None known

32

Single

Eagle House, Batheaston, Bath

WSPU

Evades

Mary Blathwayt was a suffragette from the city of Bath. Born in 1879, she was the first of two children of Col. Linley Blathwayt and Emily Blathwayt. Cynthia Hammond describes the family as: ‘decorous and comfortably well off, the Blathwayt’s were neither economically marginal nor revolutionary in their dress, comportment or social values’. Mary’s father purchased Eagle House on the outskirts of Bath in 1882 after retiring from service in India. The house was built by John Wood the elder, famous architect of Georgian Bath and it came with four acres of land. This land would later become the scene of many suffragette activities. Mary and her parents all were diarists, and it is from Mary and her mother's writings in particular that their suffrage activities can be revealed. Mary's diaries show her to be a shrewd woman with a tendency to write in a precise and detailed way. She recorded timings to the minute, for example, train journeys were a particular interest and mentioned frequently. She spent a lot of time cycling, swimming and even shooting. Her bicycle in particular enabled Mary to travel frequently into Bath and partake in many suffrage activities. Mary taught violin lessons at Eagle House and outside of her home she was involved in many societies. By 1906, Mary had joined the WSPU and then the NUWSS in 1907. Perhaps the most well-known suffrage activity that occurred in Bath was in fact, the collaborative work of the Blathwayt family in their own garden. In April 1909, Emily Blathwayt wrote in her diary that the ‘idea of a field of trees grows.’ No one knows exactly where the idea came from, but it was perhaps influenced by frequent visitor Annie Kenney; the field of trees was known as ‘Annie’s Arboretum’. Around sixty women visited Eagle House, including the Pankhursts, and planted a tree in their name in response to the political torture faced in prisons from forcible feeding. Eagle House was a place of sanctuary and had a special summerhouse called ‘Suffragettes Rest’ where women could practice speeches, write letters and recover. Mary developed a particularly close friendship with Annie Kenney and assisted her with the West of England campaigning and moved to Bristol with her for a short while. By 1911, Mary had moved back home as the campaigning had taken a strain on her health. A few days before the census, the Bath Chronicle reported that the ‘Suffragettes of this City and district, who are bent on evading the Census return are making elaborate plans for next Sunday night’. The Bath WSPU organiser Mrs Mansel rented 12 Lansdown Crescent for women to hide and spend the night in on the 2nd of April 1911 to evade the census. Mary described the evening: ‘I got there before 10 o’ clock. A little crowd of people were standing in the doorway...I took a nightdress etc. with me...we had a charming room to hold our meeting.’ After Emily Blathwayt resigned on the 8th of September 1909, Mary resigned from the WSPU in June 1913. She was still active but strictly non-militant. Militancy only got worse in Bath after this. On the 15th of May 1917 a Women’s Suffrage Bill was introduced and passed on the 6th of February 1918. Women obtained full voting rights in July 1928. Mary made no comment in her diary. Contributed by Ellis Naylor (BA, MA) Bath Spa University. Sources used: Gloucestershire Archives, D2659, Mary Blathwayt, Diary Gloucestershire Archives, D2659, Emily Blathwayt, Diary Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1906-1913) Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: Reference Guide 1866-1928, (Routledge, 2003); Hammond, Cynthia, Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765- 1965: Engaging with Women’s Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape, (Routledge, 2016); Hammond, Cynthia and Brown, Dan, Suffragettes in Bath, Activism in an Edwardian Arboretum, (Bath in Time, 2011); Hammond, Cynthia ‘Suffragette City: Spacial Knowledge and Suffrage Work in Bath, 1909-14’, in Bath History Volume XIII, ed. By Graham Davis, (Bath Spa University, 2013); Hannam, June, ‘“Suffragettes are Splendid for Any Work”: The Blathwayt Diaries as A Source for Suffrage History’ in A Suffrage Reader, Charting directions in British suffrage history, ed. By Claire Eustance, Joan Ryan, Laura Ugolini (Leicester University Press, 2000); June Hannam, ‘Suffragette Photographs’, Regional Historian, 8, (2002); Wilmott Dobbie, B. M. , A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset, (The Batheaston Society, 1979).