None

54

Married

East Cowes Castle, East Cowes PO32 6QG

CUWFA

Complies

Viscountess Eleanor Gort was born Eleanor Surtees in 1857. Her father was Richard Smith Surtees, who was a well-known novelist and editor. He owned Hamsterley Hall in Durham, which Eleanor inherited after her father's death in 1864. There is little information on Eleanor’s upbringing and young adult life. She married John Gage Prendergast Vereker, the 5th Viscount of Gort, in January 1885. Eleanor and John would be gifted the now demolished East Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight as a Christmas gift in 1895 from John’s father. Eleanor and John had two sons together before John died in 1902. Eleanor would go on to marry Colonel Starling Meux Benson in June 1908, who was also a widower. In their marriage announcement, the pair were described as devout to the Church of England, and both believed in women’s suffrage. Eleanor was a member of the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association, which was founded to support the suffrage movement. Eleanor was also involved in the Blue Cross, lending her drawing room for a sale of China, jewellery and enamel to raise money. She also opened a Blue Cross shelter in Chelsea in 1909. Eleanor also opened her home for suffrage meetings in all her homes across the country in Durham, London and on the Isle of Wight. In 1909, she opened her home in Grosvenor Gardens in London to an at-home which was well attended by members of the conservative franchise association. This included the president, Lady Knightley of Fawsley and Lady Edward-spencer Churchill, aunt of future prime minister Winston Churchill. She complied with the 1911 census and was recorded as staying at her London home with her second husband and 8 servants. She held an at-home at Hamsterley Hall for the Shotley Bridge and Consett branch of the NUWSS in 1912. In 1913, Eleanor presided over a Church League for Women's Suffrage meeting at Cowes. It was attended by many local Island residents. Eleanor attended the 1914 meeting for delegates of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance, in which Great Britain was represented by Mrs Stanton Coit, who travelled to the Isle of Wight many times to help the suffragist movement. Eleanor died in March 1933 at East Cowes Castle, just a month after her husband. Eleanor complied with the 1911 census while staying at her house in London. Families who lived on the Island often had houses in London to be close to the heart of British society and would regularly travel between them, depending on the season and occasion. For Eleanor, this also includes her home in Durham. Eleanor has been plotted at her house, East Cowes Castle, to represent her vital role in the suffrage movement on the Isle of Wight. While she participated in the movement in London and Durham, her work was most prevalent on the Isle of Wight, and thus she is plotted on the Island to highlight this. East Cowes Castle was demolished in 1963 but the map location is placed on the site where it was. Sources: Mosley, Charles, Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage: Clan Chiefs, Scottish Feudal Barons (Stokesley, Burke’s Peerage & Gentry, 2003). Contributed by Becca Aspden, URSS student researcher, History Dept., Warwick University