Margery Corbett Ashby
Margery Corbett Ashby, the daughter of Charles Corbett and Marie Corbett, was born in Paddington on 19th April 1882. Margery and her younger sister, Cicely Corbett, were educated at home by Lina Eckenstein. Charles taught the girls classics, history and mathematics and Marie taught them scripture and the piano. A local woman gave them lessons in French and German. (1)
"No one can have had a happier childhood than myself, brought up, with a younger brother and sister, in a large, old-fashioned, country house. In my youth I shared every advantage with my brother equally - from love and affection to the best possible education and opportunities, and the critical but unstinted encouragement which to the young is like sunshine to a plant." (2)
At the age of eighteen, Margery and her younger sister Cicely and a group of friends formed a society called the Younger Suffragists. In 1901 Margery won a place at Newnham College, Cambridge to read Classics. According to her biographer, Jenifer Hart, "she had deliberately chosen classics because it was a tough subject." (3) At university she joined the Cambridge branch of the Women's Liberal Federation and by the time she was nineteen she had become secretary of the Constitutional Suffrage Movement. (4)
Margery Corbett & Women's Suffrage
One of her friends at university, Mary Hamilton, also involved in the suffrage movement, explained: "At college Margery was intensely keen on civil liberties, free trade, international good will, democracy… She spends time and energy without stint or personal ambition… She has an immense sense of duty, and must have spent a very large part of her entire life on committees and at meetings." (5)
Margery was impressed by the feminists she met at university: "The women working for the cause aroused in me a passionate admiration for women as women. They created a new loyalty which has stayed by me all my life. It is, I suppose, impossible for the young British women of today to realise the intoxication we felt at belief in our capacity for assuming responsibilities. All around one was the wisdom of centuries that women were inferior to men in all respects except in sexual morality and capacity for self-sacrifice. Society seemed immutably built on a foundation of this God-ordained law and custom-enforced inequality. Yet here were women who challenged the whole conception, who maintained that women were beings with personal qualities and capacities as varied as those of men and equalities and capacities as varied as those of men and equality entitled to their full development." (6)
Margery Corbett then attended the Training College in Cambridge (now Homerton) and took a teacher-training course, but did not go into teaching. (7) She later explained: "I found it a depressing experience. My fellow students were less well educated, and had narrow backgrounds. The teaching, with one exception, was uninspiring... Finally I decided that teaching children was not my métier. Coaching the willing I liked, but teaching forty children with three sums on the blackboard on hot afternoons before the bathing period was frightful. I had no capacity for discipline." (8)
Margery's mother, Marie Corbett had been campaigning for women's suffrage for many years and in 1887 along with Millicent Fawcett, Eva Maclaren and Frances Balfour had formed the Liberal Women's Suffrage Society. In 1904 she took Margery and Cicely, to Berlin, where they attended the first meeting of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. (9)
For many years Charles Corbett and Marie Corbett made public speeches on the subject of women's rights in East Grinstead High Street. "My father was a a declared Liberal, at that period as much hated and distrusted by the gentry as Communists are today, and regarded as traitors to their class. In consequence, the country boycotted them, and this left my mother with an underlying bitterness... I suspect this boycott threw my energetic mother even more fervently into good works amongst the villagers, where, in the days before the welfare state, poverty was widespread." (10)
Charles Corbett was the Liberal Party candidate in East Grinstead. In the 1906 General Election the Liberal Party won 397 seats (48.9%) compared to the Conservative Party's 156 seats (43.4%). The Labour Party, led by Keir Hardie did well, increasing their seats from 2 to 29. In the landslide victory Arthur Balfour lost his seat as did most of his cabinet ministers. Corbett won the seat by 262 votes. Margot Asquith wrote: "When the final figures of the Elections were published everyone was stunned, and it certainly looks as if it were the end of the great Tory Party as we have known it." (11)
Disappointed with the poor record of the Liberal Party with respect to women's suffrage, Margery left the Women's Liberal Federation and with her mother and sister helped form the Liberal Suffrage Group. In 1907 Margery Corbett decided to become a full-time campaigner for women's rights and became secretary of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). (12) "I dealt with the correspondence, produced the Union's paper, becoming its editor, and learned by experience how to select, produce and edit material - the Board of course laid down the policy." In 1908 Margery was voted on to the executive board of the NUWSS. (13)
East Grinstead Suffrage Society
Along with her mother and her sister she formed the East Grinstead Suffrage Society. At the same time Lady Lucinda Musgrave, who lived in a 400-year-old house called Hurst-an-Clays in the town, formed a local branch of the Anti-Suffrage Society. Lady Musgrave argued "that she was strongly against the franchise being extended to women, for she did not think it would do any good whatsoever, and in sex interests, would do a lot of harm.... Women were not equal to men in endurance or nervous energy, and she thought she might say, on the whole, in intellect." She added "that in a recent canvas by postcard, of the 200 odd women in East Grinstead, they found that 80 did not want the vote, 40 did want the vote and the remainder would not sufficiently interested in replying." (14)
In 1909 Margery became involved in the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and was a speaker at their conferences in Berlin and Stockholm. "In 1909 I went to the Netherlands to give a course of lectures on the position of women in society. At my first meeting on a Friday. I was miserably nervous, but they seemed pleased, and I had very good notices in the papers, and the weekly journal published my photo with an absurd article about me and my prowess." (15)
Several men thought Margery would make a good wife. "I had already had two proposals of marriage at Cambridge, which I turned down, and another one locally. Pressure was being kindly put on me by my great aunt to marry a second cousin, but I was not very tempted." Margery eventually said yes to Brian Ashby, a barrister, "We spent the next five years waiting for enough money on which to marry. Children in those days did not marry and expect their parents to keep them... Marriages did not occur until there was enough money to make it possible on a standard not too much below that of either of the partners' homes." Margery married Brian Ashby in December 1910. (16)
After marriage Margery Corbett Ashby continued to campaign for women's suffrage and would hold meetings every Wednesday evening on the "High Street slope". In one meeting in October 1911 she argued that "chivalry would not die when women had the vote" and pointed out that "men were now banding themselves together to help get women the vote." (17)
Charles Corbett helped to establish a branch of the Men's League For Women's Suffrage in East Grinstead. Supporters included Edward Steer, the leader of the Salvation Army in the town. Several local vicars joined and the Rev. Rupert Strong of Hammerwood (a neighbouring village) argued: "The movement for women's suffrage was one of vital importance to the morality and welfare of the nation... women should have some share in this government in order to promote clean living." (18)
Ashby also organised feminist plays to be performed at the Whitehall Theatre in the town. This included How the Vote was Won, a play written by Cicely Hamilton, The local newspaper reported: The dramatic entertainment promoted by the East Grinstead Suffrage Society given at the Whitehall Theatre on Monday evening attracted a large audience. The play was 'How the Vote Was Won'. The audience showed evident sign of approval of many portions of the dialogue. The cast was as follows: Victoria Addison, Lydia Sydney, Ethel Hart, Edith Pitcher, Mildred Orme and Inez Bensusan." (19)
Ashby traveled to other parts of the country to make speeches on women's suffrage. On one occasion she was addressing a meeting in Nottingham market square with Millicent Garrett Fawcett. "Three platforms of heavy farm waggons were there. I was speaking from one when I noticed something which looked like flying foxes attacking the far platform. It was dried haddocks being used as missiles by a cheerful crowd of racegoers returning from the races.... The police were powerless, but ordered us off the waggon and tried to escort us through the mob. Suddenly the mill girls took a hand, and within minutes the young toughs had met their match, and let us through. We were put on a tram to the station." (20)
Margery Corbett Ashby was a strong opponent of the arson campaign, a tactic adopted by the Women Social & Political Union. Her mother, Marie Corbett pointed out: "Those guilty of disturbances on Friday and Monday are a small and decreasing minority amongst suffragettes... There cannot be more than a few hundred in all who have put themselves under the leadership of the Social and Political Union for the commission of lawless activities.. The members of the East Grinstead Women's Suffrage Society strongly disapprove of acts of violence." (21)
By 1913 the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) had nearly had 100,000 members. Katherine Harley, a senior figure in the NUWSS, suggested holding a Woman's Suffrage Pilgrimage in order to show Parliament how many women wanted the vote. Women marched to London from all around England and Wales with the intention of meeting up in Hyde Park on 26th July. (22)
The East Grinstead Suffrage Society decided to take part in this pilgrimage. It was decided to have a large public meeting in the town before setting off to London. Speakers at the meeting included Marie Corbett, Laurence Housman and Edward Steer. The local newspaper reported: "The non-militant section of the advocates of securing women’s suffrage had arranged a march and public meeting on its way to the great demonstration in London. The procession was not an imposing one. It consisted of about ten ladies who were members of the Suffrage Society. Mrs. Marie Corbett led the way carrying a silken banner bearing the arms of East Grinstead."
It later emerged that local members of the Conservative Party, many of them involved in the brewing industry, had arranged for youths to break up the meeting. "The reception, which the little band of ladies got, was no means friendly. Yells and hooting greeted them throughout most of the entire march, and they were the targets for occasional pieces of turf, especially when they passed through Queen’s Road. In the High Street they found a crowd of about 1,500 people awaiting them. Edward Steer had promised to act as chairman, and taking his stand against one of the trees on the slope he began by saying, 'Ladies and Gentlemen'. This was practically as far as he got with his speech. Immediately there was an outburst of yells and laughter and shouting. Laurence Housman, the famous writer, got no better than Mr. Steer. By this time pieces of turf and a few ripe tomatoes and highly seasoned eggs were flying about, and were not always received by the person they were intended for. The unsavoury odur of eggs was noticeable over a considerable area. Unhappily, Miss Helen Hoare of Charlwood Farm, was struck in the face with a missile and received a cut on the cheek and was taken away for treatment.... Mrs. Marie Corbett slipped away and took up a position lower down the High Street on the steps of the drinking fountain. A young clergyman who appealed for fair play was roughly hustled and lost his hat. Mrs. Corbett had began to speak from the fountain steps but the crowd moved down the High Street and broke up her small meeting." (23)
Wallace Hills, the editor of the East Grinstead Observer, and Secretary of the East Grinstead Conservative Association, admitted that this should not have happened. "The most bitter opponents of female suffrage can have no reason to feel proud about the break-up of the open-air meeting at East Grinstead on Tuesday evening, and the whole event was a distinct discredit to the town." He ended the article with a quote from one of the organisers of the meeting that "the tradesmen who had saved up rotten eggs to throw at ladies ought to be ashamed of themselves." (24)
First World War
Brian and Margery Ashby set up home in Roehampton for two years and then moved to a larger house at Putney. Jenifer Hart has claimed: "Her home combined middle-class affluence with personal austerity." (25) In November 1914, Margery gave birth to her only child, Michael. Brian Ashby joined the East Surrey Regiment. Margery later recalled: "With other officers' wives I joined the Red Cross and made bandages, but soon found a more interesting outlet. The local hospital had many convalescent soldiers, bored by their confinement and apt to get into mischief... I offered to teach the soldiers embroidery, and although they were unwilling and sceptical at first, it turned out a most successful venture." (26)
According to Mary Hamilton Margery was successful in everything she did: "Not to like her is and always has been impossible; she has charm and complete sincerity, and has made a success of life, in its essential relationships. She was a good daughter: she is a good wife and mother. The one boy, born during the 1914 war, when his father was in France with the B.E.F., was, as a baby, so delicate that it did not seem possible he should live; Margery insisted that he should; he has grown up a superb physical specimen." (27)
Brian Ashby was sent to the Western Front in 1916. Margery returned home and became involved in charity work. "Rationing was very severe, and country women found the bread and butter ration very inadequate for sandwiches for husbands at work and children at school, especially since the average labourer could not afford to take up his family's weekly meat ration. I therefore applied for permission to run a school canteen. My parents lent me the old laundry room for this purpose, a short walk through the woods from the school, and this ensured that the children had one good hot meal a day." (28)
1918 Qualification of Women Act
In May 1916 Millicent Garrett Fawcett wrote to Herbert Asquith that women deserved the vote for their war efforts. In August he told the House of Commons that he had now changed his mind and that he intended to introduce legislation that would give women the vote. On 28th March, 1917, the House of Commons voted 341 to 62 that women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5 or graduates of British universities. MPs rejected the idea of granting the vote to women on the same terms as men. Lilian Lenton, who had played an important role in the militant campaign later recalled: "Personally, I didn't vote for a long time, because I hadn't either a husband or furniture, although I was over 30." (29)
The Qualification of Women Act was passed in February, 1918. The Manchester Guardian reported: "The Representation of the People Bill, which doubles the electorate, giving the Parliamentary vote to about six million women and placing soldiers and sailors over 19 on the register (with a proxy vote for those on service abroad), simplifies the registration system, greatly reduces the cost of elections, and provides that they shall all take place on one day, and by a redistribution of seats tends to give a vote the same value everywhere, passed both Houses yesterday and received the Royal assent." (30)
The First World War ended in November 1918. Millicent Fawcett lost "no fewer than twenty-nine members of her extended family, including two nephews" in the war. Whereas the WSPU "were prepared to accept votes for women on any terms the government had to offer... the NUWSS continued to press its old case for equality with men". She was urged to stand for Parliament in the 1918 General Election, but aged seventy-one, she decided to retire from politics. (31)
Margery Corbett Ashby was invited by letter to be the Liberal Party candidate in the Ladywood constituency. This was the safe seat of Neville Chamberlain. "That morning there was a meeting of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies, so I gaily waved the invitation, expecting amusement and some resentment at a woman being asked to take on a fight bound to end in ignominious defeat. To my surprise, there was a unanimous chorus that I must accept. It would help to accustom the public to the idea of women candidates, and the immediate result would be unimportant." (32)
David Lloyd George did a deal with Andrew Bonar Law that the Conservative Party would not stand against Liberal Party members who had supported the coalition government and had voted for him in the Maurice Debate. It was agreed that the Conservatives could then concentrate their efforts on taking on the Labour Party and the official Liberal Party that supported their former leader, H. H. Asquith. The secretary to the Cabinet, Maurice Hankey, commented: "My opinion is that the P.M. is assuming too much the role of a dictator and that he is heading for very serious trouble." (33)
Margery Corbett Ashby had stayed loyal to Asquith: She later explained: "The political circumstances were as unpleasant as possible. Lloyd George's coupon election was in full swing (the coupons were endorsements given to those Liberal candidates who supported Lloyd George, as opposed to those in the Asquith camp), and naturally, being an Asquith Liberal, I was not given the coupon. The Lloyd George cry to squeeze Germany 'until the pips fell out' was horrifying to me, as wickedly damaging to the recovery of all the nations at war. I hoped to get the women's vote and that of new and inexperienced voters." (34)
The General Election results was a landslide victory for David Lloyd George and the Coalition government: Conservative Party (382); Coalition Liberal (127), National Labour Coalition (4) and Coalition National Democrats (9) . The Labour Party won only 57 seats and lost most of its leaders including Arthur Henderson, Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden, George Lansbury and Fred Jowett. The Liberal Party returned 36 seats and its leader H. H. Asquith was defeated at East Fife. (35)
Ashby came third with 11% of the vote: "The result of the election over the country was a resounding victory for Lloyd George and a coalition government, but I had the satisfaction of polling as many votes as did the nine Liberal candidates in neighbouring constituencies. Being a woman was neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.... Birmingham was my first attempt to get into Parliament. My subsequent election contests all ended in defeat, as I was always invited to fight a hopeless constituency, usually at the last minute, when there was no chance to 'nurse' the constituency as is essential for a real chance of success." (36)
International Women Suffrage Alliance
In 1919 Margery was a member of the International Women Suffrage Alliance who attended the Versailles Peace Conference as a substitute for Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Along with Mary Allen she advised Germany on the founding of the German women's police force. (37)
The following year Margery attended the International Women Suffrage Alliance held a meeting in Geneva. "Surely after this prolonged agony mankind would renounce the use of war. The League of Nations had been set up. A new world seemed to have arisen out of bloodshed, hatred and ruin, a new world that promised democratic progress and a better understanding among nations. The Congress itself welcomed women MPs and government delegates, and women had the vote in fourteen countries." (38)
Margery Corbett Ashby remained a member of the Women's Freedom League and in 1923 she was elected president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (renamed the International Alliance of Women in 1926). It widened its interests and concerned itself with other issues of importance to women - for example, equality of opportunity in employment, adequate representation on public bodies, the nationality of married women, equal moral standards for both sexes, and family allowances. It also took up the cause of peace. Margery and the organisation became a keen supporter of the League of Nations, whose assembly she attended regularly. (39)
Margery Corbett Ashby was also elected President of the Women's Liberal Federation. However, she had difficulty dealing with senior members of the Liberal Party who were still arguing against all women over 21 from having the vote. This included Herbert Henry Asquith, the leader of the party. She told his daughter, Violet Bonham Carter: "I had a friendly talk with Lady Violet, pointing out how hard it was for me to be a member of the Liberal Party when her father thought women too unreliable or too stupid or too emotional to be given the vote." (40)
Ashby was also a member of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC). Eleanor Rathbone became leader of the organisation and she proposed a six point reform programme. (1) Equal pay for equal work, involving an open field for women in industry and the professions. (2) An equal standard of sex morals as between men and women, involving a reform of the existing divorce law which condoned adultery by the husband, as well as reform of the laws dealing with solicitation and prostitution. (3) The introduction of legislation to provide pensions for civilian widows with dependent children. (4) The equalization of the franchise and the return to Parliament of women candidates pledged to the equality programme. (5) The legal recognition of mothers as equal guardians with fathers of their children. (6) The opening of the legal profession and the magistracy to women. (41)
1928 Equal Franchise Act
A bill was introduced in March 1928 to give women the vote on the same terms as men. There was little opposition in Parliament to 1928 Equal Franchise Act and it became law on 2nd July 1928. As a result, all women over the age of 21 could now vote in elections. Many of the women who had fought for this right were now dead, including Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy, Constance Lytton and Emmeline Pankhurst. The former NUWSS leader, Millicent Garrett Fawcett had the pleasure of attending Parliament to see the vote take place. That night she wrote in her diary that she was reminded of seeing John Stuart Mill making a speech in the House of Commons: "It is almost exactly 61 years ago since I heard John Stuart Mill introduce his suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill on May 20th, 1867. So I have had extraordinary good luck in having seen the struggle from the beginning." (42)
Margery Corbett Ashby and others in the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, were anxious to train the new voters for political responsibility. Their plan was to bring women together to share the interests they had in common, such as domestic affairs and arts and crafts, and then to broaden their minds and so foster citizenship. The result was the creation of Townswomen's Guilds. Ashby became president of this organisation that's main aim was for women to meet and learn about citizenship and how to use the vote. (43)
Ashby, deliberately, and against much opposition, put campaigning for peace on the agenda of the International Alliance of Women. One aspect of this was to maintain peace within the new multi-ethnic nation states of Europe. After visiting Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, she expressed the three basic demands among all minorities in 1929: (1) the right to land; (2) the right to primary education in one's mother tongue; and (3) religious freedom in one's own tongue. (44)
Disarmament Conference
In 1932 Margery Corbett Ashby was chosen to be one of the British delegates to the Geneva Disarmament Conference. "I had been chosen in response partly to the representations of women's organisations and partly to the attitude of the League of Nations to encourage the participation of women. I received congratulations on my appointment from many women's organisations and from prominent persons." (45)
Arthur Henderson, the leader of the Labour Party, was elected chairman of the Disarmament Conference. This caused conflict with Ramsay MacDonald, who had been expelled from the party in 1931 for forming the National Government with the Conservative Party. As David Marquand has pointed out: "In the circumstances, its decision was understandable, perhaps inevitable. The Labour movement had been built on the trade-union ethic of loyalty to majority decisions. MacDonald had defied that ethic; to many Labour activists, he was now a kind of political blackleg, who deserved to be treated accordingly." (46) According to Ashby it was "a frightening example how personal relations in public affairs can matter". (47)
Ashby was also highly critical of Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary, who was willing to spend enough time in negotiations. "I sit here boiling with helpless, though not always inarticulate, rage! Sir John has left us completely in the lurch. He did not stay long enough to get any realisation of what was happening here, and now has stayed away so long that the other foreign ministers have gone, the Dominions are restless, and we make no contribution of any kind anywhere." (48)
When the Foreign Secretary did arrive twelve days later, Ashby had a tremendous row with him: "We had a long altercation which left me absolutely shaking, but though, as usually happens, I was left to do the fighting, I was egged on by nods from the permanent officials and Lord Londonderry's extraordinarily nice smile." (49) Ramsay MacDonald told Ashby he was an idealist. She told her mother Marie Corbett, "Alas, he was one once, but now is a weary old man." (50)
The appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor on 30th January 1933, added complications to the negotiations. In October 1933 she had dinner with Anthony Eden, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. "I talked and dined with Mr Anthony Eden. We agree on most points!... There are two theories: 1. that after the elections Hitler will be strong enough to make concessions; 2. that he will throw over Neurath and Papen and be worse than ever." (51)
Ashby resigned as a British delegate to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1935 in protest at the British government's refusal to support any practical scheme for mutual security and defence. In her letter of resignation to Ramsay MacDonald she argued: "For nearly three years I did my utmost to urge HM Government to support any practical scheme for mutual security and defence, since almost every European country considered mutual protection the indispensable basis for any reduction in armaments. But Britain consistently opposed every suggestion put forward by the political commission." (52)
Ashby strongly opposed the Munich Agreement and decided to resign as President of the International Women's Alliance (IWA). (53) "The Alliance was founded to ask for equality between women and men in a world that for the most part believed in peace and democracy, justice and tolerance. Today justice and tolerance do not exist over ever increasing areas. We have to fight against new barbarisms. On October 1st in order to avoid the war they had done nothing to prevent, the two great democracies of Europe surrendered to the threat of force and joined hands with the dictators over the body of the victim. I cannot, as a British woman, find it possible any longer to lead an international body. It would need constant and painful contests between my beliefs and my Government's policy." (54)
Ashby also believed that "the Alliance needs a younger President who could attract to its banner the younger women." Ashby was persuaded to stay in office as it was thought the organisation needed an experienced person in this role during this time of crisis. Ashby and other senior members of the IWA were put on Hitler's black list because of their political statements and two of her dearest colleagues, Rosa Manus from the Netherlands and Františka Plamínková in Czechoslovakia were murdered during the Nazi occupation of their countries. (55)
Peace Campaigner
In 1936 the Ashby's acquired a house, with a large garden and grounds of seven acres, called Wickens, Birch Grove, Horsted Keynes, next to her parents estate at Woodgate. It was first used as a weekend house, but early in the Second World War the house in Putney suffered war damage, and the family moved full-time to Birch Grove. During the war the government employed her to give lectures to the troops on democracy. Her main message was: "Find out what's wrong and write to your MP." (56)
Ashby continued as President of the International Women's Alliance and in 1946 she attended a session of the United Nations when she put her weight behind defining a newly identified crime "genocide". Ashby also upset Joseph Stalin when in 1947 she travelled to countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland that were under his control and praised the "shining courage and faith of the leaders of the new women's movement." (57) "I had been on Hitler's black list and had dared not visit Germany, and now with equal pride I was on the Communist list. Indeed, I felt it was a real honour to be on the black list of both sides." (58)
In 1979 Ashby wrote a letter to her granddaughter about her worries about the future: Today we are seeing the perhaps temporary decline and decay of western industrialisation. We are threatened by a worship of size and speed which is taking us away from the pride and pleasure in personal success and in work and craftsmanship. Man is treated as a cog in larger and faster machines, which in each improvement throw men on the scrap-heap of unemployment. What religion and art does this new machine-led civilisation bring?.. Our new civilisation makes men's souls and bodies subordinate to the demands of machines. More disastrous, the new God is merely human! No power is recognised outside ourselves... In the past we have been able to cope with slow development in technology, in religion and science. In 1979 it seems to me that changes continue too fast for proper assessment." (59)
Margery continued to be active in politics and was probably the only woman in Britain to be involved in suffrage campaign before the First World War and the Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s. A strong opponent of Margaret Thatcher her last political demonstration was at the age of ninety-eight when she took part in the Women's Day of Action in London. (60)
Margery Corbett Ashby died at Danehill on 22nd May 1981. The Times obituary stated that: "Probably no-one has done more for the emancipation of women during the century than Margery Corbett Ashby." (61)
Primary Sources
(1) Margery Corbett Ashby, Memoirs (1997)
No one can have had a happier childhood than myself, brought up, with a younger brother and sister, in a large, old-fashioned, country house. In my youth I shared every advantage with my brother equally - from love and affection to the best possible education and opportunities, and the critical but unstinted encouragement which to the young is like sunshine to a plant.
My mother became an energetic cyclist, rebuked by her neighbours for showing inches of extremely pretty feet and ankles; regarded as highly indecorous. It was not only to the ankles that the neighbours objected. My parents were Liberals… at that period as much hated and distrusted by the gentry as Communists are today, and regarded as traitors to their class. In consequence they boycotted them… I suspect this boycott threw my energetic mother even more fervently into good works amongst the villagers, where, in the days before the welfare state, poverty was widespread.
(2) Margery Corbett Ashby, Memoirs (1997)
We were educated at home. Lessons were divided. Mother took scripture and music. My father taught us history, geography, mathematics and Latin. From the age of four I read everything I could lay my hands on. I remember lying on the floor reading contemporary accounts of the Indian Mutiny and the Crimean War in my grandfather's library, where there was a complete set of Illustrated London News. He had bookshelves to the ceiling… In my father's library the big bookcases also went up to the ceiling.
(3) Mary Hamilton, Remembering Good Friends (1944)
Margery's mother, Marie Corbett, was an ardent Feminist, one small external sign being the fact that she regularly wore the breeches she had taken to when bicycling came in, at least a decade before war-time made them permissible. She was a woman of great drive, active in local affairs and local government and all good causes. The house was apt to swarm with people. The Corbett's hospitality was in the best English tradition. Friends of Margery, of her younger sister Cicely - extravagantly pretty, and at the time we were at Cambridge, preparing to go Oxford and of her elder brother Adrian, then at Oxford, assembled for dances and week-end parties…. At college Margery was intensely keen on civil liberties, free trade, international good will, democracy… She spends time and energy without stint or personal ambition… She has an immense sense of duty, and must have spent a very large part of her entire life on committees and at meetings. Not to like her is and always has been impossible; she has charm and complete sincerity, and has made a success of life, in its essential relationships. She was a good daughter: she is a good wife and mother. The one boy, born during the 1914 war, when his father was in France with the B.E.F., was, as a baby, so delicate that it did not seem possible he should live; Margery insisted that he should; he has grown up a superb physical specimen.
(4) Margery Corbett Ashby, Memoirs (1997)
Three platforms of heavy farm waggons were there (Nottingham market square). I was speaking from one when I noticed something which looked like flying foxes attacking the far platform. It was dried haddocks being used as missiles by a cheerful crowd of racegoers returning from the races.... The police were powerless, but ordered us off the waggon and tried to escort us through the mob. Suddenly the mill girls took a hand, and within minutes the young toughs had met their match, and let us through. We were put on a tram to the station....
The next day the Mayor solemnly offered Mrs Fawcett the official apologies of the city. The publicity did us far more gold than any quiet meeting could have done.
(5) Margery Corbett Ashby, Memoirs (1997)
The women working for the cause aroused in me a passionate admiration for women as women. They created a new loyalty which has stayed by me all my life. It is, I suppose, impossible for the young British women of today to realise the intoxication we felt at belief in our capacity for assuming responsibilities. All around one was the wisdom of centuries that women were inferior to men in all respects except in sexual morality and capacity for self-sacrifice. Society seemed immutably built on a foundation of this God-ordained law and custom-enforced inequality. Yet here were women who challenged the whole conception, who maintained that women were beings with personal qualities and capacities as varied as those of men and equalities and capacities as varied as those of men and equality entitled to their full development.
(6) East Grinstead Observer (27th May 1911)
There was a large attendance at a "At Home" held at Hurst-on-Clays, East Grinstead, by kind permission of Lady Jeannie Lucinda Musgrave on Tuesday afternoon. Mrs. Archibald Colquhoun of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League said that women had never possessed the right to vote for Members of Parliament in this country nor in any great country, and although the women’s vote had been granted in one or two smaller countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, no great empire have given women’s a voice in running the country. Women have not had the political experience that men had, and, on the whole, did not want the vote, and had little knowledge of, or interest in, politics. Politics would go on without the help of women, but the home wouldn’t.
The speaker also stated that in a recent canvas by postcard, of the 200 odd women in East Grinstead, they found that 80 did not want the vote, 40 did want the vote and the remainder would not sufficiently interested in replying.Lady Musgrave, President of the East Grinstead branch of the Anti-Suffragette League said she was strongly against the franchise being extended to women, for she did not think it would do any good whatsoever, and in sex interests, would do a lot of harm. She quoted the words of Lady Jersey: "Put not this additional burden upon us." Women were not equal to men in endurance or nervous energy, and she thought she might say, on the whole, in intellect.
(7) The East Grinstead Observer (26th July, 1913)
The main streets of East Grinstead were disgraced by some extraordinary proceedings on Tuesday evening. The non-militant section of the advocates of securing women’s suffrage had arranged a march and public meeting on its way to the great demonstration in London. The "procession" was not an imposing one. It consisted of about ten ladies who were members of the Suffrage Society. Mrs. Marie Corbett led the way carrying a silken banner bearing the arms of East Grinstead. The reception, which the little band of ladies got, was no means friendly. Yells and hooting greeted them throughout most of the entire march, and they were the targets for occasional pieces of turf, especially when they passed through Queen’s Road. In the High Street they found a crowd of about 1,500 people awaiting them.
Edward Steer had promised to act as chairman, and taking his stand against one of the trees on the slope he began by saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen". This was practically as far as he got with his speech. Immediately there was an outburst of yells and laughter and shouting. Laurence Housman, the famous writer, got no better than Mr. Steer. By this time pieces of turf and a few ripe tomatoes and highly seasoned eggs were flying about, and were not always received by the person they were intended for. The unsavoury odur of eggs was noticeable over a considerable area. Unhappily, Miss Helen Hoare of Charlwood Farm, was struck in the face with a missile and received a cut on the cheek and was taken away for treatment.
Some of the women were invited to take shelter in Mr. Allwork’s house, but as they entered the crowd rushed the doorway and forced themselves into the house. The police arrived and the ladies were taken out the back way and escorted them to the Dorset Arms Hotel, their headquarters, and this was for a long time besieged by a yelling mob…. Mrs. Marie Corbett slipped away and took up a position lower down the High Street on the steps of the drinking fountain. A young clergyman who appealed for fair play was roughly hustled and lost his hat. Mrs. Corbett had began to speak from the fountain steps but the crowd moved down the High Street and broke up her small meeting.
(8) Margery Corbett Ashby, letter to the International Women's Alliance committee (15th October, 1938)
The Alliance was founded to ask for equality between women and men in a world that for the most part believed in peace and democracy, justice and tolerance. Today justice and tolerance do not exist over ever increasing areas. We have to fight against new barbarisms. On October 1st in order to avoid the war they had done nothing to prevent, the two great democracies of Europe surrendered to the threat of force and joined hands with the dictators over the body of the victim. I cannot, as a British woman, find it possible any longer to lead an international body. It would need constant and painful contests between my beliefs and my Government's policy.
(9) Margery Corbett Ashby, letter to her granddaughter (1979)
Today we are seeing the perhaps temporary decline and decay of western industrialisation. We are threatened by a worship of size and speed which is taking us away from the pride and pleasure in personal success and in work and craftsmanship. Man is treated as a cog in larger and faster machines, which in each improvement throw men on the scrap-heap of unemployment. What religion and art does this new machine-led civilisation bring? All previous civilisations have embodied in their thinking some new aspect of God, Maker of heaven and Earth, a great Power outside the petty powers of men, and able to control their destiny. Our new civilisation makes men's souls and bodies subordinate to the demands of machines. More disastrous, the new God is merely human! No power is recognised outside ourselves...
In the past we have been able to cope with slow development in technology, in religion and science. In 1979 it seems to me that changes continue too fast for proper assessment.