None known

50

Single

Lower Rookery, Ditchling, Sussex

NUWSS

Complies

Rose Chute Ellis (1861-1947) was the daughter of a member of the Legislative Council of South Australia, and appears to have come to Sussex in 1908, the year of the marriage of her brother, Boer War veteran Lt-Col William Chute Ellis, to Constance, the youngest of the four Bull sisters who ran a girls’ school at their home, Trevelyan, in Haywards Heath. Rose lived first in Ditchling with her companion Susan Armitage and Susan’s orphaned niece and nephew. By 1911 Rose was a popular speaker for the Central Sussex Women’s Suffrage Society (CSWSS): a speech at a summer garden meeting was reportedly ‘as refreshing as fizzing magnesia’. With Brighton’s Edith Pickworth and (see) Flora de Gaudrion Merrifield, Rose addressed outreach meetings in Ditchling and the village of Streat. In 1912 she and Susan moved their household to Cuckfield to live near CSWSS secretary and treasurer, (see) Edith Bevan, and helped Edith Bevan organise the Haywards Heath Sweated Industries Exhibition. Rose was on the platform at its opening, with Flora, Marie Corbett, and Louisa Martindale. As a member of the Girls Friendly Society, she worked with Dorothy Bonavia Hunt and her mother, and Mrs Bonavia Hunt expressed appreciation of the ‘spiritual aspect’ of Rose’s suffragist principles. Rose was the leading light of the Sussex Suffrage Amateurs, who performed plays written for the Actresses’ Franchise League. A favourite was A Chat with Mrs Chicky. Rose always played the title role; those who took a turn to play opposite her included (see) Alys Russell. Rose enjoyed the support of her brother, Lt-Col Chute Ellis. Declaring himself to have been a suffragist for 30 years, he chaired a meeting, held by the Burgess Hill Pleasant Wednesday Evening Society, addressed by Rose on Woman’s Place and Power in the State. When he and his wife hosted a suffrage garden meeting at their Burgess Hill home in Burgess Hill, he introduced speaker Rose as ‘well-known in the neighbourhood’. On Monday 21 July, Rose was among Cuckfield and Central Sussex suffragists, led by Edith Bevan and accompanied by photographer (see) Douglas Miller, who met suffrage Pilgrims from Brighton at Stonepound Crossroads, Hassocks. The following morning, she and Susan joined Edith Bevan, (see) Marie Corbett, (see) Louisa Martindale, Flora de Gaudrion Merrifield, (see) Dorothy Bonavia Hunt, and other CSWSS members, to set off from Cuckfield for the second day of marching. At the Hyde Park rally at the end of that week, Rose, Susan, and Edith were among the CSWSS stalwarts present around the Reformers’ Tree. A month later, at a CSWSS meeting at Ditchling, Rose referred to the Pilgrimage as ‘the most delightful week of my whole life’, a vindication of NUWSS non-militant methods. During the War, Rose’s campaigned for NUWSS hospital tents and children’s welfare; she helped organise a Ministry of Food talk in Cuckfield by (see) Elizabeth Robins. After the War, she and Susan moved with Edith Bevan to East Chiltington, Plumpton. Here Rose became successively founder, secretary, and President of the Plumpton WI, and ten years later, founder member of the League of Nations Plumpton branch. Sources: Mid Sussex Times Sussex Express Common Cause ESRO WI/62/3/1 Plumpton WI scrapbook. NB. the location of Ellen's home is approximated on the map. Contributed by: Frances Stenlake, Independent Researcher & Writer.