Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick: from mission to activism
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09612025.2014.906118
ISSN1747-583X
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes
ResumoAbstractThe late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the rise of communal religious activities among British women of various Protestant denominations as well as a broader definition of the spiritual for many people. Communal religious service structures created a space in which young, mostly middle-class women could acquire both a degree of autonomy and a sense of effecting change in a wider sphere than would typically be open to them and, just as importantly, allowed them to meet and develop ties with others beyond their immediate family circles. This article looks at how two young women, Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick, used one such organisation, the West London Mission, as a springboard for wider activism: Emmeline Pethick, as Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, came to prominence as one of the leaders of the Women's Social and Political Union, and Mary Neal's work on recovering the disappearing morris dance for the benefit of working-class girls brought her national recognition. Both women benefited from friendship networks which allowed them to draw other women into their work and both faced opposition from male-dominated power structures, but the spiritual element with which they imbued their activism remained integral to their projects and to their lives. Ultimately, though, the evolution of their spiritual beliefs brought them to assess their life achievements in very different ways. Notes[1] In Philip S. Bagwell (1987) Outcast London: a Christian response: the West London Mission of the Methodist Church 1887–1987 (London: Epworth Press), p. 7.[2] Christopher Oldstone-Moore (1999) Hugh Price Hughes: founder of a new Methodism, conscience of a new nonconformity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press), p. 54.[3] Katherine Price Hughes (1945) The Story of My Life (London: Epworth Press), p. 34.[4] Ibid., p. 67.[5] Laceye Warner (2000) Methodist Episcopal and Wesleyan Methodist Deaconess Work in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: a paradigm for evangelism (PhD thesis, University of Bristol), p. 16.[6] See Jane Lewis (1991) Women and Social Action in Victorian and Edwardian England (Aldershot: Edward Elgar) for an extensive discussion for the factors framing Victorian women's activism.[7] Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence (reprinted 1976) My Part in a Changing World (Westport, CT: Hyperion Press; first published 1938), p. 72.[8] Bagwell, Outcast London, p. 15.[9] Ibid., p. 26[10] Mary Neal (c.1937–39) As a Tale that is Told: the autobiography of a Victorian woman (unpublished manuscript), p. 35. I would very much like to thank Ms Lucy Neal for so generously allowing me access to it. Since then, the chapter on morris was recovered and returned to the text, which was presented with other documents by Ms Neal to the Cecil Sharp Library, English Folk Dance and Song Society on February 7, 2009. I would also like to thank the librarians of the Cecil Sharp Library for their assistance with the Mary Neal Archive.[11] Ibid., p. 28.[12] Ibid., p. 45.[13] Ibid., p. 47.[14] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 65.[15] Ibid., p. 67.[16] Social Christianity, also known as the Social Gospel movement, has had a tremendous influence on Protestantism, and particularly on evangelicals, since the end of the nineteenth century through to the present day. Progressive and liberal in its orientation, Social Christianity attributed to social engagement a specific religious value that was premillennialist in nature: the Second Coming could not happen until the world had cleansed itself of its evil. Thus, actively working to eliminate poverty and its concomitant evils was a means of directly fulfilling God's will by preparing for the return of Christ.[17] Ibid., p. 70.[18] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 71; Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, p. 50.[19] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, p. 53.[20] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 78.[21] Bagwell, Outcast London, p. 22.[22] Ibid., p. 13.[23] As discussed in W. Reason (Ed.) (1898) University and Social Settlements (London: Methuen), pp. 71–88.[24] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, p. 63.[25] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 73.[26] Price Hughes, The Story of My Life, p. 90.[27] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 91.[28] Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence (1898) Working Girls' Clubs, in Reason (Ed.) University and Social Settlements, pp. 101–114.[29] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, p. 70.[30] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 105.[31] Jane Lewis, Women and Social Action in Victorian and Edwardian England, pp. 205–209, among others.[32] Roy Judge (1989) Mary Neal and the Espérance Morris, Folk Music Journal, 5(5), pp. 545–591, p. 549.[33] Rod Stradling (2006) Absolutely Classic, Musical Traditions: The Internet Magazine for Traditional Music throughout the world. www.mustrad.com/reviews/kimber.htm (updated 11 November 2002, accessed 21 June 2006).[34] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, p. 149.[35] A. H. Fox Strangeways (1935) Cecil Sharp (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), p.74.[36] Constance Lytton (1988) Prisons and Prisoners (London; Virago Press; first published 1914), p. 39.[37] Constance Lytton letter to Aunt T, July 28, 1907, reprinted in Betty Balfour (Ed.) (1925) Letters of Constance Lytton (London: Heinemann), p. 134.[38] Constance Lytton, Prisons and Prisoners, p. 7.[39] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, p. 119.[40] Ibid., p. 121.[41] Mary Neal (1910) The Espérance Morris Book (London: J. Curwen & Sons).[42] Evelyn Sharp (1933) Unfinished Adventure (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head), pp. 129–130.[43] For a detailed account, see Roy Judge, ‘Mary Neal and the Espérance Morris’.[44] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, pp. 137–138.[45] Ibid., p. 138.[46] Ibid., p.145.[47] Ibid., p. 168.[48] Mary Neal (1940) ‘The Broken Law’, The Adelphi, 16 (January), p. 149.[49] Cecil Sharp (1909) The Morris Book (London: Novello), p. ii.[50] Frank Kidson & Mary Neal (1915) English Folk-Song (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p.172. Also John Francmanis (2001) The Roving Artist: Frank Kidson, pioneer song collector, Folk Music Journal, 8(1), p. 59.[51] Ibid., p. 47.[52] Ibid., p. 159.[53] Sylvia Pankhurst (reprinted 1977) The Suffragette Movement (London: Virago Press; first published 1931); Annie Kenney (1924) Memoirs of a Militant (London: Edward Arnold).[54] Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1942) Fate Has Been Kind (London: Hutchinson), pp. 76–86.[55] Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence (1907) The New Crusade (a speech originally given at Exeter Hall on May 30, 1907), London: The National Women's Social and Political Union, n.d.[56] Christabel Pankhurst managed to escape arrest and fled to France, where she continued to direct the movement from a distance. Emmeline Pankhurst was imprisoned but public outrage was such that she was not forcibly fed.[57] The group they founded was the Women's Freedom League, of which Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence was president from 1926 to 1935.[58] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, p. 301. It is interesting to note that Frederick Pethick-Lawrence's first speech as a Member of Parliament was to support pensions for widows with children.[59] Ibid., p. 302.[60] Pethick-Lawrence, Fate Has Been Kind, p. 124.[61] Vera Brittain (1963) Pethick-Lawrence: a portrait (London: George Allen & Unwin) p. 194.[62] Ilana R. Simons (2002) The Brothers: The Adelphi, The Left Bank Review/Echo Magazine, 8(3). http://www.leftbankreview.com/leftbankreview/3rdQtr-02/front.html, p. 24 (accessed July 7, 2007).[63] Neal, ‘The Broken Law,’ p. 149.[64] Ibid., pp. 147 and 150.[65] Roy Judge (2002) Cecil Sharp and the Morris 1906–1909, Folk Music Journal, 8(2), p. 203.[66] Joy Dixon (2001) Divine Feminine: theosophy and feminism in England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 5–6, 206–227, 179–203.[67] Ibid., pp. 177–205.[68] According to her eulogy, ‘At Woking Crematorium’, Saturday June 24, 1944. Mary Neal Archive, box 2, English Folk Dance and Song Society.[69] Neal, ‘A Tale that is Told’, pp. 168–169.[70] Ibid., pp. 169–170.[71] Ibid., p. 170.[72] Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World, pp. 347–50.[73] In the introduction of Divine Feminine (p. 6), Joy Dixon attributes this information to Olive Banks's (1989) Becoming a Feminist: the social origins of ‘first-wave’ feminism (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press), but does not give the page reference. I have been unable to locate that information in Banks's text.[74] Pethick-Lawrence, Fate Has Been Kind, pp. 19, 39.[75] Fred's unconventional spirituality even figured in eulogies in Parliament (Brittain, Pethick-Lawrence, p. 213). For a discussion of the relationship between Frederick Pethick-Lawrence's beliefs and his suffrage activities, see Linda Martz (2010) Frederick Pethick-Lawrence: l'homme parmi les suffragettes, in Michel Prum (Ed.) Les Hommes feminists (Paris: L'Harmattan).[76] In Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp (Ed.) (1999) Speeches and Trials of the Militant Suffragettes: the Women's Social and Political Union 1903–1918 (Madison, WI: Associated University Presses), pp. 283–285.[77] Sarah Carwin (n.d.) Biographical Notes, and Ada Wright (1931) Biographical Notes, Museum of London Suffragette Fellowship Collection Microfilms—Reel One (Brighton: Harvester Microform Publications, 1985).[78] From Mary Neal Day Program, February 7, 2009. Mary Neal Archive, box 2, English Folk Dance and Song Society.
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