Spartacus Educational

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

WSPU and Prison

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

Spartacus Educational and British Cartoonists

Friday, 10 September 2010

David Cameron and Andy Coulson

The strangest aspect of the News of the World phone-hacking case was why did David Cameron employ Andy Coulson as his Director of Communications, only six months after he was forced to resign because of the strong suspicion that he had ordered journalists to hack the phones of politicians. This straight away illustrated that Cameron was willing to engage in dirty tricks in order to win the next election. This was in direct contrast to the image that Cameron wanted to create of himself at the time. Why was he willing to tarnish his image with this appointment?

Could it be that Cameron had no choice in the matter? Is Cameron being blackmailed by Coulson? I suspect that the private detectives employed by Coulson were not only getting information for the News of the World but was also getting the dirt on Labour MPs for Conservative Party headquarters. If that is the case, can you imagine what impact this would have on the public if this information came out in court.

This theory became even more credible with the news yesterday that the only Tory on the phone hacking list was Boris Johnson. Cameron was at Eton with Johnson and the two have been deadly rivals ever since. Cameron believes that Johnson has the potential to challenge him for the leadership of the party.

Evidence that the government is rattled by the Coulson story was the announcement made by George Osborne of 4bn extra welfare cuts. This was not even discussed with other members of the cabinet. The only reason for the announcement was to take the Coulson story off the front pages. It did but this is a story that will not go away. Although it is extremely unlikely that Cameron will ever be named as being one of those who commissioned the phone hacking, it will do him long-term damage and will definitely tarnish his image as “Mr. Clean”.

Thursday, 9 September 2010

Stanley Spencer

After completing the Sandham Memorial Chapel the artist, Stanley Spencer and his young family moved to Lindworth, a house in Cookham. However, it was not a happy marriage and her passionate Christian Science principles seriously impaired their sex life. During this period Spencer became friendly with Patricia Preece who lived in Cookham with her friend and sexual partner Dorothy Hepworth. Hilda's refusal to accede to demands for a ménage à trois demanded by Spencer forced her eventually to file for a divorce which was granted on 25th May 1937.

Spencer married Preece four days later. They never lived together and according to Tee A. Corinne: "Spencer went into debt giving Preece money, clothing, and jewelry... Spencer then married Preece, but when he attempted to consummate the marriage, Preece immediately fled to Hepworth. Although Spencer and Preece never lived together as man and wife, they never divorced." Although the marriage was unconsummated, it did produce some remarkable nude portraits including Nude: Patricia Preece (1935), Self Portrait with Patricia Preece (1936) and Double Nude Portrait: the Artist and his Second Wife (1937).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTspencer.htm

You can see the Patricia Preece paintings here:

http://badarthistory.blogspot.com/2009/09/stanley-spencer.html

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Men's League for Women's Suffrage

Tuesday, 24 August 2010

Lesbianism and Feminism

In the 19th century most of the leaders of the women’s movement never got married. It was argued at the time that women were represented in parliament by the votes of their fathers and husbands. One can understand why older single women were not impressed by this argument. Lydia Becker, for example, was often used in cartoons with comments suggesting that the reason why some women were active in this field because they were unable to find a husband.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wbecker.htm

Other leaders of the women’s movement lived in couples. Some of these women, such as Frances Power Cobbe, who lived for most of her life with Mary Lloyd, was accused of being a lesbian.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wcobbe.htm

It is impossible to discover if lesbianism was a factor in the early days of the women’s movement. However, it does seem to have been important in one women’s group at the beginning of the 20th century?

In 1907 some leading members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) began to question the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst. These women objected to the way that the Pankhursts were making decisions without consulting members. They also felt that a small group of wealthy women like Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt and Clare Mordan were having too much influence over the organisation. In the autumn of 1907, about seventy members of the WSPU left to form the Women's Freedom League (WFL).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wwspu.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WpankhurstC.htm

After women’s suffrage was achieved, some members of the breakaway group began to argue that there were other factors in this decision. For example, Teresa Billington-Greig, spoke of how some leaders of the WSPU had unhealthy emotional attachments with other members. She named Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenny as members who suffered from this tendency. It is assumed that Billington-Greig was referring to the fact that these three women were lesbians. Although she does not mention it, the other two main financial supporters of the WSPU, Mary Blathwayt and Clare Mordan, were also lesbians.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wpethick.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wbillington.htm

Emmeline Pankhurst was also involved in a lesbian relationship with Ethel Smythe, at the time of the breakaway (her husband had died in 1898). Throughout her life Christabel Pankhurst never had a sexual relationship with a man. According to her biographer, Martin Pugh, Christabel first became involved in the struggle for women’s suffrage after becoming very close to the lesbian lovers, Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper, while studying at Manchester University in 1901.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsmythe.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WroperE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IREgorebooth.htm

The WSPU was not formed until 1903. Two years later Annie Kenney, a factory worker from Oldham, heard Christabel Pankhurst speak on the subject of women's rights. They fell in love almost immediately and Christabel arranged for Annie to live with her in London. Over the next couple of years they were inseparable. In 1905 they became the first members of the WSPU to go to prison.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wkenney.htm

Annie Kenney appears to have an amazing impact on other women. Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt and Clare Mordan all spoke of falling in love with her the first time they met her. Teresa Billington-Greig claimed that Annie was "emotionally possessed by Christabel". However, Mary Blathwayt, who spent a lot of time with Annie during this period argued that it was Annie who was the dominating personality as she had a "wonderful influence over people".

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wblathwayt.htm

Teresa Billington-Greig has argued that Annie was also very close to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. "It is true that there was an immediate and strong emotional attraction between Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenney... indeed so emotional and so openly paraded that it frightened me. I saw it as something unbalanced and primitive and possibly dangerous to the movement."

Fran Abrams the author of Freedom's Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes (2003), has argued that Annie Kenney had a series of romantic attachments with other suffragettes: "The relationship (with Christabel Pankhurst) would be mirrored, though never matched in its intensity, by a number of later relationships between Annie and other suffragettes. The extent of their physical nature has never been revealed, but it is certain that in some sense these were romantic attachments. One historian who argues that Annie must have had sexual feelings for other women adds that lesbianism was barely recognised at the time. Such relationships, even when they involved sharing beds, excited little comment."

However, a recently discovered diary has shown that these were sexual relationship. This unpublished diary belonged to Mary Blathwayt, a leading financial backer of the WSPU and up to now, someone who has been virtually ignored by historians. Blathwayt, used her home, Eagle House near Batheaston, as a retreat for suffragettes recovering from being in prison.

Mary Blathwayt recorded in her diary that Annie Kenney had intimate relationships with at least ten members of the WSPU. Blathwayt records in her diary that she slept with Annie in July 1908. Soon afterwards she exhibits jealousy with the comments that "Miss Browne is sleeping in Annie's room now." The diary suggests that Annie was sexually involved with both Christabel Pankhurst and Clara Codd. Blathwayt wrote on 7th September 1910 that "Miss Codd has come to stay, she is sleeping with Annie." Codd's autobiography, So Rich a Life (1951) confirms this account. The historian, Martin Pugh, points out that "In the diary Kenney appears frequently and with different women. Almost day by day Mary says she is sleeping with someone else."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wclodd.htm

Clare Mordan, who never went to prison, but who was one of the WSPU main financial backers, also spent a lot of time at Eagle House. It seems that some women could buy themselves into what appears to have become a “love nest”. Mary’s father, Colonel Linley Blathwayt, a retired army officer, motivation for allowing these women to live in his house, also raises interesting questions. He built a summer-house in the grounds of the estate that was called the "Suffragette Rest". He was an amateur photographer and took portrait photographs of the women. These were then signed and sold at WSPU bazaars. Maybe he also took some other kinds of photographs. According to historians of pornography, photographs of women together were in great demand and could be sold at a very high price.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wmordan.htm

Annie Kenney admitted in her autobiography that suffragettes developed a different set of values to other women at the time: "The changed life into which most of us entered was a revolution in itself. No home life, no one to say what we should do or what we should not do, no family ties, we were free and alone in a great brilliant city, scores of young women scarcely out of their teens met together in a revolutionary movement, outlaws or breakers of laws, independent of everything and everybody, fearless and self-confident."

The reason why Teresa Billington-Greig complained about these lesbian relationships was that she felt it was damaging the movement. It was argued that women were promoted to the leadership of the WSPU because of their lesbianism. For example, when Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst escaped to France, Annie Kenney was put in charge of operations in England. When Kenney was imprisoned the post went to her lover and flat-mate, Rachael Barrett. She was replaced by Grace Roe, who had been the lover of both Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WbarrettR.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wroe.htm

After the First World War the WSPU women became more open about their sexuality. After the war Rachel Barrett lived with her lover Ida Wylie, a novelist and short story writer. Both women were close friends of Radclyffe Hall and gave her support during the obscenity trial following the publication of her lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness (1928). Hall lost the case and all copies of the novel were destroyed.

Two other members of the WSPU, Edith Craig (the daughter of the actress Helen Terry) and Christabel Marshall, had lived together for fifteen years. In 1916 they were joined by Clare Atwood where they formed a permanent ménage à trois. Her biographer, Katharine Cockin, has pointed out that Marshall wrote they "achieved independence within their intimate relationships... working respectively in the theatre, art, and literature, drew creative inspiration and support from each other."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WcraigE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WmarshallC.htm

Monday, 9 August 2010

Eugen Boissevain

Eugen Boissevain was married to two important figures in the American feminist movement.

Boissevain was introduced to Inez Milholland by Max Eastman. A leading figure in the women's suffrage movement, she was associated with a group of socialists involved in the production of The Masses journal. The couple were married in July 1913.

Inez Milholland became one of the leaders of the National Women's Party. The movement's most popular orator, Milholland was in demand as a speaker at public meetings all over the country. Milholland, who suffered from pernicious anemia, and was warned by her doctor of the dangers of vigorous campaigning. However, she refused to heed this advice and on 22nd October, 1916, she collapsed in the middle of a speech in Los Angeles. She was rushed to hospital but despite repeated blood transfusions she died on 25th November, 1916.

Boissevain remained in Greenwich Village and his friend, Floyd Dell recalls how he was attending a party at the home of Dudley Field Malone and Doris Stevens, when he met Edna St Vincent Millay: "We were all playing charades at Dudley Malone's and Doris Stevens's house. Edna Millay was just back from a year in Europe. Eugene and Edna had the part of two lovers in a delicious farcical invention, at once Rabelaisian and romantic. They acted their parts wonderfully-so remarkably, indeed, that it was apparent to us all that it wasn't just acting. We were having the unusual privilege of seeing a man and a girl fall in love with each other violently and in public, and telling each other so, and doing it very beautifully."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jboissevain.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jmilholland.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jmillay.htm