Cicely Corbett Fisher
Cicely Corbett, the daughter of Charles Corbett and Marie Corbett, was born at Woodgate, Danehill, Sussex on 9th August, 1885. Cicely and her older sister, Margery 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)
Cicely's parents believed they had a responsibility to help the less fortunate members of the community and for many years the couple provided free legal advice for people living in the area. (2)
Marie Corbett was a member of the Uckfield Board of Guardians. Later she was the first woman to serve on the Uckfield District Council. Marie also took an active role in national politics and was one of the three women who founded the Liberal Women's Suffrage Society. When attempts to persuade the Liberal Government to introduce measures to give women the vote ended in failure, Marie became active in the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies. (3)
Cicely Corbett Young Suffragist
At the age of fifteen, Cicely, Margery and a group of friends formed a society called the Younger Suffragists. Mary Hamilton was a regular visitor to Danehill. "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." (4)
Louisa Martindale was another family friend: "My mother became friends with Marie Corbett of Danehill, a remarkable woman who not only threw herself heart and soul into the cause, but also educated her daughters (now Mrs Margery Corbett Ashby and Mrs Cicely Corbett Fisher) to take the leading place they have in public life." (5)
For many years Charles Corbett and Marie Corbett made public speeches on the subject of women's rights in East Grinstead High Street. Margery Corbett later pointed out: "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." (6)
East Grinstead Suffrage Society
In 1904 Cicely went to Somerville College, Oxford to study Modern History. While at Oxford she was an active member of the local branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Later that year Marie Corbett took Cicely and Margery to Berlin, where they attended the first meeting of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. (7)
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." (8)
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). (9) "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. (10)
Women's Industrial Council
In 1911 Cicely Corbett, Marie Corbett, Margery Corbett Ashby, Muriel, Countess de la Warr, Helga Gill, Rosalind Gray-Hill (also Secretary of the International Women's Franchise Club), Grace Dykes Spicer and Lila Durham formed the East Grinstead Suffrage Society. In the 1911 Census returns Gill, Gray-Hill and Spicer were all living with the Corbetts at Woodgate, Danehill. (11)
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." (12)
After completing her university studies, Cicely Corbett went to work with Clementina Black at the Women's Industrial Council, an organisation that campaigned against low pay and bad working conditions. By 1910 women made up almost one third of the working population. The vast majority worked in jobs with low pay and poor conditions. Cicely was also an active member of the Anti-Sweating League and in the years preceding the start of the First World War, she organised several conferences on the subject. At the time sweated labour was defined as "(i) working long hours, (ii) for low wages, (iii) under unsanitary conditions". (13)
Most sweated labour took place in the homes of workers. Cicely Corbett's conferences often included speeches and demonstrations of sweated labour by women from industrial towns and cities. At another meeting Cicely argued: "Women are often forced out into the labour market because men either could not or would not earn their living for them, and yet when a minimum wage was fixed for government employees, women were not included in it, and that decision had led to worse sweating of women than before, which would never have been possible if women were included among the voters." (14)
Children employed after school hours in the home were also victims of sweated labour. Cicely argued: "Chief among these evils of sweated labour is the exploitation of child labour. Children of six years and upwards were employed after school hours, in helping to add to the family output and even infants of 3, 4 and 5 years of age work anything from 3 to 6 hours a day in such labour as carding hooks and eyes to add a few pence per week to the wages of the household." (15)
Women's Pilgrimage
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. (16)
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." (17)
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." (18)
Cicely Corbett became a member of the Women's Freedom League (WFL). Like the Women Social & Political Union, the WFL was a militant organisation that was willing the break the law. However, it was against the use of violence. Most of its members were socialists who wanted to work closely with the Labour Party. (19) On 29th June, 1913, was one of the speakers at the Congress Hall. Other speakers included Keir Hardie, Charlotte Despard, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Anita Augsburg. (20)
International Women Suffrage Alliance
In 1913 Cicely Corbett married the radical journalist Chalmers Dempster who adopted the name Fisher. Born in Clougharevan, Bessbrook, County Armagh, the couple meet at Oxford University and during the First World War he reached the rank of Captain in the Army Service Corps. The couple had four children, Jenepher (21st February 1914 - 13th May 2004), Reuben (30th April 1916 - 16th October 1922), Bridget (27th March 1922 - 25th June 2009) and Susanna Tabitha (3rd March 1926 - 13th May 2019) (21)
After the war Cicely was active in the Labour Party and the the International Women Suffrage Alliance. She became one of the organisations main speakers. Corbett Fisher also wrote articles on the subject of international conflict: "The decision taken at the Paris Conference of the International Alliance for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship to study peace questions, was evidently fully approved by the Auxiliaries. The First Study Conference on Peace and the League of Nations that has been held in Amsterdam was a striking success. The delegations were alert, interested and well-informed. The economic and political experts, men and women, were listened to with the closest attention and appreciation and the resolutions (which will be published next week) closely debated. The standard of the speeches was high, and all three Alliance languages were impartially used – very little time was spent on translations and the time-table was strictly adhered to, through the commendable ruthlessness of the various chairman. Three is a universal feeling of satisfaction in so well argued and smooth running a conference more than justifying the expectations of its organizers, to whom infinite credit is due." (22)
At another meeting in 1930, she spoke at a reception for Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, who was President of the International Women Suffrage Alliance. "Mrs Pethick-Lawrence's speech was followed by a stirring address by Mrs Cicely Corbett, bringing greetings from the WILPF and IWS, as well as their English branches. She answered her audience that the pioneer work of the Hungarian women had roused attention and sympathy all over the world, and especially their peace propaganda, which was a valuable contribution to the efforts which women are everywhere making to end war… Mrs Corbett Fisher spoke of the struggle of English women for their political rights and for peace." (23)
Later Life
In 1922 Cicely gave birth to a daughter, Bridget. She later married and moved to Australia where she became a women's civil rights activist, particularly the campaign for abortion law reform. Bridget Gilling "saw abortion as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, with contraception and sex education as the safety fence at the top." (24)
Cicely and her husband shared a love of motor-racing and owned a supercharged MG K3004 and between 1937 and 1939 the car was driven on her behalf by H. Stuart-Wilton at Brooklands, Crystal Palace and Brighton Speed Trials. (25)
Chalmers Dempster Corbett Fisher died on 23rd December 1952. His effects, valued at £13,935, were administered by his two sons-in-laws. (26)
Cicely Corbett Fisher died at Danehill in 20th January, 1959. Probate was granted to her married daughters Jenepher Horton and Susanna Tabitha Mockridge. Effects were valued at £14,419.
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) 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.
(3) Hilda Martindale, From One Generation to Another (1944)
In the 1860s mother began reading widely, and learnt how Mary Wollstonecraft had vindicated the rights of women in burning words, how Caroline Norton had struggled for her rights over her children, and how Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson showed what determination was needed by young women who wished for academic or professional education. She read Barbara Bodichon's Englishwomen's Journal, which discovered and exposed the obstacles to the employment of educated women, and she learnt about Florence Nightingale and her work on the vast problem of nursing and sanitary administration. In the 1860s women realised that the only way to civil rights, higher education, and equal status lay through the parliamentary franchise… My mother became friends with Marie Corbett of Danehill, a remarkable woman who not only threw herself heart and soul into the cause, but also educated her daughters (now Mrs Margery Corbett Ashby and Mrs Cicely Corbett Fisher) to take the leading place they have in public life.
(4) Cicely Corbett Fisher, speech at a East Grinstead Liberal Association meeting at Queen's Hall (7th February, 1912)
Women are often forced out into the labour market because men either could not or would not earn their living for them, and yet when a minimum wage was fixed for government employees, women were not included in it, and that decision had led to worse sweating of women than before, which would never have been possible if women were included among the voters.
(5) Cicely Corbett Fisher, a representative of the Women's Industrial Council, gave a talk on sweated labour at East Grinstead on 14th May 1912.
Sweated labour may be defined as (1) working long hours, (2) for low wages, (3) under insanitary conditions. Although its victims include men as well as women, women form the great majority of sweated workers. The chief difficulty is combating this evil abuse is that nearly all sweated work is done in the homes of the workers. During the recent strike of Jam makers in Bermondsey the wages of the girls only just sufficed to provide them with food, and left no margin whatsoever for the purchase of clothes, for which they were entirely dependent on gifts from friends… Chief among these evils of sweated labour is the exploitation of child labour. Children of six years and upwards were employed after school hours, in helping to add to the family output and even infants of 3, 4 and 5 years of age work anything from 3 to 6 hours a day in such labour as carding hooks and eyes to add a few pence per week to the wages of the household.
(6) Cicely Corbett Fisher, The Common Cause (25 November 1927)
The decision taken at the Paris Conference of the International Alliance for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship to study peace questions, was evidently fully approved by the Auxiliaries. The First Study Conference on Peace and the League of Nations that has been held in Amsterdam was a striking success. The delegations were alert, interested and well-informed. The economic and political experts, men and women, were listened to with the closest attention and appreciation and the resolutions (which will be published next week) closely debated. The standard of the speeches was high, and all three Alliance languages were impartially used – very little time was spent on translations and the time-table was strictly adhered to, through the commendable ruthlessness of the various chairman. Three is a universal feeling of satisfaction in so well argued and smooth running a conference more than justifying the expectations of its organizers, to whom infinite credit is due.
(7) International Women's Suffrage News (7th February 1930)
On January 13th we had a dinner and reception to our President, Mrs Pethick-Lawrence, prior to her departure for South Africa, Mr Pethick-Lawrence, MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was also our guest that evening, and received a very warm welcome from his old friends in the Women's Freedom League…
Mrs Pethick-Lawrence's speech was followed by a stirring address by Mrs Cicely Corbett isher, bringing greetings from the WILPF and IWS, as well as their English branches. She answered her audience that the pioneer work of the Hungarian women had roused attention and sympathy all over the world, and especially their peace propaganda, which was a valuable contribution to the efforts which women are everywhere making to end war… Mrs Corbett Fisher spoke of the struggle of English women for their political rights and for peace.
(8) Mid Sussex Times (21 July 1936)
Mr Charles Joseph Henry Corbett of Woodgate, Danehill, Liberal MP for North Sussex from 1906-1910, who died last November at the age of 82, left estate worth £101, 346. On which Estate Duty of £20,420 has been paid. Probate of the will has been granted by his children, Adrian Gray Corbett of Woodgate, farmer; Mrs Margery Irene Corbett Ashby of Uppr Richmond Road, S.W.; and Cicely Deane Corbett Fisher of Heathgate, Golders Green.
(9) Birmingham Daily Gazette (5th November 1937)
The chief speaker will be Mrs Cicely Corbett Fisher. Educated at Somerville College and at Trinity College, Dublin, and was President of Oxford University Women's Debating Society. On coming down from university she acted as lecturer and organiser for women's suffrage (non-militant) and has lectured extensively in Europe.
(10) Mid-Sussex Times (18th February 1941)
Householders summonded for allowing unobscured lights to show during the blackout… included Cicely Dean Corbett Fisher, Newnham Rough, Birch Grove, Horsted Keynes, was fined £3… for allowing a light to be displayed from a bonfire on February 2…. The defendant, who explained that steps were taken to extinguish the bonfire but that the flames broke out again, stated that she was fully aware of the danger of a bonfire at night as her windows had been broken through a bomb being dropped when someone's else bonfire was burning.