None given

43

Married

Bayford Lodge, Wincanton, Somerset

WSPU

Evades

Mrs Mildred Ella Mansel (1868-1942) was the daughter of women's suffrage campaigner, Adeline Chapman and her first husband, Arthur Guest, and granddaughter of Lady Charlotte Guest, the linguist, businesswoman and collector. Her cousin, Ivor Guest, was a Liberal Chief Whip and staunch anti-suffragist. She was married in 1888 to Colonel John Delalynde Mansel and had two daughters and a son. By 1909, Mrs Mansel had become a member for the Women's Social and Political Union and was arrested that year after taking part in a deputation from Caxton Hall. After chairing the Sherborne NUWSS organisation in 1909, in 1910, she became the organiser for the Bath WSPU, in the same year she also set up a branch in Yeovil. In 1911, Mrs Mansel organised the Bath WSPU Census Evasion and hired 12 Lansdowne Crescent in Bath so that suffrage protestors could stay the night to evade the census. Thirty-six women in total evaded the census, including Mary Blathwayt, another prominent suffragette from Bath (see image). On the 6th of April 1911, the 'Bath Chronicle' produced an extensive report on the events. Mrs Mansel had invited a reporter to interview her and to show him where the evasion was going to take place before the evasion took place. The reporter met Mrs Mansel in Bath and together they walked to the house where ‘she seized the opportunity afforded by the walk to attempt to show what an unanswerable cause the Suffragettes have.’ Although being known to support militant methods, Mrs Mansel was able to tactically promote the event as anti-militant, and yet by inviting an outside witness, the reporter from the 'Bath Chronicle', into their temporary home, the women had invited the wider Bath community to reflect on the ideology of femininity and the women’s sphere, and how that very realm could in fact be a site of radical and political resistance. Mrs Mansel was fundamental to the women's suffrage campaign in Bath. As well as writing often for the 'Bath Chronicle'. The meetings she chaired for the Bath WSPU branch were often reported on, whilst her activities, such as leading many demonstrations within the city, were also acknowledged. As well as the Census Evasion, Mildred Mansel was a supporter of tax evasion; in the same year as the Census Evasion, Mrs Mansel led a demonstration at a Bath auction house to promote these tactics. In 1910, Mrs Mansel planted a tree at the Blathwayt's living memorial arboretum for the women's suffrage cause at Eagle House in Bath, alongside many other trees planted by suffragettes who had visited, including the Pankhursts. The arboretum is destroyed, but her plaque has survived and is at the Roman Baths museum. Elsewhere outside of Bath, Mrs Mansel was also highly active. She was imprisoned for a week after smashing windows at the London War Office, she was great friends with Lady Constance Lytton, and in 1913 she visited Christabel Pankhurst in Paris. Mrs Mansel also owned an apartment in London where she could carry out her activism from the city. Contributed by Ellis Naylor (BA, MA) Bath Spa University. Sources: Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928, (Routledge, 2003); Hammond, Cynthia, ‘Suffragette City: Spatial Knowledge and Suffrage Work in Bath, 1909-14’, in Bath History Volume XIII, ed. By Graham Davis, (Bath Spa University, 2013); John, Angela V. 'Schreiber [née Bertie; other married name Guest], Lady Charlotte Elizabeth (1812–1895)' (2004) https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-24832?rskey=LjEZFR&result=2; Crawford, Elizabeth, 'Chapman [née Chapman; former married name Guest], Adeline Mary (1847–1931)' (2019); Hassall, Rachel, 'Sherborne & the fight for women’s suffrage' (2020) https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/sherborne-the-fight-for-womens-suffrage/; Newspapers the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, from the British Newspaper Archives (1910-1914).