Canon

43

Married

St Michael's Vicarage, Coventry

NUWSS

Complies

John Howard Bertram Masterman was born in 1867 in Tunbridge Wells. He was educated at Weymouth College and at St John's College, Cambridge, and was appointed Canon of Birmingham cathedral in 1906. In 1907, he took charge of St Michael's, Coventry, where he also took up the votes for women cause. He became a speaker at suffrage meetings, and accompanied his wife - a member of the Coventry Women's Suffrage Society - to meetings on numerous occasions. In 1912, the couple left Coventry, when John was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to take a new post at Mary-le-bow in Cheapside, London. However, he did not leave behind the suffrage cause. In 1913, he held a public women's suffrage rally in his new London parish, where he made clear his ardent support but his disagreement with the suffragettes militant tactics. Speaking at the rally about suffrage campaigning, he said, 'it did not matter only that they did win, it mattered how they won...' and campaigners should '...resolve that they would come through with untarnished hands, even if the fight took longer to win'. Researcher: Tara Morton. Coventry research funded by Warwick University.