Bessie Lyle Hatton (22 November 1867 – 25 March 1964) was an English actress, playwright, journalist, and feminist, and took part in the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Bessie Lyle Hatton (22 November 1867 – 25 March 1964) was an English actress, playwright, journalist, and feminist, and took part in the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Hatton was born on 22 November 1867 in Claines, Worcestershire. Her father was Joseph Hatton, a novelist and journalist, and her mother was Louisa Johnson, her elder brother was explorer Frank Hatton. She was educated at a convent school in Ardennes and at Bedford College, London, however she left college to join Frank Benson's company who were performing Shakespeare. [1] She performed in Judah at the Shaftesbury Theatre with Gertrude Warden in 1890. [2]
On the advice of her father and despite her concerns that it might interfere with her acting career, [1] Hatton authored several popular works of fiction, including The Village of Youth and Other Fairytales (1895) [3] and her play Before Sunrise. [4] This play was staged at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 December 1909 for the Women's Freedom League. [5]
In June 1908 she and fellow actress and writer Cicely Mary Hamilton founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League. [6] The organisation was open to both men and women, and each affiliation. Hatton was the organising secretary, took part in events, and organised entertainment for the suffrage meetings. [1]
When World War I broke out, The Women Writers Suffrage League helped establish a library at Endell Street Military Hospital, and helped organise recreation at the hospital. Hatton never married. She died on 25 March 1964. [1]
Cicely Mary Hamilton, was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist and feminist, part of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She is now best known for the feminist play How the Vote was Won, which sees a male anti-suffragist change his mind when the women in his life go on strike. She was also the author of one of the most frequently performed suffrage plays, A Pageant of Great Women (1909), which featured the character of Jane Austen as one of its "Learned Women."
Alice Henry was an Australian suffragist, journalist and trade unionist who also became prominent in the American trade union movement as a member of the Women's Trade Union League.
The Women Writers' Suffrage League (WWSL) was an organisation in the United Kingdom formed in 1908 by Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton. The organisation stated that it wanted "to obtain the Parliamentary Franchise for women on the same terms as it is, or may be, granted to men. Its methods are the methods proper to writers – the use of the pen." The organisation viewed itself as a writers' group rather than a literary society. Membership was not based on literary merit, but instead was granted to anyone who had published and sold a written work. Members also paid an annual subscription fee of 2s. 6d. The league was inclusive and welcomed writers of all genders, classes, genres, and political persuasions provided they were in favor of women's suffrage. By 1911 the league was composed of conservatives, liberals and socialists, women of power and women who worked hard and members of the military. The league disbanded on 24 January 1919 following the passing Representation of the People Act in February 1918, granting women over the age of 30 the right to vote.
Alice Mona Alison Caird was an English novelist and essayist known for feminist writings, which were controversial when they were published. She also advocated for animal rights and civil liberties, and contributed to advancing the interests of the New Woman in the public sphere.
Beatrice Harraden was a British writer and suffragette.
Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig, known as Edy Craig, was a prolific theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage movement in England. She was the daughter of actress Ellen Terry and the progressive English architect-designer Edward William Godwin, and the sister of theatre practitioner Edward Gordon Craig.
Christabel Gertrude Marshall was a British campaigner for women's suffrage, a playwright and author. Marshall lived in a ménage à trois with the artist Clare Atwood and the actress, theatre director, producer and costume designer Edith Craig from 1916 until Craig's death in 1947.
"The March of the Women" is a song composed by Ethel Smyth in 1910, to words by Cicely Hamilton. It became the official anthem of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and more widely the anthem of the women's suffrage movement throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Activists sang it not only at rallies but also in prison while they were on hunger strike. Smyth produced a number of different arrangements of the work.
Isabella Ormston Ford was an English social reformer, suffragist and writer. She became a public speaker and wrote pamphlets on issues related to socialism, feminism and workers' rights. After becoming concerned with the rights of female mill workers at an early age, Ford became involved with trade union organisation in the 1880s. A member of the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party, she was the first woman to speak at a Labour Representation Committee conference.
Suffrage drama is a form of dramatic literature that emerged during the British women's suffrage movement in the early twentieth century. Suffrage performances lasted approximately from 1907-1914. Many suffrage plays called for a predominant or all female cast. Suffrage plays served to reveal issues behind the suffrage movement. These plays also revealed many of the double standards that women faced on a daily basis. Suffrage theatre was a form of realist theatre, which was influenced by the plays of Henrik Ibsen. Suffrage theatre combined familiar everyday situations with relatable characters on the stage in the style of realist theatre.
Gertrude Eleanor Jennings (1877–1958) was a British theatrical author of the early twentieth century notable for her one-act social comedies.
The Actresses' Franchise League was a women's suffrage organisation, mainly active in England.
The Vote was a suffrage newspaper that supported the Women's Freedom League. It was published from 1909 to 1933.
Mary Elizabeth Phillips was an English suffragette, feminist and socialist. She was the longest prison serving suffragette. She worked for Christabel Pankhurst but was sacked; she then worked for Sylvia Pankhurst as Mary Pederson or Mary Paterson. In later life she supported women's and children's organisations.
Helen Alexander Archdale was a Scottish feminist, suffragette and journalist. Archdale was the Sheffield branch organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union and later its prisoners' secretary in London.
Jane Maria Strachey, Lady Strachey was an English suffragist and writer. Her father was a British colonial administrator; Jane married her father's secretary, Sir Richard Strachey, and ten of their children survived into adulthood. She was an outspoken advocate for the right of women to vote, and involved her daughters in her campaigning. She wrote two books for children.
Ada Susan Flatman (1876–1952) was a British suffragette who worked in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Gertrude Warden was an English actress and writer, who wrote over 30 novels under her stage name, her name at birth being Gertrude Isobel Price and her married name Mrs John Wilton Jones.
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Anna Andes analyses 'Before Sunrise' in her essay 'Burgeoning New Women of Suffrage Drama: Envisioning an Autonomous Self' http://www.thelatchkey.org/Latchkey6/essay/Andes.htm in The Latchkey: Journal of New Women Studies