – real photograph, – toddler holds the songsheet for ‘Bother the Men’, dating from the 1880s. Published by Rotary Photo, this is one in a series. Posted by Dick on 21 December 1908 to Master Harry Day of 9 Arthur St, Pembroke Dock, with the message ‘Harry boy  – learning Dada’s Xmas Song.’ Good                                                                                                                     £28

102.   GREAT VOTES FOR WOMEN DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK     [13163] The WSPU rally on Sunday 21 June 1908. Crowds as far as the eye can see – with massed banners, including those of Cardiff and Newport, waving in the breeze. Fine – published by Sandle Bros – unposted       £85

103.   HATHERLEIGH CARNIVAL     [13558] Hatherleigh in Devon has staged a carnival each year in November since 1903. This postcard is a sepia photograph of three children – I rather think they are all boys – dressed as women – glamorously bedecked in flowers – standing beside a vehicle that I think is a bicycle – which is similarly decorated – with flowers and paper lanterns (?) – and bears a large notice ‘Votes for Women’.  Good – unposted                                                                                                  £55

104.   MISS GRACE ROE     [12958] The caption is ‘UNDAUNTED’!’ She is being marched out of the WSPU headquarters, Lincolns Inn House, by police, arrested in May 1914.  She was not released from prison until under the amnesty in August. The postcard photography was by courtesy of the ‘Daily Mirror’. An iconic image. Fine – unposted – scarce.                                                                                    £190

105.   MISS MARY GAWTHORPE     [13553] The caption is ‘Votes for Women’ and she is described as ‘Organiser, Women’s Social and Political Union,
4 Clement’s Inn, Strand, W.C. The card was posted in South Kensington on 31 Oct 1908 – the writer says ‘This is one of the speakers I heard on Thursday. She is splendid…’. The sender probably heard Mary Gawthorpe at the WSPU meeting held in the Albert Hall on Thursday 29 oct 1908. Good    £65

106.   MRS EMMELINE PANKHURST     [13240] real photographic postcard. She is wearing a shield-shaped WSPU badge – in the chevron design. Fine – unposted – a rather unusual image – the first I’ve had in stock since 2000.                                                                                                                    £75

107.   MRS HENRY FAWCETT, LL.D     [13239] ‘President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies’, is the caption below her photograph by Lizzie Caswall Smith. Probably dates from c 1910. Fine – unposted -although written on the back in pencil is ‘Return to Mrs Thomson-Price 42 Parkhill Road, Hampstead N.W.’ The card comes from the collection of Louisa Thomson-Price, one of the leading members of the Women’s Freedom League.                                                                              £60

108.   MRS LILIAN M. HICKS     [11634] – photographed by Lena Connell – an official Women’s Freedom League photographic postcard. Mrs Hicks had been an early member of the WSPU, but left to join the WFL in the 1907 split, returning in 1910 to the WSPU. Fine – unposted                                 £35

109.   MRS MARTEL     [13255] Real photographic postcard captioned ‘Mrs Martel National Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clement’s Inn, W.C.’ Cornish-born Nellie Martel had emigrated to Australia and on her return devoted herself to the WSPU. She had a reputation as a gaudy dresser and certainly here she is dripping in flounces and jewllery – with a rather charingly amused smile. Very good – unposted – scarce.                                                                                                                                        £90

110.   PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OUTSIDE THE WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE COMMITTEE ROOM     [13549] in Hoe Street, Walthamstow. The photograph shows a group on the pavement outside the Committee Rooms with a board on which is written ‘New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage’. In front of them, on the road, is parked a large motor car, to the front of which is attached another large board inscribed in large letters ‘New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage’. Sitting in the car and waving a large flag is an elegant, grandly be-hatted woman. I have never before seen a photograph of the New Constitutional Society at work, as it were. Kate Frye, our main source of information on the NCS, was not yet quite involved in that society – in fact on the day this card was posted, 28 October 1910, she was attending a meeting of the Actresses’ Franchise League at their office – so I can give no inside information on the NCS campaign at this Walthamstow by-election. This by-election was of particular interest to suffrage campaigners because the Liberal candidate was a cabinet minister, Sir John Simon. Election day was on Tuesday 1 November and the sender of the card, who posted it from Leyton at 7 pm on Friday 28th Oct, was one of the NCS campaigners. She tells her correspondent that ‘We are frantically busy working at Walthamstow By Election. Meetings every day and evening.’ She does not, alas, sign her name – but the recipient was Mrs Radcliffe Crocker of Brant Ridge, Bourne End, Bucks. This is something of a coincidence because Kate Frye called on Mrs Crocker the following 1 May (1911) when she was canvassing for support for a new NCS suffrage society in Bourne End (her home town). Mrs Crocker, the widow of an eminent dermatologist, was, Kate tells us, ‘in, but no good’ – so doubtless hadn’t been particularly impressed by the postcard sender’s Walthamstow campaigning.  From the photograph I think that the NCS must have been sharing a committeee room with the Men’s Suffrage League – it certainly is not the Committee Room taken by the WSPU. Above the door is a sign ‘Men’s League Walk In’ – the windows are lined with posters and, with the Men’s League, the Women’s Freedom League and the WSPU, the NCS took part the following day in a procession through Walthamstow that ended with a meeting in Walthamstow Palace Theatre. There is no photographer or publisher of the postcard named – the photo may have been taken by a NCS member – and the image is of the sepia type – rather than crisp black and white. However the image is quite clear – most interesting on a variety of counts – and extremely unusual – I won’t say unique because there were clearly more than one card issued – but I should imagine the chances of finding another were extremely remote.                                                          £200

111.   ‘RUINS OF ST KATHERINE’S CHURCH, BURNT DOWN MAY 6 1913     [11824] Real photographic card. There are several images published on postcards of the ruins of St Catherine’s (this is the correct spelling; the card’s publisher was a bit slapdash) Church at Hatcham in Surrey, for the burning of which the suffragettes were thought responsible – but I have never seen this one before.   £35

112.   ‘SUFFRAGETTE’ POSTCARD     [13243] real photographic card – though it must be staged. Set in what appears to be the country – with trees and flowers – it shows a woman in loose-fitting jacket and long skirt – with one of the shield-shaped chevron WSPU badges pinned to her lapel, being apprehended by a policeman in helmet and uniform and sporting an imposing display of medals. The point of the photograph is that the woman is holding out for him to see a copy of the ‘Suffragette’ newspaper. I have never seen this image before. It is issued as a postcard – but no photographer or publisher is cited. Most unusual – unposted – very good (with a slight crease at the bottom right-hand corner where it has been held in (Louisa Thomson-Price’s) postcard album                                                                               £120

 

113.   SUFFRAGETTE PROCESSION     [13545] Real photographic postcard – an unusual view of the 1911 ‘Coronation Procession’. The photograph, published as a postcard by J. J. Samuels, 371 Stramd, London W.C., shows the ‘Pageant of Great Women’ part of the procession walking the street that goes out of Trafalgar and merges into Pall Mall. The photograph has been taken from an upper window of one of the buildings on the south side of the street  and gives an excellent view not only of the procession but of London’s buildings decorated for the Coronation. The streets are packed with onlookers. Unposted – reverse a little grubby but the front is in very good condition. Unusual                                 £120

 

114.   THE WOMEN’S GUILD OF EMPIRE     [12877] ‘souvenir packet’ of 6 postcards, in their original printed paper envelope, published by the Women’s Guild of Empire. The cards are: 1) ‘Women’s Guild of Empire Committee’ – the 6 members of the Committee, who included Flora Drummond and Elsie Bowerman, sit around a table; 2) Mrs R.S Henderson, president; 3) Mrs Flora Drummond, Controller-in-Chief; 4) WGE banner ‘Peace Unity Concord’ surrounded by members; 5) Banner Making for the Great Demonstration April 17th 1926 – Mrs Drummond under an ‘Effeciancy and Entrprise’ banner; 6) ‘Women Pipers from the Lothians’ – with Mrs Drummond in control Scottishness was to the fore. An extremely rare set – I have never seen any of these cards before – and, in general, there are few images of the Guild of Empire and its work. The printed envelope carries details of the ‘Objects’ of the Guild and of its work. All cards in pristine condition – dating, I assume, to c 1926. As a set                                    £220

115.   VOTES FOR WOMEN     [13256] one of those real photographic ‘comic’ cards with young man dressed as a woman standing behind a table and a large ‘Votes for Women’ blackboard. He is holding a large knife (I think) in one hand and a bottle of beer – Benksins Watford – in the other. It is signed across the bottom right corner ‘Your old Pal Dan’                                                                                                  £35

116.   WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Miss Sarah Benett    [12950] photographed by Lena Connell. In this studio photograph Sarah Benett is wearing her WFL Holloway brooch; she was for a time the WFL treasurer. She was also a member of the WSPU and of the Tax Resistance League. This photograph by Lena Connell was also used on a WFL-published postcard – but this one is not attributed to the WFL. The background to the image is little irridescent.                                                                           £100

117.   WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Mrs Amy Sanderson    [12919] Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London WC. She had been a member of the WSPU, and, as such had endured one term of imprisonment, before helping to found the WFL in 1907. She is, I think, wearing her  WFL Holloway brooch in the photograph. Card, published by WFL, fine – unusual – unposted    £150

118.   WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Mrs Edith How-Martyn , ARCS, BSc    [12917] Hon Sec Women’s Freedom League 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London WC. She is wearing herWFL Holloway brooch. Photographed by M.P. Co (London) – which I think is probably the Merchants Portrait Co in Kentish Town that did a fair amount of work for the WFL. The card is headed ‘Votes for Women’ and was published by the WFL. Fine – unposted                                                                                  £120

119.   WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Mrs Marion Holmes    [12921] card headed ‘Votes for Women’ published by the Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert St, Adelphi, London WC. Mrs Holmes was joint editor of the WFL paper ‘The Vote’. She is photoraphed wearing herWFL Holloway badge as well as one of the WFL enamel badges. Fine – unusual – unposted                                                           £120

 

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE POSTCARDS: COMIC

120.   ‘HI! MISS! YER TROWSERS IS A-COMING DOWN’     [12507] shouts tyke to elegant young woman sporting ‘harem’ trousers. Pre-First World War, pub by Felix McGlennon. Not actually ‘suffrage’ but of the time. Very good – very glossy                                                                                   £25

121.   ‘NOT IN THOSE TROUSERS’     [12506] is the caption to a hand-painted postcard (the artist has initialed it ‘K.S.’). The subject of the remark is a lady in a purple and green outfit – a long tunic over ‘harem’ trousers – wearing a green and purple hat and carrying an umbrella. The author of the remark, a dapper gentleman, stands in the background. The colouring may indicate that a suffrage inference might be drawn – the style of dress certainly points to an early-20th-century date. Very good – unposted       £15

122.   THIS IS THE HOUSE THAN MAN BUILT     [13551] And this is the policeman all tattered and torn/Who wished women voters had never been born,/Who nevertheless /Tho it caused him distress/Ran them all in,/In spite of their dress:/The poor Suffragette/Who wanted to get/Into The House than man built. With House of Commons in the background, a policeman is battered by one suffragette as he attempts to aprehend another – virgagos both, of course. In the BB London Series. In very good condition – posted on 30 April 1909                                                                                                          £45

123.   THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT MAN BUILT     [13550] ‘And these are the members who’ve been sitting late/Coming out arm in arm, from a lengthy debate…’ Fashionably dressed couple, he in top hat and frock coat emerge, engaged in reasonable discussion, from the Houses of Parliament. An ink line at under the text carries the message ‘Will we ever live to see this.’ In BB London Series. Very good – posted in Clapton on 12 May 1909.                                                                                                                        £45

124.   THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT MAN BUILT     [13552] ‘And this is the home of the poor suffragette/And there’s room for a great many more of them in it yet…’ Burly suffragette being taken in hand by a policeman – with the towers of Holloway in the background. In BB London series. Very good- unposted                                                                                                                                    £45

125.   COMPANIONS IN DISGRACE     [13555] – the sweet girl graduate stands, robed, alongside a convict in his arrowed suit. The heading is ‘Polling Booth’ and the caption ‘Companions in Disgrace’ refers to  their shared characteristic. The verse below explains further: ‘Convicts and Women kindly note,/ Are not allowed to have the vote…’ etc. Drawn by ‘C.H.’ and published by the Artists’ Suffrage League. Very good – unposted                                                                                                                         £65

126.   YOUNG NEW ZEALAND     [13230] cycles on her modern bicycle with its two wheels equal in size. The front one is labelled ‘Male and Female’ and the back one ‘Equal Electoral Rights’.  She calls out to old John Bull who is struggling atop a penny farthing, ‘Oh Grandpapa! what a funny old machine. Why don’t you get one like mine?’ The artist is JHD [Joan Harvey Drew]. Published by the Artists’ Suffrage League. Very good- unposted – v scarce                                                                                                 £95

 

WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

127.   BARTON, Edith And CODY, Marguerite Eve in Khaki: the story of the Women’s Army at home and abroad Thomas Nelson, no date (1918) [12577] Part I – in England by Edith M. Barton. Part II – In France by Marguerite Cody. The First World War and the early years of the WAAC. Very good     £38

128.   CABLE, Boyd Doing Their Bit: war work at home Hodder and Stoughton, 2nd imp 1916 [8646] Includes a chapter on ‘The Women’. Good                                                                                £18

129.   CAHILL, Audrey Fawcett Between the Lines: letters and diaries from Elsie Inglis’s Russian Unit Pentland Press 1999 [11675] Soft covers – mint                                                                       £15

130.   DEARMER, Mabel Letters from a Field Hospital: with a memoir of the author by Stephen Gwynn Macmillan 1916 [12640] In April 1915 Mabel Dearmer, the wife of the Christian socialist Rev Percy Dearmer, went out to work with Mrs Stobart in Serbia. She died of enteric fever in July.  Very good internally – cream cloth cover a little grubby – scarce                                                                £75

131.   DENT, Olive A V.A.D. in France  Grant Richards Ltd  1917 [12636] Autobiographical account of nursing in France in the First World War. Very good, with atmospheric pictorial cloth cover £75

132.   FARMBOROUGH, Florence Russian Album 1908-1918  Michael Russell 1979 [12645] Photographs taken both before and during the First World War by Florence Farmborough, who first went to Russia in 1908 – and left in 1918. At the outbreak of war she served with the Russian Red Cross. An amazing collection. Large format, fine in d/w                                                                                         £28

133.   [HALL] Edith Hall Canary Girls & Stockpots  WEA Luton Branch 1977 [12884] Memories of life in the First World War – and of the ’20s and ’30s. During the War Edith Hall’s mother was landlady to munition workers – ‘the Canaries’ (so called because the chemicals turned their skin yellow) at the Hayes factories.
Soft covers – signed by the author                                                                                             £10

134.   MCLAREN, Eva Shaw (ed) A History of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals  Hodder & Stoughton 1919 [12638] A very full history of the work of the SWH in the First World War. With 57 illustrations, including a marvellous pull-out panoramic photograph of the Salonika hospital in 1918 – huts and tents as far as the eye can see.  408pp – very good -with new endpapers and a little foxing – scarce    £65

135.   MARLOW, Joyce (ed) The Virago Book of Women and the Great War  Virago 1998 [11926] Hardcover – fine in fine d/w                                                                                                      £12

136.   (ROSS) Ishobel Ross Little Grey Partridge  Aberdeen University Press 1988 [12153] ‘First World War diary of Ishobel Ross, who served with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals Unit in Serbia.’ With an introduction by Jess Dixon.  Paper covers – fine                                                                       £10

137.   STONE, Gilbert (ed) Women War Workers: accounts contributed by representative workers of the work done by women in the more important branches of war employment George G. Harrap & Co 1917 [12631] With a foreword by Lady Jellicoe. Chapters on: munition work; the land; work as a postwoman; banking; as a bus conductor; driver of butcher’s delivery cart; nursing at the Front in France; work as a V.A.D.; working with ‘Concerts at the Front’; and welfare work. Includes a chapter on War Organisations for Women, full of facts and figures – with 12 photographs. Very good – a surprisingly scarce book       £60

138.   WALKER, Dora M. With the Lost Generation 1915-1919: From a V.A.D.s Diary A. Brown & Sons (Hull) 2nd imp 1971 [12879] ‘A “Girl’s Eye View” of work in some of the famous War Hospitals of 1914-1918.’ – written at the time by the author to her father. Dora Walker worked in hospitals in Britain, France and Belgium. With 20 photographs. Fine – scarce                                                                     £25

 

WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR: EPHEMERA

139.   DENNYS, Joyce  Portrait of Nurse Winifred Whitworth    [11472] Winifred  Fanny Whitworth (b.1891) was a VAD nurse at the Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital, Truro, when she was commended for ‘valuable service in connection with the war’ in the London Gazette 29 Nov 1918. She was the only daughter (with 6 brothers) of Mr & Mrs R. Whitworth of Truro. Joyce Dennys (1893-1991), illustrator and humourist, was herself a VAD, working in hospitals in Devon. She was commissioned c 1915 to draw the pictures for ‘Our Hospitals ABC’, pub by John Lane. She must have visited the Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital at Truro c 1917, when she was working in the VAD adminsitration office. The pastel and gouache portrait of Nurse Whitworth is one of 31, unsigned drawings, that were contained in a sketch book. Research by an art dealer, specialising in art of the First World War, established that the sketch book was the work of Joyce Dennys. Plenty of scope, I feel, for further research on Nurse Whitworth and her fellow Cornish VADs. Very good – mounted                                                                                                    £95

140.   GRANT, LILIAS and MOIR, ETHEL ‘Uncensored Diary’ and ‘Uncensored Letters’    [12590] Lilias Grant wrote the ‘Uncensored Diary’ and her friend, Ethel Moir, the ‘Uncensored Letters’ while on service together – as orderlies – with Dr Elsie Inglis’ Serbian-Russian Unit of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in Rumania and Russia between August 1916 and April 1917. Also in that unit were Elsie Bowerman and Yvonne Fitzroy – and many other figures now well known to students of the SWH make frequent appearances.  Ethel Moir did further service with the SWH between Feb 1918 and Jan 1919 with the ‘Elsie Inglis Unit’ in Salonika, Verbiliani and Hordiack and recorded that experience in a second section of the ‘Uncensored Letters’. These foolscap typescripts (or, in the case of the Moir Letters, a xerox of the tss) have been bound and were each inscribed by Lilias Grant (by then Mrs Lilias Dyson) and given in 1972 to her friends Nina and Ian Cameron of North Petherton, Somerset. Laid in the Moir volume is a letter from her husband, Dacre Dyson, explaining that there are only 3 copies of the Moir tss (and, by inference, also of the Grant Diary). One set is this set, owned by the Camerons, one is in the possession of Ethel Moir’s sister and the Dysons’ own set is destined, in due course, to be given to Edinburgh Central Library. Lilias Dyson died in 1975 and her husband in 1980 and their set of tss is now in the ECL. Indeed it was after reading the tss there that the playwright Abigail Docherty wrote her SWH play ‘Sea, Land and Sky’,  staged at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow in 2010. Audrey Cahill published excerpts from the diary and letters in ‘Between the Lines’ (see item # ). Although she been unable to find anything further about Lilias Grant, the extra information provided in the laid-in letter and note that accompanies these volumes has made it possible to establish that, born in York in 1880, in 1922 she married Dacre Dyson, a Ceylon tea planter. They lived in Ceylon until at least 1938 and after the Second World War were living in Burley in Hampshire. Ethel Moir and Lilias Grant, who were both living in Inverness, had been friends before, together, joining the SWH The whereabouts of the third set of the tss is at the moment unknown.
The tss have been very well bound and are in fine condition (with one very small scuff on the spine of ‘Uncensored Letters’) – with presentation inscription from Lilias Grant and laid-in letter and note from her husband. Extremely scarce                                                                                                      £500

141.   SCOTTISH WOMEN’S FIRST AID CORPS     [12892] natural-coloured linen canvas satchel with the initials ‘S.W.F.A.C.’ [Scottish Women’s First Aid Corps] machine-embroidered in red on the front.The satchel hangs from a long red grosgrain ribbon strap which has a buckle for altering its length. The bag still contains an Esmarch’s Triangular Bandage – printed with images of how to apply, in a variety of ways, the bandage to wounded men, together with two packs labelled ‘Scottish Women’s First Aid Corps First Field Dressing’, supplied by J. Gordon Nicholson, Pharmaceutical Chemist, 15 Hanover Street, Edinburgh, and two small safety pins on a piece of card, presumably to be used for fixing the bandages. Luckily this SWFAC member was required to put the bandages to the test. The SWFAC had been formed in 1909 by Mary E. Macmillan and came into its own in the First World War, appealing to middle and upper-middle class women who wanted to ‘do their bit’. The SWFAC ran classes in First Aid and sick nursing and some of its recruits then went out to nurse in Italy and Serbia. Very good – an unusual survival    £120

142.   YOUR KING & COUNTRY WANT YOU  a woman’s recruiting song Chappell & Co 1914 [12802] Sheet music – words & music by Paul A. Rubens. The cover is illustrated by John Hassall. ‘The entire profits from the sale of this song will be devoted to Queen Mary’s “Work for Women” Fund’. ‘Oh! we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go. For your King and your Country both need you so; We shall want you and miss you but with all our might and main. We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you when you come back again’. Makes the spine creep. 6-pp – very good                                     £38

 

WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR: NOVEL AND POETRY

143.   MACAULAY, Rose Three Days  Constable & Co  1919 [12622] Poems. Already an established novelist, during the First World War Rose Macaulay worked as a VAD nurse and a land girl and in early 1917 joined the War Office. Good – a little chipped on spine – in wrapper cover.                            £25

144.   MARCHANT, Bessie A Girl Munition Worker: a story of a girl’s work during the Great War Blackie  [1916] [13002] Novel of the First World by ‘the girls’ Henry’. This would appear to be a first edition -with an ownership inscription for ‘Xmas 1916’ on free front end paper In original pictorial cloth cover – cloth rubbed and corners bumped – very scarce                                                                        £45

GENERAL STOCK

145.   BULKELEY, John And BYRON, John The Loss of the ‘Wager’: the narrative of John Bulkeley and John Byron Boydell Press 2004 [9784] Two survivors of the loss of the ‘Wager’ tell a tale of mutiny, hardship and tenacity after the loss of their ship on the Patagonian coast in 1740. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                                                                      £7

146.   CASSON, Stanley Some Modern Sculptors  OUP 1928 [7634] Good – library bookplate on front pastedown. Hardback/no d/w                                                                                                      £8

147.   CHARATAN, Kira And CECIL, Camilla Under Fire in the Dardanelles: the Great War Diaries and Photographs of Major Edward Cadogan Pen & Sword Military 2006 [9279] Fascinating diaries – packed with illustrations. Mint in mint dustwrapper                                                                             £15

148.   DE GAMEZ, Gutierre The Unconquered Knight; a chronicle of the deeds of Don Pero Nino, Count of Buelna Boydell Press 2004 [8627] A chronicle dating from the early part of the 15th century. This edition, with introduction by Joan Evans, first published in 1928. Soft covers – mint                            £8

149.   GLANFIELD, John Bravest of the Brave: the story of the Victoria Cross Sutton 2005 [9275] Mint in mint dustwrapper                                                                                                                       £10

150.   (GOYA) Julia Blackburn Old Man Goya  Jonathan Cape 2002 [10975] Follows Goya through the last 35 years of his life. Very good in d/w                                                                                         £8

151.   GREEN, Benny Britain at War  Colour Library 1994 [7811] The Second World War. V fully illustrated. Very good – large format – heavy                                                                                                £4

152.   HART-DAVIS, Adam What the Past did for Us: a brief history of ancient inventions BBC Books 2004 [8632] Mint in dustwrapper                                                                                                      £10

153.   HUGHES, Les Henry Munday: a young Australian Pioneer Next Century Books 2003 [9291] Henry Munday left Bow Brickhill in Buckinghamshire in 1844 to emigrate to Australia. In later life he wrote his reminiscences of life in his English village as it had been 70 years previously, his voyage to Australia and his life there. V. interesting, detailed and well illustrated. Large format – weight of book has caused split at inside front cover – otehrwise fine                                                                                           £9

154.   LONGMATE, Norman The Real Dad’s Army; the story of the Home Guard Arrow books 1974 [9971] Soft covers – good                                                                                                                       £5

155.   MAYERS, Kit North-East Passage to Muscovy: Stephen Borough and the first Tudor explorations Sutton 2005 [9274] The attempt to find the north-east passage to China. In 1553 Stephen Borough’s ship managed to reach Russia and set up favourable trading terms with Ivan the Terrible – leading to the creation of the first joint-stock overseas trading company, the Muscovy Company. Mint in mint dustwrapper                                                                                                                               £14

156.   PLOWDEN, Alison In a Free Republic: life in Cromwell’s England Sutton Publishing 2006 [9786] Mint in d/w                                                                                                                                         £10

157.   ROBINS, Gay Women in Ancient Egypt  British Museum Press 1993 [11867] Soft covers – fine   £6

158.   WASSERMAN, James An Illustrated History of the Knights Templar  Destiny Books (Vermont) 2006 [9777] Soft covers, large format, heavily illustrated – mint                                                      £10

159.   (WOODHOUSE) Ronald Woodhouse John Woodhouse: a remarkable Mormon pioneer Trafford Publishing 2006 [9772] Records the known information about the life of a Mormon pioneer in the late 19th century – starting in Yorkshire the trail reaches throughout the USA. Soft covers – mint £6

160.   (FROUDE) Ciaran Brady, James Anthony Froude: an intellectual biography of a Victorial prophet OUP 2013 [13437] Mint in d/w (pub price £45)                                                                      £30

161.   (DOYLE) Douglas Kerr Conan Doyle: writing, profession and practice OUP 2013 [13424] A study of the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle – and a cultural biography Mint in d/w (pub price £30) £20

162.   CREW, Bob The History of Maidenhead  Breedon Books 2007 [10658] Hardback – mint in mint d/w                                                                                                                                                      £8

163.   MACKIE, Alastair Some of the People All the Time  Book Guild Publishing 2006 [10659] Autobiography of a former H-bomber pilot who became vice-charman of CND                       £9

164.   STOKER, Bram Dracula  OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13440] Edited by Roger Luckhurst. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                                                £5

165.   TOLSTOY, Leo War & Peace  OUP 2010 [13444] ‘The definitive (Maude) translation newly revised and edited and with an introduction by Amy Mandelker. Hardover – very heavy -1350pp – mint in d/w                                                                                                                                                    £12

166.   TROLLOPE, Anthony Can You Forgive Her?  OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13445] Edited by Dinah Birch. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                              £5

167.   TROLLOPE, Anthony The Duke’s Children  OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13443] Edited with an introduction and notes by Katherine Mullin and Francis O’Gorman. Soft covers – mint            £5

168.   TROLLOPE, Anthony Phineas Finn  OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13439] Edited by Simon Dentith. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                                        £5

169.   TROLLOPE, Anthony Phineas Redux  OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13442] Edited by John Bowen. Soft covers – mint                                                                                                                        £5

170.   ANDREWS, Malcolm Dickensian Laughter: essays on Dickens & humour OUP 2013 [13418] Examines and reflects on Dickens’ techniques for making us laugh. Mint in d/w (pub price £20)       £15

171.   DARWIN, Charles Evolutionary Writings: including the autobiographies OUP (World’s Classics) 2010 [13441] edited with an introduction and notes by James A. Secord. Soft covers – mint           £5

172.   FLESHER, Caroline McCracken The Doctor Dissected: a cultural autopsy of the Burke & Hare murders OUP 2012 [13434] Canvasses a wide range of media – from contemporary newspaper accounts and private correspondenc to Japanese comic books and videogames to analyse the afterlife of the Burke and Hare murders and consider its singular place in Scottish history. Mint in d/w (pub price £41.99)                                                                                                                                                    £28

173.   JAMES, Simon  Maps of Utopia: H.G. Wells, modernity, and the end of culture OUP 2012 [13414] Begins with the late-Victorian debate about the effect of reading, especially reading fiction, tha tfollowed the 1870 Education Act and considers WEls’s best known scientific novels, important social novels, as well as less-known texts.Mint in d/w (pub price £53)                                                               £28

174.   OTTER, Samuel Philadelphia Stories: America’s literature of race and freedom OUP 2010 [13423] An account of Philadelphia’s literary history. Hardback – mint in d/w                                           £12

175.   RIGNEY, Ann The Afterlives of Walter Scott; memory on the move OUP 2012 [13416] ‘Breaks new ground in memory studies and the study of literary reception by examining the dynamics of cultural memory and the “social life” of literary texts across several generations and multiple media.’ Mint in d/w (pub price £58)                                                                                                                           £28

176.   TOMAN, John Kilvert’s World of Wonders; growing up in mid-Victorian England Lutterworth Press 2013 [13419] Presents the diarist Francis Kilvert as a typical mid-Victorian, excited by the scientific and tchnological forces ushering in the modern world. Describes the diarist’s upbringing and education to show the origins of his outlook. Soft covers – mint (pub price £25)                                          £18

177.   KURZEM, Mark The Mascot: the extraordinary story of a young Jewish boy and an SS extermination squad Ebury 2007 [10655] Mint in d/w                                                                                    £10

 

 

178. The Frye Family’s Christmas card for 1903. Kate and her sister, Agnes, are boating on their Bourne End lawn, flooded by the Thames. Their home, The Plat (which is still there in 2013), is seen in the background.

Good – the photograph is a little spotted                                                                                              £55

AND FOR MANY MORE BOOKS AND ITEMS OF EPHEMERA FOR SALE

DO LOOK AT MY LATEST FULL CATALOGUE: No 182

https://womanandhersphere.com/2013/11/22/books-and-ephemera-for-sale-catalogue-182/

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WALKS: What Would Bring Campaigning Women to Buckingham Street, Strand?

Posted by womanandhersphere in Walks on August 15, 2013

Ever since the decision was made for the Women’s Library to move to LSE (now open as the Women’s Library @ LSE) I have been writing posts that draw attention to the many locations associated with the women’s movement in the area around Aldwych and the Strand. My hope is that researchers in the Women’s Library, when taking a break from their labours, will welcome some information that will allow them to see the surrounding area with fresh eyes. Or even, as in the case of Buckingham Street, draw them to an area they may never have thought of visiting.

Buckingham Street, Strand, by John Edmund Niemann, 1854. From the Museum of London Collection, courtesy of the Public Catalogue foundation

Buckingham Street, Strand, by John Edmund Niemann, 1854. From the Museum of London Collection, courtesy of the Public Catalogue foundation

Buckingham Street runs south from the Strand, parallel with Villiers Street, close to Charing Cross Station. In this picture Niemann positions us with our backs to the Strand, viewing the length of the street down towards the 17th-century Watergate which, before the building of the Embankment, marked the northern bank of the Thames. In the distance, looming over the Watergate, we can see the towers of Brunel’s Hungerford Suspension bridge, demolished in 1863. This view had, therefore, changed by the beginning of the 20th century, but from it we can glean an idea of the busy-ness of the narrow street,. There is probably less traffic now – at the moment, as London perpetually renews itself, this consists mainly of builders’ trucks – but the street  still ends at the Watergate, by the side of which steps lead down into the Embankment Gardens.

The Survey of London, published in 1937, gives a thorough building history of the street and today’s  London guides – such as this one– mention that Pepys lived at number 12 and Dickens at number 15 (his house now bombed and replaced), but campaigning women, too, have a claim to the street’s history.

18 Buckingham Street, Strand, first home of the WFL, 1907-08

18 Buckingham Street, Strand, first home of the WFL, 1907-08

It was here – at no 18 (at the quieter, river-end of Buckingham Street) that in the autumn of 1907, after the dramatic break with Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, the newly formed Women’s Freedom League opened its office. This was always probably only intended as a temporary solution – the WFL moved  to larger premises in nearby Robert Street the following year. I have always wondered whether billiards was not the reason for alighting on no 18 –  which at this time also housed the office of the Billiards Association. Teresa Billington-Greig, one of those leading the break with the WSPU, had that year married Frederick Greig, a manufacturer of billiard tables – so, perhaps,  when it was clear that they would have to depart Clement’s Inn in a hurry,  it was through him that the rebels heard of an office for rent. I’ve not, however, been able to find any proof for this – doubtlessly wild – supposition. Perhaps, rather, the Strand Liberal and Radical Association, also tenants of number 18, effected the introduction to Buckingham Street.

The WFL lost no time in advertising their existence – issuing several photographic cards during the few months they were operating from number 18.

WSL card published from 18 Buckingham Street

WSL card published from 18 Buckingham Street

13 Buckingham Street, Strand, office of the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement

13 Buckingham Street, Strand, office of the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement

On the other side of the street the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement was based at number 13. The MPU had been founded at a meeting held at the Eustace Miles Restaurant (just the other side of the Strand) in 1910. One of the founders – and the hon. organising secretary of the MPU – was Victor Duval. The premises were also, I think, the offices of his family firm, Duval & Co.  Victor’s mother, Emily Duval, had been one of those who transferred allegiance from the WSPU to the WFL and would doubtless have been a regular visitor to number 18.

19 Buckingham Street, Strand

19 Buckingham Street, Strand

Back on the eastern side of the street, number 19, now under scaffolding as it is remodelled as ‘luxury apartments’, is a considerably larger building than its neighbour, no 18. Among its many tenants was the Emerson Club which in 1908 was described as a ‘Ladies’ Club’ but from 1911 welcomed both men and women members. This was still rather unusual. The Emerson remained at this address until 1925 and numbered among its members the WFL activists Elizabeth Knight, Amy Hicks and Alison Neilans, as well as Mrs Pankhurst’s brother, Walter, and Margaret Bondfield, the future Labour cabinet minister. Sarah Bennet, the WFL’s treasurer, was one of the Emerson’s early shareholders.

By 1908 number 19 also housed the office of the architect Basil Champneys, while Thackeray Turner and Eustace Balfour (the latter the husband of the suffragist Lady Frances Balfour) had their architectural practice next door at number 20. All three architects brought to fruition – mainly in Queen-Anne style red brick – the dreams of campaigning women. Champneys was the long-time architect of Newnham College and In the 1890s Turner and Balfour designed the York Street Ladies’ Residential Chambers – one of Agnes Garrett’s projects  (for which see much more in Crawford, Enterprising Women). Thackeray Turner was also secretary to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, at this time also based at number 20.  The architects were working out of the type of late-17th/early-18th-century houses so much admired by Agnes and Rhoda Garrett in House Decoration.

Opposite, at number 12, were the offices of the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses, the premises of the Midwives’ Institute and Trained Nurses’ Club and the Association of Clerks and Secretaries.

So, a 100 years ago, many different types of women would have had many reasons to make their way down Buckingham Street, stopping off at any one of these addresses. Some might, of course, have carried on down the steps at the end of the street and into the Victoria Embankment Gardens – where two major heroes of the suffrage movement are commemorated.

Mill Tribute

The WFL, based on the south side of the Strand, was very well placed to honour, as they did every year, their particular hero, John Stuart Mill, whose statue is one of several in the Embankment Gardens. (Incidentally you will note from the caption to this card that the WFL had moved into the new Robert Street office by May 1908.) Well into the 1920s women laid tribute before the statue – one 1927 photograph in the Women’s Library collection shows Millicent Fawcett present on such an occasion.

Henry Fawcett's memorial, erected 1886

Henry Fawcett’s memorial, erected 1886

And it is Millicent’s husband, Henry Fawcett, who is the other hero memorialised in the Embankment Gardens. The sculptor of the bronze bust was a woman – Mary Grant,  the fountain’s designer was Basil Champneys and the whole was funded, as the inscription testifies, by Henry Fawcett’s  ‘grateful countrywomen’.

For more information about the people and societies mentioned see Crawford: The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide.

And do consult the Women’s Library @ LSE online catalogue for details of primary source material.

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The Garretts And Their Circle: Annie Swynnerton’s ‘Illusions’

Posted by womanandhersphere in The Garretts and their Circle on July 22, 2013

'Illusions' by Annie Swynnerton, Collection Manchester City Galleries, courtesy of BBC Your Paingints & the Public Catalogue Foundation

‘Illusions’ by Annie Swynnerton, Collection Manchester City Galleries, courtesy of BBC Your Paintings  & ArtUK

This painting was left to the City Art Gallery, Manchester, by Louisa Garrett (nee Wilkinson, sister-in-law to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent Fawcett and Agnes Garrett.

‘Illusions’ would once have hung in Louisa’s home at Snape in Suffolk. Her house was named ‘Greenheys’ after the area of Manchester in which she and her sister, Fanny, grew up.

The way in which the Garrett circle did their best to ensure that Annie Swynnerton’s work was included in major public collections is discussed in my book –  Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle-  available online from me, or Francis Boutle Publishers or from all good bookshops..

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The Garretts and Their Circle: Annie Swynnerton’s ‘The Dreamer’

Posted by womanandhersphere in The Garretts and their Circle on July 19, 2013

The Dreamer by Annie Swynnerton, 1887. (c) Manchester City Gallery - image courtesy of BBC Paintings and the Public Catalogue Foundation

The Dreamer by Annie Swynnerton, 1887. (c) Manchester City Gallery – image courtesy of BBC Paintings and ArtUK

In yesterday’s post I drew attention to Annie Swynnerton’s portrait of Millicent Fawcett. It was hardly chance that brought that artist and that sitter together; both were central figures in what I term ‘the Garrett circle’.

Today’s painting by Annie Swynnerton, The Dreamer,  was originally owned by Millicent Fawcett’s sister-in-law, Louisa Garrett (nee Wilkinson) who for a while lived next-door-but-one to Millicent Fawcett and Agnes Garrett in Gower Street (the latter at no 2 and the Wilkinsons at no 6). The Dreamer was owned jointly by Louisa and her sister, Fanny, and may for a time have graced the walls of 6 Gower Street. Louisa only moved out of no 6 on her marriage to Millicent and Agnes’ youngest brother, George Garrett.

Fanny Wilkinson and Louisa Garrett did all in their power to ensure that, after their deaths, Annie Swynnerton was represented in public collections. In her will Louisa specifically left her share in this painting to Fanny and expressed ‘the desire that she will bequeath the said picture to the City Art Gallery, Manchester.’

Discover much more about the way in which the Garrett circle did their best to ensure Annie Swynnerton’s continuing reputation in my  Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle-  available online from me, or Francis Boutle Publishers or from all good bookshops..

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Suffrage Stories: The Garretts And Their Circle: Make Millicent Fawcett Visible

Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories on July 18, 2013

Millicent Fawcett wearing a pendant given to her by the NUWSS in recognition of her service

 

Because of copyright issues, I don’t feel able to show you the  portrait of Mrs Pankhurst that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. But I wonder how many of you know without looking  here which one I mean?

As I thought, a great many. That is doubtless because the portrait is on permanent display.

Mrs Pankhurst’s presence is also kept before us in the shape of her statue in Victoria Tower Gardens, right next to the House of Commons.Both of these images are not where they are by chance. Immediately after her death  former suffragettes determined to memorialise their leader in this time-honoured tradition – a portrait painted for the national collection and a statue erected in a prominent and relevant position.

Therefore, it’s unsurprising that Mrs Pankhurst is remembered.

But what of Mrs Millicent Fawcett, whose method of campaigning for the vote for women differed from that of Mrs Pankhurst, but who was in many ways the more effective politician. Indeed, it was she who finally delivered ‘votes for women’.

Mrs Fawcett has no statue. The National Portrait Gallery’s only painted portrait of Mrs Fawcett is this one by Ford Maddox Brown that depicts her as the tender young wife of Henry Fawcett, the blind politician. Incidentally this painting hangs, not in London, but in Bodelwydden Castle. UPDATE: the portrait was moved back to the main London gallery in 2018.

Tate Britain does hold this portrait of Millicent Fawcett, painted at the end of her life by her friend Annie Swynnerton. Mrs Fawcett is shown wearing academic dress, her honorary degree robes from St Andrews.

This painting is permanently in storage. It was shown at the Royal Academy in 1930 and, after being bought for the nation as a Chantrey Bequest purchase, has never been seen in public since.  When I was writing Enterprising Women  I arranged to see the painting in the Tate’s store. There was no difficulty – beyond making an appointment – in gaining access – but how very different from saying ‘hallo’ to Mrs Pankhurst every day, if one so chose, in the National Portrait Gallery.

Why can’t this portrait be brought out of storage and, if it doesn’t fit into the Tate Britain hanging policy, be transferred to the National Portrait Gallery where it would admirably complement Mrs Pankhurst?

Mrs Fawcett was not, of course, without staunch memorialising supporters. But, rather than a statue, they put their efforts into a building – Women’s Service House in Marsham Street, Westminster – and named the large hall inside for Mrs Fawcett. Financial exigency has long since separated the building from the women’s movement  (although we are thankful that it has been given a new lease of life by Westminster School). For many years Millicent Fawcett’s name was synonymous with the wonderful library that originated in Women’s Service House but was at the beginning of the 21st century given the much less resonant name of The Women’s Library.

However Mrs Fawcett’s lifelong work for the women’s cause is still commemorated in the vigorous efforts of The Fawcett Society. I am sure, sensible woman that she was, she would much rather that that was the case than that her portrait should hang in the National Portrait Gallery. And, yet, knowing how responsive the public is to the visual image, I do wish she might be allowed to share Mrs Pankhurst’s limelight.

Because it would be too ironic to devote a post to bemoaning the lack of visual representation of Mrs Fawcett, here she is, wearing an National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies badge.

Millicent Fawcett c 1912

Millicent Fawcett c 1912

Read much more about Millicent Fawcett – and all the Garretts – in Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle

and when in London visit the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery.

UPDATE: And if there were to be a statue of a woman in Parliament Square (see here) to commemorate the women’s suffrage campaign, why should it not be of Millicent Fawcett?

MUCH LATER UPDATE: And there is now, of course, a remarkable statue of Millicent Fawcett now standing in Parliament Square, unveiled in 2018. So she is definitely becoming more visible.

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Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery At The UNISON Centre

Posted by womanandhersphere in The Garretts and their Circle on March 28, 2013

ALAS, IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THE GALLERY HAS FAILED TO  REOPEN AFTER COVID CLOSURE. PLEASE PHONE UNISON TO ENQUIRE.

The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery at the UNISON Centre tells the story of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, of the hospital she built, and of women’s struggle to achieve equality in the field of medicine.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson when young

HAElizabeth Garrett Anderson

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) was determined to do something worthwhile with her life. In 1865 she qualified as a doctor. This was a landmark achievement.  She was the first woman to overcome the obstacles created by the medical establishment to ensure it remained the preserve of men.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson then helped other women into the medical profession, founding the New Hospital for Women where women patients were treated only by women doctors.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, by her example, demonstrated that a woman could be a wife and mother as well as having a professional career.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson worked to achieve equality for women, being especially active in the campaigns for higher education and ‘votes for women’.

In the early 1890s the New Hospital for Women (later renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital) was built  on the Euston Road and continued to treat women until 2000. For some years this building then lay derelict until a campaign by ‘EGA for Women’ won it listed status. UNISON has now carefully restored the building, bringing it back to life as part of the UNISON Centre.

Two important rooms in the original 1890 hospital building have been dedicated to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery. One is the

ORIGINAL ENTRANCE HALL

of the hospital which has been carefully restored to its original form. Here you can study an album, compiled specially for the Gallery, telling the history of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in words and pictures, while, in the background you can listen to a soundscape evocative of hospital life. This is  interwoven with the reminiscences of hospital patients, snippets from the letters of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and sundry other sounds to stimulate your imagination.

The main gallery

The main gallery

The other Gallery room is what was known when the hospital opened as

THE MEDICAL INSTITUTE

This was a room, running along the front of the hospital, parallel to Euston Road, set aside for all women doctors, from all over the country, at a time when they were still barred from the British Medical Association. It was intended as a space in which they could meet, talk and keep up with the medical journals.

Here you can use a variety of media to follow the story of women, work and co-operation in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A BACK-LIT GRAPHIC LECTERN RUNS AROUND THE MAIN GALLERY:

allowing you to see in words and pictures a quick overview of the life of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and of her hospital.

AT INTERVALS ARE SET SIX INTERACTIVE TOUCH-SCREEN MONITORS

-named –  Ambition, Perseverance, Leadership, Equality, Power in Numbers and Making Our Voices Heard – allowing you to access more information about Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, about the social and political conditions that have shaped her world and ours, and about the building’s new occupant – UNISON..

Each monitor contains:

TWO SHORT VIDEO SEGMENTS.

‘Elizabeth’s Story’. Follow the video from screen to screen. Often speaking her own words, the video uses images and voices to tell the story of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s life.

‘UNISON Now’ UNISON members tell you what the union means to them.

and four

INTERACTIVES 

‘Campaigns for Justice’ and ‘Changing Lives’.

 Touch the screen icons to discover how life in Britain has changed since the birth of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.

 AMBITION

Campaigns for justice

Victorian Britain: a society in flux

Victorian democracy: who could vote, and who couldn’t

Did a woman have rights?

Workers organised

Changing lives

The people’s lives in Victorian Britain

The medical profession before Elizabeth Garrett

Restricted lives, big ambitions: middle-class women in the Victorian era

Women workers in the first half of the 19th century

PERSEVERANCE

Campaigns for justice

The changing political landscape

Widening the franchise: can we trust the workers?

Women want to vote: the beginnings of a movement

Trade unions become trade unions

Changing lives

A new concept of active government: Victorian social reform

Women as nurses and carers

Living a life that’s never been lived before: women attempt to enter medicine

International pioneers: women study medicine abroad

LEADERSHIP

Campaigns for justice

Contagious Diseases Acts

Trade unions broaden their vision

Women and education

Women trade unionists

Changing lives

The middle-class century

Working women in the second half of the 19th century

Social reform, philanthropy and paternalism

Women doctors for India

EQUALITY

 Campaigns for justice

The women’s suffrage movement

The Taff Vale decision hampers the unions

The founding of the Labour party

The People’s Budget

Changing lives

Work and play

Marylebone and Somers Town

Did the working classes want a welfare state?

1901 – Who were the workers in the NewHospital for Women?

POWER IN NUMBERS

Campaigns for justice

The General Strike – 1926

The first Labour governments

Feminist campaigns between the wars

1901: The lives of working women in London

Changing lives

Work of women doctors in the First World War

Can we afford the doctor? Health services before the NHS

Wartime demand for social justice

The creation of the National Health Service 1945-1948

MAKING OUR VOICES HEARD

Campaigns for justice

Equality campaigns

Public sector unions before UNISON

UNISON brings public service workers together

Are trade unions still relevant?

Changing lives

The National Health Service becomes sacrosanct

Did the welfare state change the family?

Women’s equality today

Women in medicine now

IN THE CENTRE OF THE GALLERY YOU WILL FIND:

ENTERPRISING WOMEN

 an interactive table containing short biographies of over 100 women renowned for their achievements in Britain in the 19th-21st centuries. Up to four visitors can use the table at any one time.  Drag a photograph towards the edge of the table to discover details of that individual’s life. Or search by name or vocation, using the alphabetical or subject lists.

ON THE WALLS OF THE GALLERY

PROJECTIONS

show a changing display of pictures of the hospital as it was and of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and some of the other women whose stories the Gallery tells.

Garrett LaburnumTHE GARRETT CORNER

is designed in the style associated with the work of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s sister, the architectural decorator Agnes Garrett, who was in charge of the original interior decoration of the hospital in 1890. The Gallery’s fireplace is the only surviving example of Agnes Garrett’s work. Next to this hangs a length of wallpaper, ‘Garrett Laburnum’, re-created from one of her designs.

In the Garrett Corner a display case and a low table contain a small collection of objects relevant to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the hospital and early women doctors.

While here do sit down and browse the library of books. These relate to the history of women – in society, in medicine, in the workplace, and in trade unions  – and to the Somers Town area.

Plaque commemorating a substantial donation to the hospital by Henry Tate, industrialist and philanthropist

Plaque commemorating a substantial donation to the hospital by Henry Tate, industrialist and philanthropist

ACROSS FROM THE GARRETT CORNER IS A DISPLAY OF CERAMIC PLAQUES

Decorative plaques that used to hang beside patients’ beds, each commemorating a donor’s generosity.

You can read in detail about the work of the Garrett family in the fields of medicine, education, interior design, landscape design, citizenship and material culture in Elizabeth Crawford, Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle, published by Francis Boutle Publishers, £25. The book can be bought direct from womanandhersphere.com or click here to buy from the publisher

DO VISIT:

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery at the UNISON Centre

130 Euston Road

London NW1 2AY

Telephone: 0800 0 857 857

Open Wednesday to Friday 9.00am to 6.00pm

and the third Saturday of every month 9.00am to 4.00pm 

Admission Free

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Kate Frye’s Diary: ‘Paddington Pandemonium’

Posted by womanandhersphere in Kate Frye's suffrage diary on August 23, 2012

In the following diary entry Kate describes the pandemonium that occurred at a December 1907 suffrage meeting organised by the North Kensington Local Committee of the Central Society for Women’s Suffrage – the non-militant London NUWSS society – chaired by Mrs Millicent Fawcett.  From Kate’s account the main culprits were medical students from nearby St Mary’s Hospital and from University College Hospital in Bloomsbury, such student having had, through the ages, a reputation for unruly behaviour. From Kate’s observation, the stories of stinkbombs and the release of mice, specifically intended to upset the genteel female audience at suffrage meetings, were all too true.

Lady Grove (1862 -1926) was a leading Liberal suffragist and author of The Human Woman, 1908. The Paddington Baths, in Queen’s Road, Bayswater, were soon to be demolished to make way for an enlarged Whiteley’s department store.

Thursday 5th December 1907 [25 Arundel Gardens, North Kensington]

‘At 2 o’clock Agnes and I started off to Linden Gardens and called for Alexandra Wright and several of her helpers and we all walked to the Paddington Baths to help arrange the room for the meeting in the evening. There was a good bit to do – numbering the chairs – partitioning them off and hanging up banners and posters etc. Left [home again] just before 7 o’clock in a bus to Royal Oak and went to the Paddington Baths for the London (Central) Society’s meeting for Women’s Suffrage. Gladys and Alexandra have been weeks getting it up and I did no end of clerical work for it at Bourne End. We were the first Stewards to arrive after Gladys and Alexandra and were decorated with rosettes and given our directions. Lots of the women were very nervous of a row. My department was the gallery, to look after people up there and give invitations for a private meeting next week.

The people came in thick and fast and the doors were opened at 7.30 and with the first group of young men below in the free seats I knew what would happen. The place was soon hot, bubbling over with excitement, and I had my work cut out keeping gangways clear and looking after people and telling them they would be safe. We had expected an exciting evening but this realised our worst expectations. It was Bedlam let loose. A couple of hundred students from St Mary’s and University College Hospitals arrived and insisted on sitting together and never ceased all the evening singing, shouting, blowing tin trumpets, letting off crackers, letting loose mice and, what is worse, scenting the floor with a most terrible-smelling chemical.

Report from the ‘Daily Mail’ 6 December 1907, clipped by Kate and laid in her diary

From the very start they never gave a single speaker a moments hearing. Mrs Fawcett was in the Chair and Lady Groveand others spoke and they went on with the meeting to the bitter end – and bitter it must have been to the speakers. I never heard a word. I felt too angry to be frightened though I must own I did not like the fireworks and saw the most appalling possibilities in that frantic howling mob of mad animals. Agnes owns to being terrified – all the more credit to her for sticking to her place amongst them and she was with them all the evening. I felt mad at not being there in the midst of them. When I could leave I just went down and spoke to John, who I saw standing near Agnes. She had decorated him as a Steward to help in case the worst happened.

I went back to my post until I was no longer any good there and then I went into the very midst of the seething mass and talked to any of them I could get at. Just to silence them, as I did for a few minutes at a time, was a triumph. Cries of ‘Oh I think I like Suffragettes’ as I went amongst them and, then, ‘He is flirting with a Suffragette’ taken up and sung by them all. I spoke like a Mother to several and smiled at them. If they had only known my true feelings I don’t think they would have been so polite to me. Great credit to all the women in the building is due – not only the Stewards – but the audience there.  There was never any excitement or panic amongst them and only one Stewardess failed us. She, poor thing, was so terrified she bolted without waiting for hat or coat – but of course we keep that dark. The men Stewards were very good but quite powerless to stop the noise and hubbub. And what could four policemen do? It was an organised ‘Rag’ and nothing but a force of police to outnumber them could have stopped them. They longed for a fight and said so – and no end of them had most terrible looking clubbed sticks which they brandished. We did the only possible thing, I consider. Kept as much order as we could and tried to avoid bloodshed. We had a little unfortunately when, after the meeting was over, they charged for the Platform, sweeping everyone before them. Very fortunately there were large exit doors each side of the platform and most of the people got out of them. I was flung aside and then followed them up. They tore down as many banners as they could and stole one and tore down all the posters. They were like wild cats. The policemen chased them round a little but we would not allow any arrests to be made. The firework ringleader was caught but allowed to go. I spoke to Mrs Wright – red with rage. Poor things, we were all either red or white. Mr Willis, Mrs and Miss Doake and several others. Mr Percy Harris was Stewarding. One man Steward got a most awful crack on the ear and was considerably blooded – he looked awful. Several of the boys had their collars torn off and became very proud in consequence. It was a great wonder and a still greater mercy that more damage was not done. I felt so responsible for the ordinary public who had paid their money. I could only hope to get over the evening safely for their sakes. Personally I wished and still wish to smash the Boys, though at times I could not help laughing. They were not nice boys – all plain and common looking – mostly undersized and no gentlemanly looking one amongst them. I was glad to notice that as I hope they are not the best we can show in our hospitals.

After the general public had gone the police sent word that it was impossible to clear the hall while there was a woman left in it so we left with Mrs and Miss Doake and all came back in the bus with Mrs Willis. Miss Doake said she had never enjoyed a night so much in her life before. I cannot say the same. It was a terrible experience. We could not lose that terrible smell from our noses and mouths. I could taste it through everything at supper. John came home with us and did not leave till after 12o’clock. Agnes and I were too excited to go to bed and sat talking of our experiences. Lots of people will be made all the keener through it, but a great many will be very disgusted I fear.’

As you can see from this note, carefully preserved by Kate, Mrs Fawcett’s meeting was re-arranged for early 1908 – to be held in the safety of Bertha Mason’s house in nearby Hyde Park Square.

Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary edited by Elizabeth Crawford

For a full description of the book click here

Wrap-around paper covers, 226 pp, over 70 illustrations, all drawn from Kate Frye’s personal archive.

ISBN 978 1903427 75 0

NOW OUT OF PRINT, ALAS

KATE’S DIARIES AND ASSOCIATED PAPERS ARE NOW HELD BY ROYAL HOLLOWAY COLLEGE ARCHIVE

'Campaigning for the Vote' - Front and back cover of wrappers
‘Campaigning for the Vote’ – Front and back cover of wrappers

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Book of the Week: Cairnes: Political Essays – Millicent Fawcett’s copy

Posted by womanandhersphere in Book of the Week on August 21, 2012

Cairnes, Political Essays, Macmillan, 1873.

Presentation copy to Millicent Fawcett

 The Irish economist John Cairnes had long been a friend of Henry Fawcett, both part of the Blackheath circle centring on John Stuart Mill. When Millicent Fawcett (aged 23) published her ‘Political Economy for Beginners’ in 1870 Cairnes took it seriously, reviewed it and wrote to her ‘I have just finished my study of your useful little book and send you by this post my notes upon it. You will find I have some serious controversies with you.’ Three years later, when he published ‘Political Essays’ , he sent Millicent a copy – inscribing it ‘MG Fawcett from the author’.

Millicent Fawcett’s bookplate

A ‘From the Author’ slip has survived the handling of the last 140 years – and Millicent Fawcett has added her delightful bookplate to the front pastedown. However, an inquisitive inspection reveals that not all the pages are cut.

Latterly the book was in the library of O.R. McGregor (Professor Lord McGregor of Durris) author of ‘Divorce in England’ which had, for its time, 1957, an excellent bibliography – revealing the author’s wide interest in ‘women’s history’. On the spine the cloth binding is chipped – missing in parts – would benefit from rebacking. Otherwise a good copy – and a very interesting association copy £150. 

To buy contact e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk

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2 Gower Street – Royal Holloway College – and a Sense of Place

Posted by womanandhersphere in The Garretts and their Circle on July 23, 2012

Number 2 Gower Street – just past the north-east corner of Bedford Square in Bloomsbury – was home to Agnes Garrett from 1874. She lived there first with her cousin and partner, Rhoda, and then with her widowed sister, Millicent Fawcett, and Millicent’s daughter, Philippa. Rhoda died in the house in 1882, as did Millicent in 1929 and Agnes in 1935. Philippa continued to live there alone for several more years. The Garretts, thus, had an association with this one house for well over 60 years. The fact that it was the home of Dame Millicent Fawcett, ‘pioneer of women’s suffrage’, is marked by the blue plaque on the front of the house.

2 Gower Street is now the central London campus of Royal Holloway College which was most generous in allowing me access when I was researching the work of Rhoda and Agnes Garrett. In addition, in January 2012 I had the pleasure of spending an evening there, giving a talk on the Garretts’ interior design business to members of the Camden History Society. Afterwards we all had a chance to wander around, spotting the elements of design that might be attributed to the Garretts. One of the best rooms is the first-floor back, the ceiling of which was painted by Rhoda and Agnes. Seen by lamplight on a dark wintery night it did look most attractive.

Although an effort has been made to make the interior of the house look a little less institutional than in the recent past, it did strike me how strange it was that there was not one visual reference to the long Garrett occupation. For instance, a series of etchings (I think) of what appeared to be northern European market towns, while being attractive, do nothing to give meaning to the rooms in which they are hung.

Coincidentally, a few days after that talk, I saw an advertisement for Royal Holloway’s MA in Creative Writing, one of the ‘pathways’ of which is ‘Environmental Writing’ (‘Place, Environment, Writing’). Looking at the website I saw that the accompanying photograph shows Prof Andrew Motion, the biographer of Keats, whose portrait the Garretts included in the ceiling next door, conducting a seminar in the Garretts’ drawing room. How ironic, I thought, that they should be discussing a sense of place in a place from which all sense of a past has been excluded.

I emailed Andrew Motion to make this point and received an immediate and very supportive reply – suggesting I write to his head of department. Well, I did so, but met with silence. I suppose universities have more pressing matters to attend to.

But how easy and inexpensive it would be to add a few pictures to that seminar room and show an awareness of its past history.

For instance, an enlargment of this – showing the same room in 1875 – as depicted in Rhoda and Agnes’s book, House Decoration.

And here is a photograph, held in the National Portrait Gallery, of Agnes attending to the grandfather clock in the corner just to the left of the fireplace. The portrait in the background is that of Philippa Fawcett by Harold Rathbone. And here is Millicent Fawcett conducting the women’s suffrage campaign from her desk in the corner on the fireplace’s right.

That is just a beginning – I could suggest many more illustrations – all inexpensive to access – of designs, people and occasions that would bring a sense of place back to the house that was the centre of so much activity during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th.  How pleased I would be if Royal Holloway were to take my suggestion seriously.

 

For much more about Millicent Fawcett and Agnes Garrett see Elizabeth Crawford, Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle

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