None given

Unknown

Single

The Vicarage, Easebourne, West Sussex

WFL

Complies

The Cummin family lived at Easebourne Vicarage from 1892 when Revd Joseph Cummin was appointed Vicar. In July 1908 Muriel Matters’ caravan tour of the Bognor and Chichester area resulted in the formation of a Midhurst/West Sussex WFL branch. Its secretary was Vinvela Cummin, the eldest of the four surviving Cummin sisters; Elsie was treasurer. Florence de Fonblanque chaired its first public meeting, held at Easebourne. When, in October, Muriel Matters was arrested for chaining herself to the Ladies Grille in the House of Commons, Vinvela wrote to North Sussex MP Lord Winterton asking him to support the transfer of Muriel Matters from 3rd to 1st Division. His hostile reply was printed in several provincial newspapers. In March 1909 a triumphal procession preceded a lively meeting at Midhurst welcoming Madge Turner back from imprisonment for trying to present a petition to PM Asquith on behalf of the West Sussex WFL. This was led by WFL founder member Anne Cobden Sanderson, who, as fourth daughter of Richard Cobden, had spent her early years at Dunford House, Midhurst. Vinvela carried the banner donated by her mother. In July 1909 it was widely reported that Elsie was one of four women arrested for refusing to move away from the door of 10 Downing St while waiting for a reply from Asquith to a petition they had handed in. They were sentenced to three weeks in Holloway. A celebratory breakfast and afternoon appearance in Trafalgar Square took place on the day of their release, and each of the women was presented with a prison banner and silver prison brooch at a Caxton Hall reception five days later. Elsie’s return to Easebourne was celebrated at a meeting in the Vicarage where she was presented with an illuminated address. The West Sussex WFL qualified to march, carrying its banner, in the WFL section of the WSPU’s Prisoners’ Pageant in London on 18 June 1910. In April 1910 Vinvela, already ‘the lady member’ of Easebourne Parish Council, stood for the WFL as the first ‘lady’ candidate in the local Rural District Council election. She failed to win one of the three Easebourne seats but was reported to be undeterred by her defeat and began to campaign with other local suffragists at meetings of the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution. A particular Easebourne ally of the Cummin sisters was Annie Roff who later joined Florence de Fonblanque’s Marchers Qui Vive. She reported to the WFL newspaper The Vote on a meeting at Midhurst at which tax resistance and Census evasion were recommended. Elsie and her youngest sister, Mary, remained at the Vicarage to be listed on the Census with their father. Below their names, were written in red the words ‘Suffragettes wandering about all night’, then the names of Vinvela and Christabel. Following their father’s retirement in 1912, the Cummin sisters moved to Froxfield, near Petersfield, Hampshire, and Vinvela, continuing to demand improved village housing, became chair of the Petersfield branch of the National Land and Home League. In 1913 she announced herself as a tax resister and at the beginning of December an auction sale at the home of ‘the Misses Cummin’ was followed by a supportive protest meeting on Froxfield Green addressed by the WFL’s Eunice Murray and Nina Boyle. By 1913 the WFL was campaigning against the failure of the Courts to convict men accused of sexual abuse of women and children and took up the case of a 14-year-old girl who became pregnant as a result of being raped by one of her mother’s police constable lodgers. At the Old Bailey PC Wetherall was acquitted of repeated criminal assault and remained in post, and as part of the WFL’s demand for a re-trial, members took turns to picket outside the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Elsie and four others were arrested here at the end of March 1914. Brought before magistrates at Bow Street, they ‘spoke out strongly’ against the protection of criminals such as PC Wetherall and his being allowed to remain in the force. All refused to pay the 40 shillings fine, so were sentenced to 14 days. The WFL held a ‘Prisoners’ Reception’ in April 1914 to award ‘prison badges’ to the 12 members who had been imprisoned for their part in publicising the Wetherall case. Elsie was one of two absentees who sent letters regretting that it was impossible for them to be present but saying that they were full of eagerness for further service. Sources: Bognor Regis Observer, Brighton Gazette, Chichester Observer, Hants Advertiser, Hants News, Portsmouth Evening News, West Sussex County Times, West Sussex Gazette, London Evening Standard, Vote, Women’s Franchise. Contributed by Frances Stenlake, Independent Researcher.