Living on own means

54

Widowed

Bellecroft House, 79 Staplers Rd, Newport PO30 2DG

NUWSS

Complies

Margaret was born in Hampton, Middlesex, on the 4th of September 1857 as Margaret Mary Smith. She was the eldest child of Thomas Eustace Smith, a shipowner and Liberal MP for Tynemouth, and Martha Mary Dalrymple. She was brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her childhood home was destroyed by a suffragette arson in 1914. She was educated in Orleans, where she passed the public exam to become a French schoolmistress. She married Ashton Dilke in 1876, and they had 3 children until Ashton died in 1883. In 1886, she gave evidence in the divorce proceedings of her sister, Virginia Crawford, the founder of the catholic women’s Suffrage Society. Her testimony was loyal to her sister and incriminated her brother-in-law, politician Sir Charles Dilke. From 1879, Margaret was an active member of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, becoming a member of its executive board in 1883. In 1885, she published a book called “Women’s Suffrage” with a foreword from MP William Woodhall and contributed to an article in 1889 that was a response to an anti-suffragist appeal against women’s suffrage. Alongside the suffrage movement, she was a member of the London school board and advocated for free education from 1888-1891. Margaret attended the International Council of Women in Washington in 1888, travelling with Alice Scatcherd and Laura Ormiston Chant. Margaret married William Russell Cooke, a lawyer and legal advisor for the Liberal Party, in 1891 at Kensington parish church. They had two sons together. Margaret became treasurer of the Central National Society for Women’s Suffrage in 1896. She also became active in the Women’s Emancipation Union in the same year. She advocated in 1897 for the creation of a national council of women to represent all the societies' women took part in. She also opposed provisions which would have curtailed the role of women in local government in 1899 and fought for seats for female shop assistants who worked long hours. After the death of her second husband, William, in 1903, she settled on the Isle of Wight at Bellecroft House in Newport. The house was in the family, as she visited her parents at Bellecroft in 1901 while the census was taking place. On the Island, she worked to form the island's suffragist movement. In 1908, Margaret spoke at a liberal meeting alongside Mrs Baring, who expressed her suffragist views were not the same as the militant suffragettes which the meeting had criticised. Margaret also spoke about education reform on the island, continuing from her days on the London school board. Margaret is absent from the 1911 census with only two servants being recorded at Bellecroft. A newspaper report dated the 22nd of April 1911, thanking those who sent flowers for a church easter festival, records her as away from home. We can reasonably assume she was abroad at this time, as she is not recorded as a visitor elsewhere in the country during the census and as a suffragist we can surmise would otherwise have complied with the census. Margaret was also a part of a town hall debate in Ryde in which she debated against Miss Gladys Potts of the National League Against Women’s Suffrage in May 1913. Margaret continued her support for the cause while battling illness and just weeks before her death, supported the formation of a Newport branch of the NUWSS at the beginning of May 1914 and was the vice president. She held a general meeting at her home, Bellecroft. Margaret died there on the 19th of May 1914. Her eldest son from her second marriage, Sidney Russell Cooke, went on to become a liberal parliamentary candidate and continued to live at Bellecroft. Sources: MacColl, N & Baigent, E, "Dilke, Ashton Wentworth (1850–1883), traveller and politician" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Date of access 2 Aug 2025; Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 18661928 (London,1999). Contributed by Becca Aspden, URSS student researcher, History Dept., Warwick University.