Women’s Suffrage Activism in Cheltenham 1 WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE ACTIVISM IN CHELTENHAM Derek Benson “The women’s cause will be triumphant in the end because it is founded on justice” 1 he struggle by women to obtain the By 1848 Chartism had ceased to be the mass- T parliamentary vote began many years before movement that it previously was and had not the well known ‘suffragette’ activities led by achieved its aims for men, leaving little hope for Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. Prior to women in general and negligible hope for working the passing into law of the Representation of the class women. Subsequent efforts to obtain female People Act 1832 (known as the Great Reform Act) suffrage were predominately made by middle class fairly affluent widows and unmarried women women (with several important exceptions) in could in theory vote as the franchise was based on terms of both the leaders and constituents. What property ownership, but in practice women did not follows is not a comprehensive account of all vote. A married woman was excluded in that she meetings and activists in Cheltenham, but was deemed in law to own nothing; it was all her hopefully covers some key people and events. husband’s. However, all possibility of women In 1869 the Municipal Franchise Act became voting was stopped by the 1832 Act precisely law and enabled single and widowed female specifying that ‘male persons’ who satisfied ratepayers to vote in local municipal council property criteria were enfranchised. elections. This may have helped to spark a As well as excluding women, the 1832 Act resumption of organised agitation for the effectively denied working men the franchise. This parliamentary franchise. From the city of led to the rise of the Chartist movement demanding Gloucester, the first of a number of petitions was votes for all adults regardless of gender. This presented to Parliament on 4 May 1869; a petition stance was changed to votes for all men aged over from Cheltenham followed eight days later.4 twenty-one when the proposal of equal voting In 1871 the Cheltenham branch of the National rights for women was dismissed as unachievable Society for Women’s Suffrage was founded; and a potential hindrance to attaining complete members of a Cheltenham committee of the male suffrage. society in those days included Mary Jane Briggs, Nevertheless, female suffrage groups were Lucy March Phillips, Theodora Mills, Mrs. formed, often to support their men but also to agi- Griffiths, Mrs. Robberds, Miss Platt, Mrs. tate for their own rights. One such organisation Elizabeth Colby and Miss Cordelia Colby.5 was the Tewkesbury Female Radical Association Meetings in support of women’s suffrage took whose secretary was Miss Eliza Hale. In a letter to place in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury. the Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, she They often involved Mrs. Harriet McIlquham. She stated their determination “to obtain for them and was a significant and nationally prominent their husbands, brothers and sweethearts – Univer- suffragist associated with Tewkesbury and sal Suffrage”. Chartist women held independent Cheltenham, active in a number of suffrage meetings; Eliza Hale chaired one in Cheltenham in organisations over the years.6 July 1839 of 500 women addressed by Henry Vincent, a significant Chartist organiser.2 They Miss Rhoda Garrett, an important early figure also took part in actions such as a female ‘sit-in’ at in the suffrage movement and a pioneering interior St. Mary’s Church, Cheltenham in August 1839.3 designer, gave a talk on 3 April 1872 at the ____________________________ 1 Frances Swiney in a letter to the Cheltenham Chronicle published 4 Jan 1913. 2 Cheltenham Examiner, 20 Jul 1839. 3 Derek Benson, ‘Chartism in Tewkesbury and District’, THS Bulletin 19, 2010. For extended accounts of local Chartist activities also see, Benson, ‘William Morris Moore (1813-1841), THS Bulletin 20, 2011 and ‘William Penn Gaskell’ (1808-1882), Cheltenham Local History Society Journal 28, 2012. 4-5 Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland A Regional Survey [Survey]. 6 Harriet Medley (1837-1910) London born suffragist and local government politician, married James McIlquham and lived at Staverton House, Boddington. See Jennifer Slack, ‘Harriet McIlquham: A True Pioneer?’, THS Bulletin 15, 2006, for a full account of her local government career in Tewkesbury and district. Women’s Suffrage Activism in Cheltenham 2 1. Harriet be included in the franchise. Suffragists were also McIlquham disheartened by the emergence of organised anti- (1837-1910) suffragist movements. Cheltenham Significant activities in the district had greatly Chronicle & reduced by the late 1880s, although Mrs. Gloucestershire McIlquham was still active as a member of both Graphic [CCGG] the Women’s Franchise League, founded in 1889 29 Jan 1910 by Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and her husband [all CCGG images Richard, and the radical Women’s Emancipation courtesy of Glos. Archives] Union [WEU], founded by Elizabeth Wolstenholme in 1891. Cheltenham’s Elizabeth and Cordelia Colby were members of the council of the League and Mrs. Frances Swiney of Cheltenham Corn Exchange on The Electoral Cheltenham had her Plea For Disenfranchised Disabilities of Women. The meeting was chaired Women published by the WEU.8 by Henry Samuelson, Cheltenham’s Liberal MP and in attendance were the local Congregational Frances Swiney played a leading role in the minister, Dr. Andrew Brown and the Unitarian resurgence of the women’s suffrage movement in ministers, Revs. John Robbards and David Cheltenham. In 1896 she became president of the Griffith. Also on the platform were Miss Lilias reformed Cheltenham Women’s Suffrage Society Ashworth, a leading early suffragist organiser, and [CWSS] which joined the National Union of Miss Agnes Garrett (cousin of Rhoda). Rhoda Women’s Suffrage Societies [NUWSS] in 1898. Garrett gave a summary of the disadvantages (Rosa) Frances Emily Swiney née Biggs (1847- endured by women and stated: “We only ask that 1922) was born in India but spent her childhood in women who fulfil the same conditions as men – Ireland. She married Major John Swiney and who are householders, who pay taxes, and are settled in Cheltenham in 1877. In addition to her rated to the relief of the poor, shall be admitted to political activities, she was a talented painter, a the franchise. More than this we do not ask – at writer, and was involved in other organisations present.” 7 such as the Primrose League, Malthusian League, the Secular Education League, the Eugenic During the 1880s and into the 1890s there was Education Society, the Food Reform and Heath a relative decline in the women’s suffrage move- Association, and others. She was a theosophist, ment. A number of developments and issues teetotal and a vegetarian, chairing some NUWSS combined to take the momentum out of the general meetings at Mrs. Gard’s Holborn House Hotel in issue of reform and left women isolated. Reforms Winchcombe Street, described as “the only in local government gave the vote to female vegetarian hotel in England”.9 ratepayers and allowed them the right to stand for election to school boards, poor law boards and From 1903 until 1918, (Mary) Theodora Flower later, rural district and urban district councils – Mills (1874-1958) of Leckhampton was secretary rights that Harriet McIlquham took full advantage of the CWSS. She was also active in the British of. Gladstone’s 1884 Reform Act gave the Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. Theodora parliamentary franchise to many more working was a successful writer (often of books for men, but again expressly excluded women. Other children) and a talented songwriter, composing issues competing with the suffrage campaign for several songs used nationally and internationally the attention of women included the Contagious by the women’s suffrage organisations.10 Diseases Acts, married women’s property rights The turn of the century saw a radical change of and women’s higher education. Splits in existing tactics in the movement. In 1903 Emmeline Pank- organisations occurred over such issues as Irish hurst founded the Women’s Social and Political home rule, moves to affiliate with political parties Union [WSPU]. This was a non-party, all-women and conflict over whether married women should ____________________________ 7 Crawford, Survey; Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 [Guide]. 8 Crawford, Survey. 9 David Doughan, ‘Swiney , (Rosa) Frances Emily(1847–1922)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/41247, accessed 13 April 2014]; Who’s Who in Cheltenham, 1911; Cheltenham Looker-On, 12 Dec 1908. 10 Gloucestershire Echo, 15 Nov 1939, letter from Miss Mills; Crawford, Guide. Women’s Suffrage Activism in Cheltenham 3 impatient lot?’ Since she was first interested in the question by a lecture given by George Jacob Holyoake, she had gone quietly on in the movement led by John Stuart Mill and others, but now she was heart and soul with the ‘insurgents’. It is unclear whether Harriet McIlquham was ever an official member of the WSPU although she certainly donated money and carried out work for them. Frances Swiney similarly contributed to the WSPU and defended militant action. There appears to have been a good deal of support and collaboration between the various suffrage groups 2. Suffragist garden party and meeting at Mrs. Swiney’s in Cheltenham. Sandford Lawn home, 16 July 1910. Theodora Mills (1874 -1958), Frances Swiney (1847-1922), Rev. John Smith, A mildly militant activity in Cheltenham was local Unitarian minister. CCGG 23 Jul 1910 punished in 1908. Mrs. Emma Sporson was summonsed for chalking the pavement with ‘Votes militant organisation, whose slogan was ‘deeds, for Women’ slogans and announcements of not words’.