Devon Women in Public and Professional Life, 1900–1950 , livre ebook

Devon Women in Public and Professional Life 1900–1950
Devon Women in Public and Professional Life 1900–1950
Votes, Voices and Vocations
Julia Neville, Mitzi Auchterlonie, Paul Auchterlonie and Ann Roberts, with Helen Turnbull
First published in 2021 by University of Exeter Press Reed Hall, Streatham Drive Exeter EX4 4QR, UK
www.exeterpress.co.uk
© Julia Neville, Mitzi Auchterlonie, Paul Auchterlonie and Ann Roberts 2021
The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.
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Neville, J., Auchterlonie, M., Auchterlonie, P. and Roberts, A. 2021. Devon Women in Public and Professional Life, 1900–1950: Votes, Voices and Vocations . Exeter, University of Exeter Press. https://doi.org/10.47788/KSEU6586
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ISBN: 978-1-905816-76-7 (Hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-905816-77-4 (Pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-905816-78-1 (ePub)
ISBN: 978-1-905816-79-8 (PDF)
Cover image: Officers and members of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship after Royal Assent to the Equal Franchise Act, 2 July 1928. © LSE Library The group includes Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Ray Strachey, Philippa Fawcett, Agnes Garrett, Chrystal Macmillan, Miss Macadam, Catherine Marshal, Miss Courtney, Miss Ward.
Contents
List of Figures
List of Acronyms
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Paul Auchterlonie
1. Eleanor Margaret Acland (1878–1933)
Mitzi and Paul Auchterlonie
2. Clara Henrietta Daymond (1873–1957)
Julia Neville
3. Mabel Lieda (Lida) Ramsay (1878–1954)
Ann Roberts
4. Jessie Headridge (1871–1946)
Julia Neville
5. Florence Gascoyne-Cecil (1863–1944)
Julia Neville and Helen Turnbull
6. Georgiana Buller (1884–1953)
Julia Neville
7. Jane Grey Clinton (1863–1953)
Julia Neville and Helen Turnbull
8. Mary Sylvia Calmady-Hamlyn (1881–1962)
Julia Neville
Conclusion: Devon Women’s Votes, Voices and Vocations
Appendix: Voluntary Organizations in Devon Supported by the Subjects of these Biographies
Bibliography
Index
Figures
1 Eleanor Acland, photograph undated, but taken between 1926 and 1933, © National Trust.
2 Clara Daymond, cartoon drawn by Bardsley, part of a series of Plymouth personalities in the 1930s, © The Box, Plymouth.
3 Mabel Ramsay, portrait cropped from a photograph taken at graduation from University of Edinburgh in 1906, © University of Edinburgh Archives.
4.1 Jessie Headridge, photograph printed in Bishop Blackall School Commemorative Magazine, 1983. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holder for this image and to obtain permission to reproduce it. The publisher would be grateful for any information relating to this image or the rights holder.
4.2 Michael Sadler, Report on Secondary and Higher Education in Devon , Appendix A, 1905.
5 Florence Cecil, photographed by Lafayette in 1926, © National Portrait Gallery, London.
6 Georgiana Buller, photographed by Walter Stoneman in 1930, © National Portrait Gallery, London.
7 Jane Grey Clinton, photograph published in The Sphere , 19 June 1920, © Mary Evans Picture Library.
8 Sylvia Calmady-Hamlyn, photographed with Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Agricultural Show in Newton Abbot, 1952, © Getty Images.
Acronyms Used in the Book
ARMW Association of Registered Medical Women
BMA British Medical Association
BMJ British Medical Journal
BWSS Bermuda Woman Suffrage Society
CC Common Cause [later The Woman’s Leader ]
DACA Devonian Association for Cripples Aid
DCW Devon Council of Women on Public Authorities
DHC Devon Heritage Centre [formerly Devon Record Office]
DEG Devon and Exeter [ Daily ] Gazette
DPH Diploma in Public Health
DNA Devon Nursing Association
E&E Express and Echo [Exeter]
ECA Equal Citizenship Association
EDACFG Exeter Diocesan Association for the Care of Friendless Girls
EUA Edinburgh University Archives
ExJ Exmouth Journal
FRCS Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons
GMC General Medical Council
HMSO His Majesty’s Stationery Office [now Her Majesty’s Stationery Office]
JP Justice of the Peace
LLA Ladies Licensed in the Arts
LWSU Liberal Women’s Suffrage Union
MRCOG Membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
MU Mothers’ Union
MWF Medical Women’s Federation
MWIA Medical Women’s International Association
NCW National Council of Women
NCWW National Council of Women Workers
NHS National Health Service
NSPCC National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
NUSEC National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship
NUWSS National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
PHC Public Health Committee
PMS Plymouth Medical Society
RAMC Royal Army Medical Corps
RCP Royal College of Physicians
RD&EH Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital
SPCK Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
UDC Urban District Council
VAD Voluntary Aid Detachment
WCA Women Citizens’ Associations
WCG Women’s Co-operative Guild
WDM Western Daily Mercury
WEH Western Evening Herald
WFL Women’s Freedom League
WI Women’s Institute
WL Wellcome Library
WLF Women’s Liberal Federation
WMN Western Morning News [later Western Morning News and Western Daily Mercury ; then Western Morning News and Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette ]
WNLF Women’s National Liberal Federation
WSPU Women’s Social and Political Union
WT Western Times
WWAC Women’s War Agricultural Committee
YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the three anonymous peer reviewers whose comments helped to reshape and improve the Introduction. We are also grateful to Karen Averby, Ruth Hawker, Sue Rugg and Valorie Mitchell, who assisted in the research on Georgiana Buller; to Tessa Trappes-Lomax for her detailed comments on the draft chapter on Sylvia Calmady-Hamlyn; to Brian Carpenter of the Devon Heritage Centre for providing archival material on Eleanor Acland; and to Hetty Marx of the University of Exeter Press for all her help in seeing this book through the press.
Introduction
PAUL AUCHTERLONIE *
Biography and Historical Enquiry
Biography has long been seen as part of history, and as a way to enliven it by rendering the past ‘more human, more vivid, more intimate, more accessible, more connected to ourselves’. 1 But its narrative form and its concern with individuals have often resulted in its relegation to the margins of historical study while political institutions or social and economic structures occupy the centre. Now, however, biography is coming to occupy more of this centre ground as it is seen to offer ways of throwing new light on a range of different historical periods and problems, and of bringing individuals and groups who had previously been ignored into the framework of historical analysis. 2
Both June Purvis and Barbara Caine have shown the significance of recent biographical works for exploring the lives of women, Purvis pointing out that ‘biographies of well-known feminists have proliferated in the UK over the last two decades, although they are mainly of white, middle-class women’, 3 while Caine has expanded on this, suggesting that there are ‘few biographies that explored the lives of the many women engaged in local politics, trade unions, education, philanthropy, or social activism or feminism, who had not attained the standing of a national leader’. 4
Using biography as a medium for exploring the history of Devon, 5 it was decided to compile a group of detailed portraits, through which one could investigate how women have contributed to the public, professional, and civic life of Devon during the first half of the twentieth century. The eight women selected represent four major areas of public and professional activity: national and local politics—Eleanor Acland (1878–1933) and Clara Daymond (1873–1957); medicine and teaching—Mabel Ramsay (1878–1954) and Jessie Headridge (1871–1946); the voluntary sector—Lady Florence Cecil (1863–1944) and Dame Georgiana Buller (1883–1953); and rural life—Jane, Lady Clinton (1863–1953) and Sylvia Calmady-Hamlyn (1881–1962). These women fit the categories defined by Purvis in being white, British and mainly middle class, and by Caine in operating mostly on a restricted, local stage. An earlier project on suffrage had demonstrated how Devon women’s struggle for the vote had been integrated into the national campaign but with its own local particularities; 6 the aim of this book is to show to what degree a large rural county, distant from both the metropolis and the industrial heartlands of Britain, reflected the women’s movement nationally in the interwar period and to what extent it developed its own patterns of activity.
The Importance of the Local
The suffragist Oliver Strachey (1874–1960) emphasized the importance of the local for the women’s movement as early as 1917:
At present the women’s organisations are for the most part national organisations, each with a specific object like our own. The value of these organisations to their members