Private means

40

Single

16 Clarendon Square, Leamington

CUWFA

Complies (but defiant statement)

Ada was the Honorary Secretary and sat on the subcommittee for the Leamington branch of the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association (CUWFA) in 1911. The CUWFA formed in 1908 to work peacefully and constitutionally for ‘the removal of the sex disqualification from the franchise’ by bringing Conservative and Unionist’s together.

Ada was very active for the CUWFA’s Leamington branch, attending numerous suffrage society meetings and travelled down to London to participate in the Women’s Coronation Procession in June 1911. The procession was organised by suffrage societies to rival the official Coronation procession of George V from which women were excluded. Approximately 40,000 women from around 30 women’s suffrage societies participated, and the procession was seven miles long.

Despite the CUWFA and its members commitment to peaceful methods of campaigning, many law-abiding women like Ada were losing patience with the Liberal government and becoming more sympathetic to the often illegal and sometimes violent tactics used by the suffragettes. Ada's feelings are captured on her 1911 census return when she writes ‘non-militant suffragist (at present)’ under her name. This tells us that Ada was at a crossroads between the non-militant and militant paths in 1911. What did she decide? We can’t say for certain, but there is no evidence yet to suggest she engaged in illegal activity thereafter, or that she joined a more militant society like the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) which had a branch in Leamington at that time. Ada also wrote ‘Votes for women’ in every margin of her census return in protest at the government's refusal to allow her a voice through the vote, thus denying her rights as a citizen. After its collection, and unbeknown to her, someone, probably the census agent, wrote ‘No’ in front of each 'Votes for Women' declaration in the margins, thus mounting his own counter protest. Researcher: Tara Morton. Research funded by Warwick University.