Social Reformer

33

Single

11 Silverdale Road, Eastbourne

WSPU

Complies

The eldest daughter of Charles Radcliffe Cooke, anti-suffragist MP, Constance Chellingworth Radcliffe Cooke was born in London in 1877. When her father inherited Hellens Manor in Herefordshire the family moved there in 1881, and she took an active part in the women’s suffrage campaign in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and London, from 1908 onwards. She was a member of the WSPU and was involved in a poster parade from Hereford Cathedral in November 1913 alongside (see) Reverend and Ethel Davis. She was a campaigner for public health improvements both in Herefordshire and the Isle of Wight, where she lived for a number of years, and was a member of the Labour Party, and later joined CND. Constance campaigned on environmental issues, wrote books, and was a prolific linguistics and local history researcher. In 1911, she complied with the census despite belonging to the WSPU who encouraged a census boycott, probably because she was working at Elsie Randall's cookery school in Eastbourne though she still managed to describe herself on her census return as a "social reformer". Constance died in 1963, leaving her remarkable collection of papers and photographs to the Herefordshire Archives. Researched and contributed by Herefordshire community fundraiser & author Clare Wichbold, MBE. Source: Herefordshire Archives and Records Centre, E69, personal papers of Constance Radcliffe Cooke. Also see Clare's blog 'These suffrage papers are to be given to Hereford Museum and Library' about Constance on our Suffrage Blogs & News page.