Charlotte Despard

Charlotte Despard (née French, born June 15, 1844 in Ripple Vale, Kent; † November 10, 1939 in Whitehead, County Antrim ) was a British writer, suffragette and women's rights activist, later one of the first Sinn Féin activists.

Life

Charlotte was born as the daughter of William French naval officer and his wife Margaret Eccles. 1854 dies, her father and her mother is being treated for mental illness. Together with her younger brother John is Charlotte in 1863 to London to live with relatives. 1870 she married Maximilian Carden Despard, a wealthy businessman.

Charlotte published several novels and poems, including Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow ( 1874 ) and A Voice from the Dim Millions. Later, she wrote mainly pamphlets to the position of women in society and to improve the situation of the poor.

After the death of her husband in 1890, Charlotte Despard strongly committed to social causes. She founds a hospital and a soup kitchen for the unemployed and devoted more and more of the political work.

She is a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies ( NUWSS ) and then changes in 1906, despite previous denial, to a more radical splinter group of NUWSS, the Women's Social and Political Union ( WSPU ), which, inter alia, was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst.

In 1907 she founded together with, inter alia, Teresa Billington - Greig, Edith How- Martyn, Margaret Nevinson and Dora Marsden, the Women 's Freedom League ( WFL ). The WFL engaged, unlike the WSPU, for a non-violent enforcement of women's rights, perhaps with the help of civil disobedience among others organized by the Women 's Tax Resistance League. Three members of the WFL were set up as candidates in national elections in 1918.

After the First World War she lived in Dublin, where her brother from 1918-1921 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was. She was friends with Constance Markiewicz and Maud Gonne.

She died in Belfast and was buried at the Dublin Glasnevin Cemetery.

Discount

Charlotte Despards estate is located in the Women's Library at London Metropolitan University