Wimbledon Suffragists in the Great War

[Chris_B]

The London Borough of Merton is holding a "Heritage Discovery Day" tomorrow.  The event runs from 12.30pm to 4.30pm and will take place at Morden Library, which is at Merton Civic Centre, London Road, Morden.  A talk on "Women's Suffrage in Merton" is on the programme at round 1pm which will probably concentrate on suffragettes.

 

Rose Lamentine Yates is perhaps Wimbledon's best know suffragette, she became honorary secretary of the Wimbledon Women's Social and Political Union in 1910 and  lived at Dorset Hall, Kingston Road, Merton from 1906 to 1935.   The "Deeds not Words" of the militant WSPU grabbed the headlines at the time and ever since.

 

But there was another group of women who were equally fervent about the cause of female suffrage.  Women who choose to promote their cause via peaceful and constitutional means, the Suffragists.  Wimbledon's suffragists and their response to the Great War have for the most part been long forgotten.   This is the story of five such women before, during and after the war: Dr. Beatrice Anne McGregor, Gertrude Pares, Annie Louisa Begg, Cicely Marion Ellis and Edith Elizabeth Webster.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wJJW14hB8B4O3qAoLgvxBPrmqazM8GqF/view

 

I hope this may be of interest to GWF members in what is the centenary of "Votes For Women".

 

P.S.  I've not update my article since 2015.  But Edith Elizabeth Webster's sister Mary Alexanda Webster  served in the QAIMNS between 1916 and 1919.