Charlotte Despard
Suffragist, pacifist, philanthropist.
15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939
Education
Private education with governesses and short periods in private schools.She lamented the lack of formal education available to her because she was a girl.
Some Key Achievements and Interests (see further reading for more details of her life in 20th century particularly in Ireland)
1890s Funded a health clinic which she also staffed in a slum in Nine Elms, south London. Organised youth clubs and supported the unemployed.
1894 Elected a Poor Law Guardian in Lambeth. Supported the most vulnerable, campaigning for free school meals and medical inspections for children from poor families. Retired from the board 1903.
A vegetarian (1931 Became Vice President of the London Vegetarian Society)and anti-vivisectionist. Converted to Catholicism.
Active supporter of the Social Democratic Federation until 1898 and the Independent Labour Party.
1899 Became interested in Theosophy.
1906 Joined the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
Joined the more radical Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) becoming its honorary secretary.
I had sought and found comradeship of some sort with men. I had marched with great processions of the unemployed. I had stood on the platforms of Labour men and Socialists. I had tried to stir up the people to a sense of shame about the misery of their homes, and the degradation of their women and children. I had listened with sympathy to fiery denunciations of Governments and the Capitalist systems to which they belong. Amongst all these experiences, I had not found what I met on the threshold of this young, vigorous Union of Hearts.
Campaigned very actively, a commanding figure in distinctive dress (no corset, a black mantilla and sporting sandals).
Left the WSPU when it split, the union becoming more militant in its tactics.
1907 With Teresa Billington-Greig and Edith How Martyn and other dissenting members of the WSPU, established the Women’s Freedom League (WFL 1907-1961), becoming its President. The League ensured constitutional democracy of the organisation opposed violence to achieve its aims of securing the right to vote for women and equality of rights and opportunities between the sexes. Records of the Women’s Freedom League | The National Archives. Despard contributed to the WFL paper The Vote.
Displayed great courage in her activism especially when arrested and imprisoned.
Involved in the Women’s Tax Resistance League. Her household furniture was seized on different occasions.
1908 With other feminists formed the Irish Women’s Franchise League.
Joined the socialist pacifist movement at the outbreak of WW1. Spoke out against the use of conscription.
1917 Sat on the committee of the Women’s Peace Crusade to oppose war.
In later life concentrated her efforts into different concerns such as: Save the Children, the Indian Independence Movement, theosophy, the Labour Pary the London Vegetarian Society among many others.
1920s Moved to Ireland and became a member of Sinn Fein.
1930s Active in the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Issues
1855 Father died before she was a teenager and mother placed in a mental home until she died.
Held radically different positions on issues such as Irish self determination to her brother.
1890 Her husband died, this greatly upsetting her.
Was imprisoned and suffered different punitive consequences of her tactics though non-violent .
Connection to Bloomsbury
1894 issued a ticket to the British Museum Reading Room. She requested one to facilitate her research into “the very latest regulations made by the Local Government Board with regard to the management of Workhouses and poor-relief generally”; On receiving her ticket, she wrote: “At last I determined to study for myself the great problems of society”. (Hoberman, Ruth)
Female networks
Numerous including: Agnes Harben, Carolyn Hodgson, Clementina Black, Constance Black married ? Constance Markievicz, Edith How-Martyn, Eleanor Marx, Eva Gore-Booth, Isabella Ford, Kate Harvey, Mabel Collins, Margaret Bondfield, Maud Gonne McBride, Teresa Billington Greig.
Writing
Articles in The Vote: produced by the Women’s Freedom League
1908 with Collins, Mabel; Outlawed: A Novel on the Suffrage Question
1908 Economic Aspects of Women’s Suffrage
1909 Women in the nation; pamphlet
1910 Women in the new era; pamphlet
1913 Theosophy and the Women’s Movement
Further reading
Charlotte Despard, a rebel from age 46 to 95 | Workers’ Liberty (workersliberty.org)
Charlotte Despard in Ireland in the 1920s | Workers’ Liberty (workersliberty.org)
Despard, Charlotte | Dictionary of Irish Biography (dib.ie)
Hoberman, Ruth; Women in the British Museum Reading Room during the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries: From QuasI- to Counterpublic; Free Online Library (thefreelibrary.com)