‘As this was a one-off talk I will not be crediting all photos etc. But I would like to thank Yolande Yates for permitting me to make use of the late Paul Lamartine Yates’, as yet unpublished, auto-biography which is held with much of interest by the John Innes Society so thanks to them as well. In the June 18th copy of the Wimbledon and District Gazette in 1896 the Wimbledon library sub-committee receive a suggestion that a shed or covered way be provided at the rear of the library for the accommodation of cyclists as it might increase the number of readers and borrowers. Over 120 years later my first visit to the brand new Colliers Wood library for this visit revealed no cycle parking. I have reported this to Paul Miles the Merton Cycling Officer who is very effective and now has this in hand. They should be well designed as he is the great grandson of the Suffragette Elspeth Douglas McClelland, famous for having herself posted to 10 Downing Street and being the first woman architect.’ - Hugh
What can we read from this photo. A confident speaker. A commanding speaker. She is relaxed she has her hand in her pocket. Flanked by two women who are also relaxed but attentive the foreground figure looks as though she may be the guest speaker. The man at the back looks as though he is going to remain expressionless and dart beedy eyes at anyone who looks like trouble. He is the speaker’s husband. She is Rose Lamartine Yates the Cyclists’ Suffragette and in Merton she is ‘Our Cycling Suffragette’.
This year, we are commemorating 1918 but to start we need to go back 50 years earlier. Things don’t
The Romans had the sense to have straight radial routes out of Londinium, TfL have capitalized on this with Red Routes and Blue cycle superhighways but in 1868 for almost 2000 years the high street had seen nothing but pedestrians, horses and carts plying backwards and forwards. Only relatively recently the railways have embanked and gouged there way through the suburbs. Suddenly a man on a velocipede streaks down Colliers Wood High Street.
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| A velocipide |
Human beings balanced on a simple two-wheeled contraption suddenly have personal transport; they can increase their range and speed five-fold without the wealth needed to stable, shoe and feed a horse.
Just over ten years later on a fine last Saturday in May 1881 at a Bicycle Meet in Hampton Court over 2000 bicyclists and tri-cyclists turn out to process round the park.
Cycling Clubs became popular, the Bicycle Touring Club, later to become the Cyclists Touring Club and more recently Cycling UK, was founded in Harrogate in 1878. In the same year The National Cyclists Union which organised racing championships was founded in London. In 1880 the CTC opened membership to women and by the mid 1890’s a third of all new members were women. By
1890 both clubs boasted 60,000 members each. In the preceeding two years the CTC had gained 8000 members a year. The political status of cycling made it appropriate for the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour to be President of the National Cyclists Union. But essentially it became the ultimate leveller.
The pneumatic tyre, chain power and tarmacadam all combined together to make the bicycle comfortable to ride, and while London’s trains and horse drawn trams gave freedom of movement in the most advanced city in the world.
Elsewhere in Britain this relatively cheap form of personal transport was providing such freedom of movement for the working population that they were able to start being more selective about who they chose to work for and how much they were paid. It was a great influence on the spread of trade unionism. Between 1888 and 89 union membership doubled in a single year to two million.
It is claimed that the bicycle also had an important impact on human evolution. In rural areas it dramatically increased access to potential marriage partners because everyone now could travel beyond their local communities.
In 1894 the Socialists Cycling Club is founded in Birmingham late adopted by the Socialist newspaper the Clarion it became the Clarion Cycle Club open to women members from the beginning. The young Pankhurst girls became members in 1896 and discovered political activism on wheels.
In 1896 The New Wimbledon Cycling Club at the Club’s Annual sports day bemoans the fact that ‘there are a large number of lady cyclists in Wimbledon and if they would join the club it would be a great advantage’; at that time they had only one lady member.
The fact is that the freedoms of cycling had perhaps the most influence with women. The idea of rational dress when women could wear what they found suitable for the occasion rather than what gentility dictated.
In 1881 the Rational Dress Society was founded in London the president and co-founder, Lady Florence Harberton, was a keen cyclist and an advocate of exercise for women. Recognizing the restrictive nature of women’s clothes she advocated the wearing of a divided skirt over a pair of bloomers or other under trousers. Note (Which seems a bit irrational)
"I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a bike. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood.
10 years on, back to Colliers Wood High Street, a plethora of bike shops have opened up, where they actually manufacture bicycles from the basic steel tube on the premises. Just across the street from Library is Genners. The badge is from the Genner bicycle of Richard Smith who still uses it everyday to get to AWCycles where he has worked since starting as a Saturday job in the 1950’s. (AW is the last of these manufacturing shops to survive and will close finally in September.)
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| Tom and Rose |
Dorset Hall, empty for some years, appears to be just what they want; they are excited. They are an unusual married couple he is 61 she is 31, they have been married 8 years. Before they were married she had known him all her life as Uncle Tom, because he was a friend of her father and of similar age. They are an interesting couple because neither is conventional and they start socially with a clean slate. Both had the advantage of coming from no defined level in society. He self-educated, she the daughter of French immigrants.
Tom’s legal qualifications had been hard won. From 11 he had worked in a factory, from where he got himself a job in London as a clerk. Studying 3 hours before breakfast and 3 hours at night he teaches himself Latin, French, Italian, German and Maths. He then studies law till he becomes a solicitor. He is 5ft 3ins and a fitness freak with much walking and running from Clapham to the City and cycling. Without fail every day starts with a cold bath. He always wears a hat because he was bald at 35. If there is one thing that Rose is critical of is that he drops his ‘H’s.
Rose is the third and last child of two language teachers from France. Both over here to teach French they meet in Brighton and subsequently marry, when she Pauline is 30 and he Elphege is 23. Pauline was orphaned at 15 and brought up by relations in France until coming to a Brighton school as French Mistress aged 28. She is a strong believer in egalité.
Elphege came to England aged 19 on the promise of a teaching job which didn’t materialize. Life is a struggle living off various small teaching jobs, which is when Tom came to him for French lessons and they became friends. Once Elphege and Pauline are married, Elphege establishes himself as French Master at Christ’s Hospital School for boys in the city and Pauline as French Mistress at Dulwich High School for girls. A job she continues while bringing up the children. Her two girls and a boy who she treats equally. Rose as youngest, demands attention; we hear she is sickly and has back problems; at certain times during her development she has breakdowns, which usually results in a change of scene. This starts with being transferred from London to Truro High School to benefit from Cornwall’s more salubrious air. At 18 she goes to College in Kassel in Germany, after her first year ill health brings her home, she recuperates and goes to the Sorbonne in Paris where after another breakdown returns to England, when she goes to Royal Holloway College. She breaks down in her third year but later returns for her finals and passes.
There is no question that Rose was extremely articulate, forthright and opinionated. She is described, slightly unfairly, by her own son as not a reasoner, but a plunger, and he also said she didn’t walk, she strode. Maybe a year in Kassel and the Sorbonne was all those Colleges could take. Her stay in Royal Holloway College found more stability with like-minded women. One of whom is ‘Pem’ her good friend and fellow cyclist Emily Wilding Davison.
‘I cannot imagine how men can enjoy a dinner without ladies, truly it must be heavy and to a certain extent coarse – Man is a strange being – he cannot make women his equal, or rather he will not and as a natural consequence woman uses her intelligence in making man a slave and degrading him – is it not true in most cases’.
These revealing thoughts from his contemporary and future mother-in-law did not put Tom off.
During Rose’s Royal Holloway breakdown she recuperates over Christmas 1898 at a rest home in Broadstairs. He sends her very generous Christmas presents. Her thank-you letter starts ‘Dear naughty good uncle’ refers to his generous gifts and says ‘they look like wedding presents’ and signs off ‘from your loving niece’ .
Her breakdown does not seem to have affected her performance in taking the Oxford Final Honours exam in modern languages and philology, she passes but as a woman is not entitled to a degree.
9 months later she and Tom are engaged, 9 months after that married.
Her elder brother and sister who are both striving to get jobs as teachers had no sympathy with Rose’s breakdowns, her last they saw as postponing the decision of how to make a living and conclude she took the easy way out by marrying a well set up solicitor.
Apart from not being allowed a degree the thing that lit the fuse of Rose’s passionate drive for equality for women was spending the first two years in her husband’s office. Rose studied Law under his direction so that she could assist in his practice in Essex Street and she informally took articles. She learned with disgust of the inequity in law between the positions of men and women. "The reason such a state of affairs exists" she wrote, "is that by order of man woman is dumb with regard to all legislative and national affairs".
The first years of her membership she played a vigorous part in general meetings and was an active member with her husband, cycling extensively in Ireland, Scotland, France and Germany reporting on the Standard of accommodation bearing the CTC’s plaque. Her fluency in French and German making her ideally qualified. Their rides on the popular Portsmouth Road meant that Dorset Hall in Merton Park couldn’t have suited them better and once settled in Rose’s really makes her mark.
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| Dorset Hall - then and now |
Rose was an advocate for growing one’s own produce and she kept poultry particularly ducks. Most of the garden was given over to fruit and vegetables. It would not be long before the first annual show of the Merton Allotment and Cottage Garden Society takes place at Dorset Hall.
Tom has an easy walk to Wimbledon Station to get to work in Chancery Lane and after his cold bath, regular as clockwork leaves the house at 8.30a.m. Neighbours nickname him ‘The White Rabbit’ from his habit of regularly referring to his pocket watch. In addition to his legal business he invests in shop properties in good areas.
There was a faction intent on making the Club an organisation that would also represent motorists. The Club secretary and editor of the Club Magazine was himself a motorist and saw wider membership as a way to bolster finances. At the same time he has delibearately suppressed a report into the abuse of club finances. Tom is one of the signatories requesting its publication and this leads to Shipton’s resignation in very merky circumstances. At the following election for council seats a very strong faction for the club to be for cyclists and motorists was met by a Reform group for remaining an exclusive cycling club. The Reform Group managed to field a candidate for every available seat a substantial feat of organisation accomplished principally by Rose, who is now 3 months pregnant. She is one of the two Surrey candidates. The other being a Wimbledon barrister who is in favour of the motoring lobby. Rose wins the seat and the Cyclists win the day. Which made way for the AA and RAC.
She was now the only woman of the 68 councillors representing Britain. And a year or two later in the Journal of Cycling her contribution is described as:
‘A keen debater and one of the most lucid and convincing speakers in the club, who does not hesitate to go straight to the root of any subject that attracts her investigation. As CTC Councillor for Surrey she is at the present time the most active lady worker we possess, and it is highly creditable to her that she is willing to devote so much time to the improvement of the cyclists’s lot when other ladies are so conspicuously absent from the Council’s of our leaders’
The reaction of many women to this reference to their absence will have been ‘Not for want of trying’. There had been several unsuccessful attempts by women before Rose including the redoubtable Lady Florence Harberton president of the Rational Dress Society. When Rose retired from the CTC Council in 1914 it was several years before any other woman attained a position on the Council.
During her election Rose has disclaimed being a suffragette and Lady Harberton had asked ‘Why not?’ However after about a year on the Council Rose gave a speech entitled: ‘How I became a Suffragist’ she stated, "... on looking into the matter seriously I find I have never been anything else ... and ... I came to realise that I was and must remain one at whatever personal cost".
In fact the rough and tumble of CTC administration in which Rose gained so much experience and confidence, was an excellent grounding for the rough and tumble of the Suffragette Movement.
After a rousing speech to cyclists in Birmingham the London Daily Cycling News (Note that London had its own daily cycling paper) reported ‘ she entered into the fray with almost the enthusiasm of a Suffragette’.
Rose engaged in deeds with great dynamism, and Dorset Hall became a primary suburban secure refuge and legal advice shop for many suffragettes, but Rose’s ultimate weapon were words. Delivered often with enormous courage and conviction. She had a remarkable gift of repartee and invariably got the better of hecklers. Her deeds included her words.
"My dearest,
"To day is thy birthday, & what a momentous one.
"The present I give thee is not gold nor silver but the permission freely & gladly, to offer up thy liberty for the benefit of downtrodden woman. To day is the decision tomorrow the sacrifice whence can only com e good tho it mean pain & suffering to thee. "Years hence, our Paul - our boy - will be proud of his mother and her achievement. "Be not afraid for strength and courage will come to thee in the hour of need. Tom" The police are waiting for them and they are punched, tripped, half-strangled, picked up and flung down again and again. They are then herded into Cannon Row Police Station and charged with "obstructing the police in the execution of their duty".
At her trial, with Tom in court as her solicitor, as part of her statement Rose declares
"I have a little son who is only eight months old, and his father and I decided ... that when that boy grows up he might ask me, 'What did you do, mother, in the days of women's agitation, to lay the views of the women before the Prime Minister?' and I could but blush if I said to him,'I made no attempt to go to the Prime Minister.—"
In the magazine Punch of 10 March, Rose is rebuked in verse titled ‘A Mothers Sacrifice’ the last verses include the lines
“…. You renounced your husband, home and baby, When he (the last-named) was but eight months old." The verse then asked on baby Paul's behalf, "Meanwhile, dear Parent, who looked after me?"
A riposte from Paul is soon published, starting ‘Dear Mr Punch I’m happy with daddie,…and ended: "But, Mr Punch, twere time you had some schooling, For mothers are not parents by our laws; Tis fathers only, by all legal ruling; So children, too, must help the women's cause!" Signed little Paul
The sentence is one month in prison. The bad food, bad air and minimal sanitation, the cold and the lack of exercise were a severe ordeal. Rose had an attack of pleurisy and suffered a strain, lifting heavy pails and bed-boards.
In the one letter allowed her she writes to Tom dealing with matters under headings which include, .. CTC work, Gardening, Poultry and Publisher (she is co-author of the ‘Modern languages calendar').
In the CTC she is elected Chief Consul for Surrey and she commences to revise the list of hotels and farmhouses affiliated to the club.
With her prison experiences she begins to give lectures, titles like ‘The rigour and humour of Prison Life’ and she chairs local meetings indoors and on the common. The common meetings take place every Sunday and she is increasingly the principal speaker. Although she successfully invites most of suffragettes leading figures as guest speakers. Who included Mary Leigh,prisoner of prisoners and drum-major of the Suffragette Drum and Fife band, Una Dugdale who scandalised the nation by refusing to say ‘obey’ at her wedding ceremony, Emily Wilding Davison and the Pankhurst sisters.
Each February Tom’s birthday gift to Rose is something for the shop. One year 48 chairs for the meeting room, another year a clock. Which he says is to mark time till the vote is won. Rose’s activities could hardly be called marking time. In her 1911 election address to the CTC she mentions working on the Rights and Privileges Committee, the Hotels Committee and the Foreign and Colonial Committee. Meanwhile there are numerous events to be organised at Dorset Hall and the constant Sunday afternoon gatherings on Wimbledon Common. In March 1912 Rose is arrested with 5 other Wimbledon members on a window smashing campaign, including Winston Churchill’s windows. Two are imprisoned Mrs Begbe and Mrs Wilkinson who go on hunger strike and endure the pain and horror of forced feeding. Their release is marked by a Garden Party at Dorset Hall. Photographs show the pale thin prisoners one resting in a hammock.
Dorset Hall becomes an emulation of all she believes. The flower beds are planted in the green white and purple Suffragette colours, votes for women banners garland the Kingston Road side, and son Paul has to cope for a good number of years with being dressed as a girl with long flowing blond hair.
The Home Secretary forbids the WSPU from calling public meetings in open spaces such as Hyde Park and Wimbledon Common, however the Wimbledon WSPU as an autonomous union maintained it was independent and Rose, often single handed carried on with them. After the Home Office ruling the next meeting on Wimbledon Common was reported by the newspapers, one under the headline ‘Hissed by 5000’. The crowd had gathered to witness lively scenes between the police and suffragettes but were surprised when they eventually saw a woman standing in the centre of a cordon of police three and four deep and speaking against the Home Office Order. A section of the crowd wished to know why she was allowed to speak she explained she was not a member of the Womens Social and Political Union but of the independent Wimbledon WSPU a different organisation.
She said ‘It ought not to be necessary for us to require protection from the police’ voice in the crowd ‘It’ll be soldiers next week’. Rose carried on ‘Many of you seem to think that these meetings are prohibited, but until we are officially informed of that fact we shall not deprive you of the pleasure of listening to us.’ At this point the crowd started to press and 8 mounted police arrived to cries of ‘Here come the Lancers’. When she finished her speech the police closed round her and escorted her to Dorset Hall a mile away. This involved 200 police and 50 mounted while the crowd of 5,000 accompanied them hissing and booing. Interviewed later she stated that she had been conducting these meetings for over 4 years and said that when she enquired whether the prohibition order applied to the Wimbledon Union’s meetings she was not informed that it did, so the meeting took place. In later years she considered that this defence of the right of free speech to be her ‘most valuable contribution’ to the movement. In National terms it demonstrated that the groundswell of powerful speakers and leaders was not limited to the aristocratic figureheads of the WSPU.
She declared that ‘Sacrifice of human life’ was the only way to bring force feeding to the public’s attention and made 2 unsuccessful attempts at jumping off prison balconies. During Derby week she met Rose at the Suffragette Flower Festival at Kensington and on the afternoon before Derby Day she visited Dorset Hall. We know she did because there is a first-hand account of Rose saying she did. The reason seems to be that she went to see her friend Rose as a trustworthy confidant for what she was about to do. Britain in Europe was one of the last countries to punish suicide as a crime, only changing the law in 1961. Before the Suicide Act 1961, it was a crime to commit suicide, and anyone who attempted and failed could be prosecuted and imprisoned, not that Emily was too worried about that, but the families of those who succeeded could also potentially be prosecuted. A coroner’s verdict of ‘selfmurder’ had repercussions for surviving family members and legally it was best avoided. We assume therefore that Emily came to make sure that Tom would act for her and her family, which was agreed. Also if she killed herself she wanted to make sure that impact was felt and she would need Rose’s organisational skills to make sure this happened. Her other practical problem was that at Victoria Station they had been only selling return tickets for Derby Day and she didn’t want this to diminish her intent. She left the return half with Rose to use as she felt the circumstances warranted.
Rose ably assisted by the presentational skills of Mary Leigh and Gladys Evans, made the arrangements for the magnificent funeral procession into Kings Cross from where the body was taken to Morpeth for burial. Rose was ‘First Guard of Honour’ to the coffin between Epsom and Kings Cross. Dressed in white with black sashes the bodyguard flanked the open carriage drawn by four black horses followed by vehicles bearing wreathes from all over the world.
This was her first breakdown since marriage.
When war was declared the Wimbledon WSPU had to decide its war plans. The Common meetings ceased and it was agreed to maintain subscriptions and to open a kitchen at once "to supply food to the necessitous at the lowest possible price".
The shop at Victoria Crescent began to serve hot meals for a halfpenny twice a day for those with tickets from the Wimbledon Guild of Help. It was soon clear that Merton too needed a kitchen, and premises at 119 Merton High Street were equipped and opened. In the first seven months 35,000 meals were served, of which 13,000 were in Merton. Clothing was also collected and distributed where needed. The treasurer of these Distress Kitchens was Rose. This gave her less time for attention to her Cycling affairs. She had won women their place at the CTC and maintained a strong presence for 7 years. She resigned from the CTC Council in November with a moving letter to Surrey members published in the ‘CTC Gazette’. She says it is now her duty to offer her services to her ‘stricken countrywomen’ and says she will always value Surrey’s pioneer courage in entrusting the work to a woman.
In 1914 Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel suspended the WSPU action and backed the Government in the War effort. Sylvia was a pacifist and did not agree with this. Rose was partly motivated by pacifism and also by not wanting to allow Pem’s sacrifice to have been in vain. In October 1915 she initiated and chaired a meeting at Caxton Hall of WSPU members from many parts of the country and a signed resolution was sent to Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst protesting at their abandonment of the cause of women’s suffrage. The ‘Suffragettes of the WSPU’ was inaugurated with Rose one of the committee members in the Emily Wilding Lodge. They felt it important that while many women were doing their bit for the war effort the threat of WSPU militancy should not go away.
With the end of the War the election of December 1918 saw suffrage extended to all males over 21, to women over 30 and women could for the first time stand for Parliament. In support of the argument that militancy and the threat of militancy played a major part in bringing this about, the British situation can be compared with France, where suffragists had not been nearly as militant, but where women were equally engaged in war work. In France it was not until the end of the 2nd World War that women got the vote.
Rose was invited by the Labour Party to contest the Wimbledon Parliamentary seat. She chose instead to stand as a characteristically independent candidate, backed by the National Union of Women Teachers, in the London County Council election of 1919 for the North Lambeth Division. As the first Independent LCC Councillor Rose caused a stir on her first appearance at a Council meeting, by appearing hatless! She lobbied for better public housing, school improvements and equal pay for men and women.
An end to war-work for women made a big difference to North Lambeth family budgets, and Rose took the initiative to set up a children’s clinic in a YMCA hut near Waterloo Station. The clinic was opened in September 1921 and at the insistence of local teachers named after Rose.
One of the opening gifts is an embroidered apron from the Manchester Suffragettes.
Royal assent is given for women over 21 to vote in 1928
The clinic closes at the outbreak of the next war, when Rose makes a major contribution to our heritage by setting up the Suffragette Record Room. She had the vision to see that the artifacts of this extraordinary campaign should not be lost and probably as a duty to her friend Pem.
Having made Dorset Hall a significant port of call for the movement there were many important artifacts including the Epsom return ticket.
After Tom dies in 1929, aged 81, Our Cycling Suffragette’s final cycling act is to donate her and Tom’s bicycles to the Cyclists Touring Club Museum which were gratefully received, but unfortunately are no longer there.
In 1932 Rose became involved in the Women’s Consultative Committee of the League of Nations in Geneva. This was an offshoot of the International Council for Women whose co-founder had been the American Susan B Anthony. The one who said the bicycle has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world
Rose died in 1954 aged 79.
