Independent means

47

Married

2 Lyndhurst Avenue, Cliftonville, Margate, Kent

NUWSS

Complies

Beatrice Ethel Chapman (b. 1864) was born Oetzmann, and was descended from a German family. She married Harry Chapman when she was 32 years old in 1895. Harry was manager of a watermill in Hertfordshire but Beatrice felt that the damp river valley was an unhealthy place to bring up her two daughters so spent long periods living by the sea in Margate. She was a strong character and rather eccentric, who was fiercely argumentative about the “superiority of women”. While in Margate she threw herself wholeheartedly into the work of the local suffrage society. She was Honorary Secretary for the Margate NUWSS. This information was published in The Common Cause, 4 July 1913 as part of promoting the NUWSS pilgrimage from Kent to London. Beatrice was recorded in the 1911 census, but her husband is not listed as he remained in Hertfordshire. Her two daughters, Beatrice Muriel, 14, and Florence Furnival, 10, are both recorded as scholars. Throughout 1913, and up until the outbreak of war in 1914, Beatrice, in her capacity as Honorary Secretary of the Margate branch of the NUWSS, wrote almost weekly to the local papers on matters concerning women’s issues and the suffrage campaign. For more information see, Jennifer Godfrey, Suffragettes of Kent, (Pen & Sword Ltd, 2019). Researched & contributed by Jennifer Godfrey. Since appearing on the map, Beatrice's story has been added to with thanks to local Kent historian Laura Probert who also provided images courtesy of Beatrice Chapman's grand daughter Diana Spence.