In 1894
Reverend Clement Reginald Tollemache (1835–1895) moved to The Villa, Batheaston
with his wife, Frances Josephine, and three daughters, Mary, Grace and Aethel. The
family had been living in Brighton, where the Reverend Tollemache had settled
after ministering in India for some years. His daughters were all born in India.
In Batheaston, Reverend Tollemache gave ministerial assistance at St John’s and
St Catherine’s churches. However, he did not enjoy his new home for long, and
died in November 1895.
In
1903 the eldest of the three sisters, Mary, married Bernard Charles Spencer
Everett, a canon at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Grace (1871–1952) and Aethel
(1874–1955) remained in Batheaston. Here their lives took an arguably much more
exciting turn than that of their sister in the quiet precincts of The Cloisters
at Windsor Castle.
In
1907 Aethel Tollemache and her friend and neighbour Mary Blathwayt of Eagle
House, Batheaston went to a meeting in the Victoria Rooms, Bristol. They heard
speeches by Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence and Annie Kenney of
the Women’s Social and Political Union. Mary and Aethel were converted to the
cause and joined the WSPU. Aethel’s mother and sister were not far behind Aethel
in declaring their allegiance to the militant suffrage movement.
They
were soon engaged in a round of fund raising, attending and organising meetings
and events in London, Bristol and Bath. In 1909 the Tollemaches lent their
garden for a talk by the author Laurence Housman, an active supporter of votes
for women. The Blathwayts had opened their home to
suffragettes who needed a place to stay when visiting the West Country, or
somewhere to recuperate after their release from prison. The Tollemaches often entertained suffragette leaders such as Mrs
Pankhurst and Annie Kenney to tea when they were staying at Eagle House. Grace and Aethel were
both honorary secretaries of the Bath Branch of the WSPU, which had a shop at
12 Walcot Street.
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| Laurence Housman with his sister Clemence, both suffrage campaigners |
On
18 June 1910, Grace, Aethel and Mary Blathwayt marched behind the Bath banner in
a great suffrage procession in London. The Tollemache sisters were joined by their sister Mary
and brother-in-law, the Reverend Everett. In the Albert Hall they listened to
speeches by Mrs Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, Lord Lytton, Christabel Pankhurst
and Annie Kenney.
Meanwhile,
Mrs Tollemache adopted another form of protest: tax resistance, based on the
principle ‘No vote, no tax’. In 1911 she refused to pay her taxes; some of her furniture
was seized by the bailiffs and auctioned at the White Hart in Batheaston. Her
property was purchased by sympathisers and returned to her. In 1912 she
repeated her protest. This time her silver was seized and auctioned at the
White Hart. The sale of one piece was sufficient to cover her costs, and this
was duly returned to her. Outside, suffragettes demonstrated with banners and
speeches. In 1913 she again withheld her taxes and similar scenes took place. Mary
Blathwayt, Aethel, Grace and other suffragettes, together with members of the
Tax Resistance League, attended the auction. At the start of the bidding, Grace
announced that she protested against the sale. Afterwards, their sister Mary chaired
a suffrage meeting in the street; her husband was also present. During the
auction in 1914, suffragettes once again marched through Batheaston to show
their support for their tax-resisting colleague.
 |
| Suffragettes march with "No Vote, No Tax" banners, 1911 |
In
1911 suffrage campaigners engaged in the Census Resistance campaign. All over
the country, women raised the cry “If we don’t count, we refuse to be counted”,
and took measures to avoid filling in their census forms. Many spent the night
away from their homes so that the census enumerators could not include them in
the returns. Grace and Aethel joined other women from Bath and Bristol at 12
Lansdown Crescent, a house rented for the purpose by Bath organiser Mrs Mansel.
The women passed the night pleasantly with music, recitations, and a lecture on
clairvoyance. The Tollemaches were a musical family and the sisters joined in
the entertainment: Grace played the violin with Aethel accompanying her on
piano.
By 1911
Aethel was also taking part in more extreme militancy. In November she joined a
WSPU deputation to the House of Commons and was amongst the two hundred women arrested
after she broke a window at the National Liberal Club. She was sentenced to
fourteen days’ imprisonment. The following year it was Grace’s turn to break
windows. She took part in the well-orchestrated, major window breaking action in
London on 1 and 4 March 1912, when women smashed windows in Knightsbridge, Oxford
Street, on the Strand, Regent Street, and in Whitehall. Grace took part in the
second day of the protest, and was one of the hundred and twenty women who were
arrested after she broke government office windows. She was sentenced to two
months with hard labour. In prison she went on hunger strike, but was not
forcibly fed.
In
August 1912, the Tollemache sisters drove around Bath in a wagonette covered with
suffragette posters, which stopped at local flower shows, gymkhanas and sporting
events. That year too saw the disagreement about militant tactics between Mrs
Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst and Frederick and Emmeline Pethick Lawrence which
led to the dismissal of the Pethick Lawrences from the WSPU. Grace and Aethel
signed a declaration of loyalty to Mrs Pankhurst. Sent from the Bath WSPU, it
addressed Mrs Pankhurst as “the Queen of Women. We, the members of the Bath
Branch of the WSPU, wish to convey to you our unswerving loyalty to your person,
and our grateful appreciation of your leadership of the Militant Campaign in
the Women’s Movement”.
But
by now their friends the Blathwayts, who had never engaged in militancy, had become thoroughly disenchanted with the suffragette tactics. Mary’s mother, Mrs Emily Blathwayt, had already resigned
from the WSPU in 1909 following an assault on the Prime Minister, Herbert Henry
Asquith, by three suffragettes. As suffragette militancy escalated to include
arson and vandalism, Mrs Blathwayt advised Grace Tollemache that the Blathwayts
could no longer offer hospitality to Mrs Pankhurst and other militants. The
Tollemaches took over their role as hosts of suffragette visitors. Mary
Blathwayt resigned from the WSPU in
1913.
Relations
with the Blathwayts were less cordial than they had been. Mrs Blathwayt, relieved
that her daughter had withdrawn from the WSPU at last, noted in her diary that
she felt ashamed to be connected with the WSPU. When an empty house at Lansdown,
near Bath, was targeted by arson in 1913, she immediately suspected the
Tollemaches. Suspicion also fell on the Tollemaches when a house at Westwood in
Wiltshire was burned following a meeting of the Agriculture Minister, Walter Runciman,
in Trowbridge which had been interrupted by a number of suffragettes. Grace and
Aethel were amongst the protesters. Mrs Blathwayt had called Aethel “madder
than ever” after her arrest in 1911, and in Batheaston generally, Aethel was known
as “the mad one”.
Suffragists
had been subjected to violence from the very early days, but now the atmosphere
became increasingly nasty. Both militant and non-militant campaigners were
often attacked by hostile crowds. At a meeting in Trowbridge in April 1913 the
police had to hide the Tollemache sisters and other suffragettes in the police
cells to protect them from a violent crowd.
Mob
violence, imprisonment, and the disapproval of their friends and neighbours did
not deter the sisters. Aethel took part in a deputation to the House of Commons
on 28 January 1913 and was sentenced to seven days in prison for window
breaking. Grace and Aethel were both arrested during the WSPU demonstration
outside Buckingham Palace on 21 May 1914. Grace was sentenced to one day in
prison for obstruction, but Aethel’s sentence was longer. In Holloway, Aethel
went on hunger and thirst strike.
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| Mrs Pankhurst arrested at Buckingham Palace, 21 May 1914 |
In
what was probably the last militant act associated with the Tollemaches, one or
both of the sisters protested during the enthronement of the new Bishop of
Bristol, Dr George Nickson, in Bristol Cathedral on 1 July 1914. When she started
to speak about women’s suffrage she was gagged and thrown out. According to
reports, the disturbance went largely unnoticed.
Mrs Pankhurst
suspended suffragette militancy at the start of the First World War and channelled
the efforts of the WSPU into supporting the war. The WSPU was eventually
renamed the Women’s Party, and played little part in the agitation for the 1918
Representation of the People Act which enfranchised women over thirty who met a
property qualification. The Tollemaches also did their bit in war time, turning
their garden over to growing food which they sold at a market stall. They also encouraged
women in Twerton to cultivate land near their cottages.
Aethel
became a pacifist and joined Sylvia Pankhurst’s East London Federation of Suffragettes
which was based in the East End of London. Socialist, suffragist and pacifist Sylvia
campaigned tirelessly against the war. Aethel and a colleague were arrested in Leytonstone
while collecting signatures for a peace memorial. They were released with a
warning that if they persisted they would be prosecuted under the Defence of
the Realm Act.
Their
mother, Frances Tollemache, died in 1925. Grace and Aethel continued to be
involved in causes such as the anti-vivisection movement. They were both vegetarians,
and in prison when not on hunger strike had lived on bread, butter, milk and eggs.
In the 1930s they turned part of The Villa into a hostel for hikers. In
February 1934 they gave lunch to a party of Welsh hunger marchers who were protesting
against unemployment when they passed through Batheaston. They also offered
their home for Labour Party meetings. In addition, they continued their musical
pursuits, and were often to be found giving recitals and performances in and around
Bath.
Grace
Tollemache died in 1952 and Aethel Tollemache in 1955.
Picture Credits: Women's Library on Flickr, No Known Copyright Restrictions
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