Analytical chemist

53

Married

Glengariff, Kew Road, Kew

MLWS

Evades

The whole Clayton family was deeply involved in the suffrage movement. Edwy Clayton’s wife, Clara, and daughter, Hilda, were very active members of the WSPU and the Church League for Women’s suffrage. In 1913 Clayton was suspected of providing materials to make explosives used in suffragette attacks on property. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, went on hunger strike, and was eventually released under the Cat and Mouse Act. As a result of the prosecution his business was, apparently, ruined. Clayton belonged to the Men's League for Women's Suffrage and also the Men's Politcal Union (MPU). The Men's League was founded in 1907, 'with the object of bringing to bear upon the movement the electoral power of men... to obtain for women the vote on the same terms as which it is now, or may be in the future, be granted to men'. The MPU founded in 1910 was a militant society - the male equivalent of the WSPU. For more information see the entry for Edwy Clayton in Elizabeth Crawford: The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide, 1866-1928 (London: Routledge, 2001).