Earlier this year I was researching a housing association, set up in west London in 1920 by suffragists and suffragettes, to provide housing for single women in paid work. In this year of the centenary of (some) women gaining the Parliamentary vote, I was intrigued to find a reference to the Hampstead Church League for Women’s Suffrage and I decided to see what I could find out about it.
The Hampstead branch was part of a nationwide organisation, the Church League for Women’s Suffrage (CLWS), founded by an inspirational Anglican minister, the Rev. Claude Hinscliffe and his wife, Gertrude. Its inaugural meeting was in Essex Hall on the Strand on 2nd December 1909. Claude was the first Secretary and the formidable Dr Agnes Maude Royden (who lived at 16 Rosslyn Hill until the early 1930s) its Chairman. Its headquarters were in Regent’s Park and by 1913 it had over 70 branches across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
Religious suffrage leagues formed between 1909 and 1912 were late arrivals to the suffrage campaign. They were non-militant and admitted men. The CLWS became the largest of several church-based groups with over 5000 members (including five bishops) by April 1914. Others included the Free Church League for Women’s Suffrage, the Catholic Women’s Suffrage League and the Free Church Federation for Women’s Suffrage. There was also a Jewish Suffrage League. The religious societies all had their individual colours and often marched together. For example, in August 1913 there was a co-ordinated protest of the religious societies for women’s suffrage as part of a mass protest against forcible feeding. This is perhaps what is recorded in a photograph showing four women representing three of the Christian suffrage societies and the Jewish suffrage group. An interfaith meeting took place at Hampstead Town Hall in October where the Bishop of Lincoln introduced the only non-Christian speaker as “part of the rock from whom we are all hewn”.
Church of England participation grew out of a prior campaign for women’s rights to vote in church councils. (In 1897 it was agreed that women could vote on parish church councils though not stand for office. This was allowed in 1914 and in 1918 women were allowed to participate in higher councils). The Objects, Methods and Membership were set out in its monthly publication The Church League for Women’s Suffrage newsletter
The objects are to band together, on a non- party basis, Suffragists of every shade of opinion who are Church people in order to
1. Secure for women the Parliamentary vote as it is or may be granted to men
2. Use the power thus obtained to establish equality of rights between the sexes
3. Promote the moral, social and industrial wellbeing of the community
The methods used are
a) Corporate Devotions, both public and private
b) Conferences, Meetings, and the distribution of Literature
Both men and women members of the Church of England were eligible to join if they accepted the rules and paid a minimum annual subscription of one shilling to the Central Branch.
The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), set up by the Pankhursts and others in 1903, saw the Church of England as reactionary, dominated by men and unable to change. It was Maude Royden herself who coined the phrase “the Conservative party at prayer” to describe the Anglican Church. Some churchmen at this time did argue that God Himself did not wish for women to have the Parliamentary vote. Marriage vows still required women to promise to obey their husbands. Churches became one of the major targets of the WSPU suffragettes including one in Hampstead Garden Suburb in March 1913, swiftly extinguished by the local fire brigade.
But the belief in the equality of human beings before God is a central tenet of much dissenting Protestantism and was often allied to a belief in the equality of women and the support of women’s suffrage. Records left by some women show that they thought of the struggle towards enfranchisement in spiritual as well as political terms. Suffrage news sheets published articles on the religious basis of the women’s movement. For example, in Votes for Women of 9th December 1913, the author (unnamed) spoke of the need for “the woman’s point of view not displacing but complementing the man’s” and concluded “it is the Christian duty of women to try and get the vote”. The thinking was that the enfranchisement of women would enable them to spearhead social reform of all kinds. There was a need for women’s voices to be heard after 50 years failure of the Poor Law for example. There was often stress on the separate spheres of the sexes, men embodying ‘the will to live’ and women ‘the will to love’ as expressed by the Rev JM Wilson DD, Canon of Worcester in an article on ‘The Religious Aspects of the Women’s Movement’ published in the CLWS newsletter of 2 May 1913.
How did the Hampstead branch campaign? The League worked closely with other suffrage societies (although there were serious disagreements over the anti-tax campaign and militant actions by the WSPU) and Hampstead members collected signatures for petitions and joined other League members at national marches and demonstrations. A beautiful banner* titled ‘THE GLORIOUS LIBERTY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD’, in the CLWS colours of gold and white with embroidery in purple and green, was designed by the illustrator Laurence Housman (1865 – 1959) in 1909 and made in the Suffrage Atelier (with his sister Clemence possibly doing some of the work). The Vote newspaper of 19th November 1910 records banners from the CLWS and the Free Church Federation for Women’s Suffrage being used in a procession from Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames embankment. Colours from Hampstead were hoisted at a march to Westminster Abbey in April 1912 and there was an Open-Air Meeting at Jack Straw’s Castle on 2nd June 1912.
The League’s monthly newsletter records social and fundraising activities across the United Kingdom including ‘Drawing Room Meetings’, jumble sales, sales of cakes, marmalade and household necessities and whist drives. On 1st June 1914 there was a ‘Pastoral Entertainment’ at Wren Cottage, Hampstead by kind permission of Lady Byron. But bible study, discussion on the role of women in the Bible and in the early church, prayers, intercessions and communion on the first Sunday of the month were also an important focus, held at many churches in the parish including St Stephen’s on Haverstock Hill in March 1915. Before the outbreak of war in 1914, articles and lectures covered many social questions such as education, religious tolerance, prostitution, venereal disease, men having ‘native’ wives and children when serving in the Empire. Local organisers were proud to have secured the Rev. Percy Dearmer DD to speak at a special meeting for men on 4th November 1912 at 3.30pm. The newsletter asked that “every member of the Branch must try to send men” to the meeting held at St Andrew’s Mission Hall, Modbury Street, Malden Road, Chalk Farm.
Although these topics were still discussed, preoccupations changed after 1914. Members of the CLWS provided homes for Belgian refugees and supported the Serbian Relief Fund. Nuts and toys were sent to London children for Christmas 1914. Shirts were made for soldiers. Working with other suffragists, Hampstead branch raised over £29 for the National Food Fund in 1915, £21 of which was spent that year. Lists of CLWS members on active service, both men and women, were published. One was Mrs Margaret Wynne Nevinson , Masseuse, Almers-Paget Massage Corps, Hampstead Military Hospital. She was formerly a teacher at South Hampstead School for Girls.
The CLWS newsletter of 1st July 1917 records the loss of Miss Edith Jansson who had served as Hon Secretary of Hampstead CLWS from 1911 – 1912. It records “grateful memories of her zealous work in the early and difficult days of the League: she was always ready to sell the paper or to give out notices when it needed some courage to stand in the street with a suffrage paper.” A Miss Jameison of 63 King Henry’s Road was Secretary in 1912. The Hon. Secretary and Treasurer from c 1913 to at least 1915 was Mrs Lucy Henderson of 2 Hogarth Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb. The Hampstead CLWS had 81 members including a committee of eight, one of whom was male, in March 1915. In November 1917, the newsletter included an In Memoriam notice for Agnes de Sélincourt, CLWS member, Cambridge graduate, missionary in India and Chairman of Hampstead Women’s Municipal Party.
The CLWS newsletter relied on advertising and readers were urged to support the advertisers. Arthur’s Stores of Westbourne Grove regularly promoted its cakes and pastries whilst Robinson Brothers asked ‘Why keep useless jewellery?’. Notices advertising hostels and lodgings in Hampstead (for example West Heath Hostel in Ferncroft Road) indicate the need for housing for single people and the gradual conversion of some overlarge houses constructed by speculative builders in the neighbourhood. Fundraising items, including fountain pens, were advertised and in January 1913, subscribers were urged to spend their money on Women’s Work by buying calendars, cards etc from the Sappho Press, 66 Parkhill Road, Hampstead, also sold at the International Suffrage Shop in Adelphi, WC.
There were several other suffrage organisations active in Hampstead, some of them militant. Ten of the 25 eminent women recorded on the Roll of Honour in Camden Local Studies’ 2018 exhibition on Suffrage at Holborn Library had a Hampstead connection. ‘Votes for Women’ was painted on the seats of Hampstead Heath following renewed militancy after the failure of Reform Bills in 1910 and 1911. On 9th January 1914 smoke was seen coming from the ‘Penfold’ pillar box at the junction of the High Street and Gayton Road. When opened it was discovered that tar and oil had been poured in and set alight, badly damaging the contents. A message referring to suffragette prisoners was found, alluding to the culprits. This was the work of WSPU members. Attacks were often carried out at night and the perpetrators were rarely caught.
In 1917 Maude Royden was invited to preach at the non-conformist City Temple and later she took up the post of Pulpit Assistant there. From 1915 the CLWS had been campaigning for complete equality on church bodies and ultimately the priesthood itself. Following the Representation of the People Act in February and the end of the War in November 1918, this became the focus of the CLWS which changed its name to the League of the Church Militant. In the mid 1920s the Marriage Act was substantially revised. Women could be found serving as choristers, churchwardens, servers and sidesmen. Despite opposition from an Anglo- Catholic pressure group, a few women had preached in churches and cathedrals. The League’s paper, now renamed Church Militant, was published until c 1927. Maude, then living in Golders Green, died in 1956. Long years of campaigning still lay ahead. Women were first ordained as priests in 1994 and the first woman bishop was appointed in 2015.
• To see an image of the banner, collected by the Fabian Society and now in the collection of the Museum of London go to museumoflondonprints.com
Hampstead Church League for Women’s Suffrage
Sue Kirby