Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} From Suffragette to Fascist The Many Lives of Mary Sophia Allen by Nina Boyd Mary Sophia Allen: Suffragette to fascist. Mary Sophia Allen, one of the first British policewomen, was an extraordinary and outrageous woman. Born in 1878, she grew up in Bristol where she rebelled against the strictures of middle class life and, at the age of thirty, left home to become a suffragette. Mary was jailed three times for smashing windows, went on hunger-strike, and was forcibly fed in Holloway Gaol. The outbreak of the First World War, and the suspension for the duration of the war of suffragist hostilities, left her casting around for a suitable occupation for an independent-minded woman with a penchant for leadership. She was particularly keen to wear a uniform, and was attracted to the new Women Police Service. She soon became its leader, and contributed a great deal to women’s policing in Germany, Ireland, and at home, and supplied hundreds of trained women to police munitions factories. Her work was rewarded with an OBE. However, the authorities found that Mary wanted more power and influence than they were prepared to give. For many years she fought for her position against the Metropolitan Police, a fight she lost, although she continued to travel the world in her uniform, and was generally accepted abroad as the chief British policewoman, much to the dismay of the police and government authorities at home. Mary had a lifelong obsession with uniforms and masculine authority. She was strongly drawn to dictatorial men, and was proud to have met Hitler and Mussolini. She became a devoted follower of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. Mary narrowly escaped internment during the second World War, for her anti-Semitic activities and for the possibility that she was spying for Germany, although this was never proved. Her movements were severely restricted, and her activities were observed. Women adored Mary, and a number of them were eager to fund her increasingly grandiose schemes, including the formation of a Women’s Reserve, which was intended to fight Communism and other perceived threats to the British way of life. Mary Sophia Allen, suffragette, policewoman and fascist, died in a Croydon nursing home at the age of 86. ★ Suffragette - poliittiset elokuvat .. Suffragette on vuonna 2015 ensi-iltansa saanut adam salky oli ohjannut draama elokuva. Se on noin naisen äänioikeus edellyttää naisten aktivisteja, suffragetiksi alkaen 1900-luvun alussa. Elokuvan pääosassa on Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff ja Meryl Streep. 1. Tuotanto. (Production) Kuvaukset. (Descriptions) Elokuvan kuvaukset alkoivat 24. Helmikuussa 2014. Maya oli koko ajan ensimmäinen elokuva, joka on saanut luvan ampua palace of Westminster vuonna. Elokuvan kohtauksia kuvattiin myös helmikuussa, viikon Chatham historiallinen telakka-Alalla, joka esittää elokuvan Bethnal Greenin kaupunginosassa tehdas. 2. Vastaanotto. (Reception) Arvosteluja on kerätty Rotten Tomatoes -sivustolla, että 73% kriitikot ovat antaneet elokuva positiivisen arvosanan keskiarvon 6 / 10. Kokoelma on perustuen 178 arvioinnista. Metacritic elokuva on 67 pistettä 100: sta. Mary Sophia Allen. Mary Sophia Allen (12 March 1878 – 16 December 1964) was a British woman who worked for women's rights. She is chiefly noted as one of the early leaders of the Women's Police Volunteers as well as for her involvement in far right political activity. Contents. Early years. Allen was born to a well-to-do family in Cardiff in 1878, one of the ten children of Thomas Isaac Allen, Chief Superintendent of the Great Western Railway. Mary was close to her sisters, all of whom had a tendency to religious mysticism. She was educated at home and later at Princess Helena College. [1] She left home at the age of thirty in 1908 after a disagreement with her father about women's suffrage, and joined Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union, becoming an organiser in the South West, and later in Edinburgh. She was imprisoned three times in 1909 for smashing windows, twice went on hunger-strike, and was force-fed on the last occasion, for which she was awarded a hunger-strike medal by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. First World War. At the outbreak of the First World War, militant suffragist activities ceased. Allen turned down an offer of work with a Needlework Guild and looked around for a more active occupation. She heard that a number of women were trying to set up a women's police force and, in 1914, she joined Nina Boyle's Women Police Volunteers, which was taken over by Margaret Damer Dawson in 1915 and renamed the Women Police Service (WPS), with Allen as second-in-command. They designed their own uniform and opened training schools in London and Bristol. They saw their role as mainly dealing with women and children and rescuing women from vice and 'white slavery'. Allen served at Grantham and Kingston upon Hull, overseeing the morals of women in the vicinity of army barracks. She went on to police munitions factories which employed large numbers of women. She also worked in London, where 'khaki fever' was perceived as a problem. [2] Child welfare work led the WPS to set up a Benevolent Department and a home for mothers and babies. Allen was awarded the OBE for services during the War. Allen and Margaret Damer Dawson cropped their hair and assumed a severe military appearance, and Allen wore her police uniform in public for the rest of her life. In 1915 Dawson made a will which left everything to Allen; when Dawson died unexpectedly in 1920, Allen assumed the role of WPS Commandant. [3] After the War, the WPS was expected to disband: the authorities saw no further need of that organisation. The Metropolitan Police set up its own women’s division and accused the WPS of masquerading as Metropolitan policewomen. Allen was even arrested in 1921 for wearing a Metropolitan Police uniform before it was decided that her activities, which included producing dossiers on left- wing activists, were harmless and she should be allowed to continue wearing it. [4] The WPS changed their name to the Women's Auxiliary Service (WAS) and, with minor modifications to their uniform, carried on as before, setting up a further training school in Edinburgh. The Government appointed the Baird Committee to investigate the activities of the WAS. Despite no longer being recognised by the authorities, Allen was invited by the Government to travel to Germany and advise on the policing of the British Army of the Rhine. This semi-acceptance encouraged her to represent herself overseas as chief of the British women police. She travelled in uniform and was welcomed by police authorities in Europe and in South and North America. Politics. In November 1922 Allen stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as an Independent Liberal candidate for Westminster St George's. During the General Strike of 1926 Allen was involved with the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies and turned her Women's Auxiliary Service over to the strike-breaking movement. [4] Allen learned to fly. She attended international police congresses in Austria and Germany. She also visited the Netherlands, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Turkey and Brazil, advising on the training of police women. She travelled to Egypt in 1936 on holiday (wearing her uniform), but was received as if sent by the police authorities in Britain. Her interest in vice and white slavery continued to be a preoccupation, and she attended the League of Nations conference in Geneva on the traffic in women. Wherever she went, she was perceived by many as the leading British policewoman. She did nothing to discourage the impression, and made contact with police chiefs and political leaders all over Europe. The Home Office began to take an interest in Allen's activities in 1927. She was becoming an embarrassment and a nuisance to the Government, partly because of her acceptance abroad as representing the British authorities, and partly because she was mistaken for a Metropolitan police officer at home. Home Office records covering the period 1927–1934 reveal that she kept dossiers on people she suspected of activities connected with vice and white slavery. She was also suspected of fascist activities, and articles by or about her in national newspapers increased the Home Office surveillance. Allen met a number of fascist leaders abroad, including Eoin O'Duffy in Ireland, Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy, and Hitler and Göring in Germany. Although her links to Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists were unofficial until 1939, she engaged in various militant activities, including the formation of the Women's Reserve in 1933, which was intended to serve the country in the event of subversive forces taking over. The publicity for the Women's Reserve reveals her fascist sympathies, and her fear of communism. She met Hitler in 1934 and discussed women police with him. She was captivated by Hitler and expressed her admiration for him in public. Once she had joined the British Union of Fascists, she wrote numerous articles for its newspapers and openly declared herself to be a fascist. A Suspension Order under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 was made against her when suspicions arose about her contacts with Germany. Her home was searched, and internment was considered, but not implemented. She was suspected of making flights to Germany, and acting as a spy for the Nazis, but this was never proved. Following the outbreak of the Second World War Allen joined the Women's Voluntary Service but also became a regular speaker at BUF peace rallies. Outrage followed with Daily Herald , Daily Mirror and News Chronicle stories calling for Allen's removal from the WVS, particularly after comments in which she refused to condemn Adolf Hitler were published.