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The Brackenbury Family and Jane Brailsford

2/23/2017

Georgina © Museum of London

The next three entries in the arrest record relate to a mother and her two daughters: Hilda, Maria and Georgina Brackenbury. The three were collectively active in the campaign for votes for women for many years.

Hilda was born in Quebec, Canada, the youngest of seven children of Archibald and Agnes Campbell. In 1854 she married Charles Booth Brackenbury of the Royal Horse Artillery. In August 1857 they had the first of nine children. During the early years of their marriage Charles served in the Crimean War and was then posted to Malta and back to England rising to the rank of Colonel. The family was beset by tragedy in 1870 their eldest daughter died and in 1884 and 1885 their two eldest sons. Only five years later Charles died suddenly from heart failure. A year later her second eldest surviving son, Lionel, serving in the army, died in India.

Hilda left London and along with Georgina, Maria and Hereward, her youngest son, she moved in with her sister and brother in law, Andrew and Margy Noble, who lived in a grand style in Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle upon Tyne. He eldest surviving son, Richard, had emigrated to America in 1885 and her other son, Cyril, was abroad working as a mining engineer. For a while the two sisters lived in San Francisco where they were pupils of William Keith.

In due course Hilda and her two daughters returned to London moving into 2 Campden Hill Square London. Georgina and Maria studied at the Slade Art School specialising respectively in portraits and landscapes. Initially the three were members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies but in 1907 they joined the Women’s Social and Political Union. In February 1908 Georgiana and Maria took part in a demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament. Charged with obstruction they were both imprisoned for six weeks. Hilda commented that “I feel that my daughters are doing a service to their country in exactly the same way as my sons would do on the field.” It was reported in the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser dated October 23rd 1908 that after their release on the Brackenbury sisters attended a party where the magistrate Mr Smith was present. He commented that “he was doing what he was told” when he sentenced them to six weeks in prison. Maria often used to advertise meetings by using her artistic talents chalking the details on paving stones or walls.

Georgina and Maria regularly addressed meetings across the country. Maria gave an interview to the Northampton Mercury, October 22nd 1909 in the introduction the interviewer describes her as “one of the very best exponents of her cause -a lady of culture and refinement, deeply in earnest..” Hilda took part in Black Friday when she was arrested but released without charge. In March 1912 the three were arrested for their part in the window smashing campaign. Hilda was nearly eighty years old when she was charged with smashing two windows at the United Service Institution in Whitehall. Each was sentenced to two weeks in prison having already served eight days on remand. The trial took quite some time as all three took the opportunity to address the court at length.

The family had a home Brackenside in Peaslake, Surrey which was often used to house women who had been released under the Cat and Mouse Act whilst they recovered. Hilda died in 1918, Maria in 1945 and Georgina in 1949. Two of Georgina’s portraits are owned by the National Portrait Gallery; one of the 17th Viscount Dillon and one of Emmeline Pankhurst.

Frank Brailsford was arrested in December 1912 for breaking a pane of glass in a window at No 10 Downing Street valued at half a crown. On his arrest he said “I shall not run away, I did it for a purpose.” At his trial he stated he had taken this course of action on purely political grounds due to Asquith’s attitude towards votes for women. He was sentenced to pay forty shillings plus the half crown to pay for the pane or in the alternative a month’s hard labour. The newspapers do not record which he picked but his presence on the suffragette roll of honour for those who went to prison indicates that was the option he took. No further information has been found.

Jane Esdon Brailsford nee Malloch was born in 1873 in Elderslie, Renfewshire. Her father, John, was a cotton manufacturer employing over two hundred people. Intelligent she studied Greek at Glasgow University falling in love with her married professor, Gilbert Murray. Her love appears to have been unrequited. A lecturer at Glasgow University, Henry Brailsford, heard Keir Hardie of the Independent Party speak. This led to the founding of a branch at the university of the Independent Labour Party which in turn span into the founding of the university Fabian Society. One of the first members was Jane.

Henry’s academic career was not successful and he began to explore a career in journalism. His political activities brought him into continual contact with Jane with whom he fell in love. Jane, who was considered by many of his friends to be neurotic, rejected his first proposal of marriage which was prompted by her departure for Oxford University. This seems only to have served to make Henry more smitten. He wrote to her constantly ignoring the abruptness of her replies. When Jane returned to Glasgow for the holidays, Henry was contemplating volunteering if Greece went to war against Turkey. Jane encouraged him. Henry set off in a fervour of patriotism, only to return seven weeks later exhausted, wounded and disillusioned.
His experiences led him to write his one and only book, The Broom of the War God. Not widely well received it opened the door to a commission from the Manchester Guardian to report on the situation in Crete. He proposed again to Jane and she accepted. Her acceptance after two years of pursuit and the far from happy marriage it became had led to speculation as to why she accepted. The romanticism of a mission to Crete, the death of her father and the consequent sale of her childhood home have all been proposed. Jane, certainly, did not appear to have much respect for Henry and indeed many believe the marriage was not consummated.

The couple were married in 1898 in Glasgow, Jane refusing to wear a wedding ring as it symbolised bondage. Whilst in Crete Jane wrote a novel which failed to find a publisher. She then explored an acting career. Henry wrote her a play, hired a hall but her performance was not met with critical acclaim and her acting career stalled before it had truly begun. In 1903 the couple travelled to Macedonia working as relief agents with Jane running a hospital until she contracted typhus. Unhappy in her marriage Jane was a woman who yearned for acclaim and needed a cause. This she found in the fight for votes for women. Initially she joined the National Union of Suffrage Societies but in 1906 she switched allegiance to the Women’s Social and Political Union. In line with his own political sentiments and ever supportive of Jane Henry often wrote about the campaign and was a founding member of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage.

Jane’s first arrest was in November 1909 in Newcastle where she had attacked a barricade with an axe. She was sentenced to thirty days. On her release, Jane was committed to the militant approach. Henry was not which brought more discord between them. Jane was arrested for a second time in November 1911 and was sentenced to a week. A journalistic campaign by friends secured her release within three days. The Pankhursts desire to totally control the Women’s Social and Political Union angered Jane and she resigned in October 1912.

Jane, without a cause, was lost. Her mental state pushed her already strained marriage to breaking point and in 1913 the couple separated. A year later they reconciled although far from happily. Their respective stances on the First World War were poles apart. Henry who had lost his patriotic fervour many years before joined the Union of Democratic Control which advocated the taking of steps which would ensure such a conflict never occurred again. Jane was consumed by revenge and patriotic fervour.

The couple split again in 1921 although Jane refused to agree to a divorce. Blighted by alcoholism she died of its effects in 1937.

Maria © Museum of London

Portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst by Georgina © Museum of London

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Nina Boyle and Janet Boyd

2/15/2017

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Janet Augusta Boyd was born in 1855 to George and Anne Haig. Part of a large extended family her niece Margaret Thomas Haig, and her cousins Louisa and Florence Haig also became suffragettes. In 1874 Janet married George Boyd, a solicitor. His father was Edward Fenwick Boyd, an industrialist based in the north east of England who built a substantial family house called Moor House in the small village of Leamside on the outskirts of Durham. In due course George inherited the house and Janet and their four daughters moved in. George died in 1909 and this seems to have allowed Janet to pursue her contribution to the fight for suffrage for women.

The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette dated June 12th 1911 reported that Janet had refused to pay her rates amounting to £21 and in consequence an auction was to be held at her house to raise the funds. Janet offered a Spanish mantilla for sale which was bought by her gardener presumably funded by his employer. The auctioneer announced his support for the campaign and a member of the WSPU came to address the crowd. Prior to this it seems likely Janet joined the protest against the 1911 census return as she does not appear.

Janet was first arrested on November 19th 1911 for breaking a window in the Strand. In court she stated “I don’t consider I was guilty, because I was doing it for a good purpose.” She was fined 10 shillings and three shillings for the damage. Her second arrest was in March 1912. At the first hearing she was committed for trial alongside her cousin Florence Haig for breaking two windows each at D H Evans to a value of £66. She was sentenced to six months imprisonment. Florence stated that if she was bound over to keep the peace she would feel like a soldier deserting in the middle of battle was sentenced to four months. Following a hunger strike when she was not force fed she was released in June of that year. She was one of the women who “signed” a hankerchief owned now by the Priest House at Hoathly.[i]

She died in December 1928 and is included in the Suffragette Roll of Honour.

The next entry reads Dinah or Nina Boyle who was arrested on several occasions during 1912, 1913 and 1914. Born Constance Antonia in 1865 to Robert, an army captain and Frances her father died when she was four years old. Her widowed mother was left with six children, the youngest of whom David was only a few months old. At some point Nina went to live in South Africa where she was a journalist writing for the Transvaal Leader alongside nursing during the Boer War. She wrote to the Times newspaper of the unequal treatment metered out to Boer and loyalist refugees. Interested in women’s rights she founded the Women's Enfranchisement League of Johannesburg.

Nina returned to England in 1911. She was initially active in the Victoria League and Colonial Intelligence League for Educated Women. The former she resigned from when she felt they were pursuing an anti-suffrage stance. She spoke at a meeting of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in Redhill in April 1911 about the suffrage campaign in South Africa. Present was Mrs Harley, sister of Charlotte Despard with whom Nina was soon to become closely involved. A month later she addressed a joint conference of suffrage groups in Edinburgh highlighting the unpaid work women undertook without which the country would suffer.

Shortly, thereafter she joined the Women’s Freedom League whose President was Charlotte Despard. She regularly addressed meetings and was elected to the executive. She also was a member of the Tax Resistance League. Nina was arrested alongside Charlotte Despard and Julia Wood and charged with obstruction. Current regulations banned protests in Trafalgar Square. In breach of these Charlotte mounted a plinth addressing a growing crowd, standing alongside her was Julia and Nina who rang a hand bell. They all refused to descend and were arrested. Nina was fined 60 shillings or 10 days imprisonment. The other two were treated similarly. All elected to go to prison. However not long afterwards their fines were paid and they were released.

A similar ban on public speaking had been imposed in Hyde Park. In May 1913 Nina and Annie Munroe were arrested for attempting to break the ban. At the same time four of the Women’s Freedom League executive including Nina wrote to every police force urging them to refuse to rearrest any woman who had been released from imprisonment suffering from the effects of force feeding, in other words women released under the Cat and Mouse Act on licence. In court Nina and Annie were fined 20 shillings or fourteen days imprisonment. They both elected to go to prison. Both complained about the conditions of the prison vans where contrary to the attestation by the Home Secretary that men and women were separated within the vans this was not the case. They both served their sentences in full.

Nina returned immediately to campaigning. In November 1913 Nina along with others was arrested and charged with obstruction. At the initial hearing Nina applied for an adjournment so she could call witnesses. The magistrate was far from amenable to which she retorted “Why should we be dictated to by Mr Muskett, sitting there with his ears cocked like an intelligent terrier?”[ii] Her requested was granted and she was bailed for a week. At the reconvened hearing Nina was bound over to keep the peace, on her refusal to agreed she was sent to prison for one day.

Campaigning swiftly resumed and Nina travelled the country addressing meetings. In July 1914 she was arrested and charged with obstruction. Five women, Nina gave her name as Ann Smith, chained themselves to the door in the waiting room of the Marlborough Street Police Court temporarily housed Francis Street. The police cut them free putting them outside of the building from whence they refused to move. They were each bailed for a £2 surety. At the trial Nina when entering the witness box exclaimed “Here we are again! It’s quite like coming to see old friends.”[iii] She was fined forty shillings or a week imprisonment.

Immediately after the outbreak of World War 1 Nina lobbied for the founding of a female body of Special Constables who could protect women and children in the absence of the men. She also was an active member of the Women Suffrage National Aid Corps formed to provide support services to women whose husbands were away fighting. Without any government approval for her proposal regarding women police Nina together with Margaret Dawson continued on their own and by January 1915 the Corps of Women Police Volunteers had been formed. Courses were undertaken in first aid, court rules and self-defence. Everyone wore a uniform, Nina being one of the first. However, she split from the Corps when they sought to curtail the freedom of women by imposing a curfew on prostitutes. Although a women’s force continued to operate in London and Brighton under the auspices of the Women’s Freedom League.

In October 1915 Nina was charged with failing to register under the Alien Restriction Order 1915. The case was dismissed when it was held the summons had not been issued correctly. In due course she was awarded damages for her illegal arrest. Nina used this experience to raise awareness of the lack of reasonable treatment for women held in police cells where there was no accommodation for women nor any women gaolers.

Towards the end of 1916 Nina travelled to the Salonika Front to act as a nursing orderly. It was widely reported in the press prior to this that her fiancée had been killed and perhaps that is what prompted her to take this step. There Nina renewed her acquaintance with Katherine Harley who was eager to learn of her sister Charlotte. Nina remained for eight months. On her return she continued with campaigning and supporting the wives left behind.

In 1918 Nina announced that she would stand in a by election as a prospective member of Parliament for Keighley. It was ruled that as a women she could stand but as her nomination papers were incorrectly completed she could not. This acceptance of a woman’s right to stand allowed others to stand in the general election in 1918.
Nina remained politically active for the rest of her life particularly supported the National Union of Women Teachers and the Save the Children Fund. She also wrote novels. She died in March 1943.

[i] https://sussexpast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Priest-House-suffragette-handkerchief.pdf

[ii] Globe November 17 1913

[iii] Daily Record July 14 1914

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