Social Worker

45

Single

63 Union Road, Rotherhithe, Bermondsey

WFL?

Evades

Maria was born in 1866 in London - the same year that the first nationally organised petition for female suffrage was handed to parliament by Liberal M.P John Stuart Mill. By 1901, Maria was living in Kent with her sister Edith. The two employed three servants and described themselves as living ‘on own means’ and so were likely in receipt of an annuity from their father, a wealthy merchant. Three years later in 1904, we find Maria working to help those in poverty at the Bermondsey Settlement and occupying a property in Rotherhithe rented in relation to her activities there. This property rental allowed Maria, with fellow Settlement worker (see) Anna Martin, to claim for and successfully win the right to be listed on the municipal voters register that year, despite opposition in court from a local Conservative M.P.

By 1911, women’s right to vote was important enough to Maria to take part in the illegal boycott of the government census organised by suffrage societies like the Women's Freedom League (WFL) and the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in protest at women’s exclusion from the franchise. She was then living at 63 Union Road and performed her protest together with fellow residents Anna Martin and Miss Britten. Maria chose to ‘evade’ the census, leaving her form completely blank (see images). However, she did write on the cover, ‘I refuse to fill up form as a protest against a non-representative Government’. We have supposed for the moment on our map, that she was a supporter of the WFL due to her participation in the boycott and the likely societal sympathies of her fellow residents and settlement workers. The following year in 1912, Maria donated £1 in response to an appeal to raise funds for the children of families struggling as a result of a transport workers strike, via the socialist newspaper the Daily Herald, publicly supported by the WFL.

We know little else about Maria at present, other than she died in 1938 aged 72 at her later home in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, which she shared with sister Edith. An open verdict was declared on her death which was ascribed to a 60ft fall from a balcony at her home and was suggested by her sister to have been suicide. A brief obituary about Maria refers to her love of painting and her work at the Bermondsey Settlement for which she was clearly well remembered.

Can you tell us more about Maria’s life? If so, please contact us.

Researcher: Tara Morton.