Maude Royden | |
|---|---|
 Royden in 1928 | |
| Born | Agnes Maude Royden 23 November 1876 Liverpool, England |
| Died | 30 July 1956 (aged 79) London, England |
| Other names | Maude Royden-Shaw |
| Alma mater | Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford |
| Occupations |
|
| Spouse | Hudson Shaw (m. 1944) |
Agnes Maude Royden CH (23 November 1876 – 30 July 1956), later known as Maude Royden-Shaw, was an English preacher, suffragist and campaigner for the ordination of women.
Royden was born in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, the youngest daughter of shipowner Sir Thomas Bland Royden, 1st Baronet. She grew up in the family home of Frankby Hall, Wirral with her parents and seven siblings. [1] [2] She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford where she gained a degree in History. [3] While at Oxford she started a lifelong friendship with fellow suffragist Kathleen Courtney who had the same alma mater . [4]
After university, Royden worked for three years at the Victoria Women's Settlement in Liverpool [3] and then in the country parish of South Luffenham, Rutland, as parish assistant to the Rector, George William Hudson Shaw.
She lectured on English literature for the university extension movement and in 1909 was elected to the executive committee of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. From 1912 to 1914 she edited The Common Cause, the organ of the NUWSS. [3] She was also active in the Church League for Women's Suffrage. In 1913 she was invited, with the backing of Lavinia Talbot to talk to the all-male Church Congress about White Slavery. [5]
Royden broke with the NUWSS over its support for the war effort and was among the 101 signatories of the Open Christmas Letter in 1914. She became the secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation with other Christian pacifists. Although unable to travel to the women's peace congress in the Hague in 1915, where the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was established, she became the vice-president of the league. [4]
Royden became well known as a speaker on social and religious subjects. In a 16 July 1917 speech at Queen's Hall, London, she used the oft-quoted phrase 'the Conservative Party at prayer' of the Church of England; "The Church should go forward along the path of progress and be no longer satisfied only to represent the Conservative Party at prayer." [6] In 1917 she became assistant preacher at the Congregationalist City Temple, London, the first woman to occupy this office. [3]
After the First World War, Royden's interest shifted to the role of women in the Church. While attending the Eighth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance at Geneva in 1920, she preached in French and English at St Pierre Cathedral on 6 June. [7] Royden made several worldwide preaching tours from the 1920s to the 1940s. In 1929 she began the official campaign for the ordination of women when she founded the Society for the Ministry of Women. Royden "eminent in the religious life of the nation" was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 1930 New Year Honours. [8] Her older brother Thomas had been made a Member in 1919 (for his work relating to shipping in the First World War) [9] [10] and they are the only siblings to be Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour.
In 1931 Glasgow University conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity on Royden, the first woman to become a Doctor of Divinity in Britain. In 1935 she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Liverpool. [11] She received an honorary degree from Mills College, California in 1937.
She joined the Peace Pledge Union but later renounced pacifism, believing Nazism to be a greater evil than war.
On 2 October 1944, she married the recently widowed priest Hudson Shaw, whom she had loved for more than forty years; he was then aged 85 and died on 30 November. She wrote in her 1947 autobiography A Threefold Cord of their love for each other from first meeting in 1901.
At the end of the Second World War, it was discovered that Royden, along with her brother Sir Thomas Royden, were listed in 'The Black Book' or Sonderfahndungsliste G.B., a list of Britons who were to be arrested in the event of a Nazi invasion of Britain. [12] [13]
On 30 July 1956 she died at her home in Hampstead, London.
Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018. [14] [15] [16]
A blue plaque was unveiled at her childhood home of Frankby Hall, Wirral in June 2019 by Conservation Areas Wirral. [1]
Papers of Agnes Maude Royden are held in The Women's Library at the London School of Economics and Political Science, ref 7AMR.
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett was an English political activist and writer. She campaigned for women's suffrage by legal change and in 1897–1919 led Britain's largest women's rights association, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), explaining, "I cannot say I became a suffragist. I always was one, from the time I was old enough to think at all about the principles of Representative Government." She tried to broaden women's chances of higher education, as a governor of Bedford College, London and co-founding Newnham College, Cambridge in 1875. In 2018, a century after the Representation of the People Act, she was the first woman honoured by a statue in Parliament Square.
Eleanor Florence Rathbone was an independent British Member of Parliament (MP) and long-term campaigner for family allowance and for women's rights. She was a member of the noted Rathbone family of Liverpool.
Helena Maria Lucy Swanwick CH was a British feminist and pacifist. Her autobiography, I Have Been Young (1935), gives a remarkable account of the non-militant women's suffrage campaign in the UK and of anti-war campaigning during the First World War, together with philosophical discussions of non-violence.
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the suffragists was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was renamed the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship.
Edith How-Martyn was a British suffragette and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She was arrested in 1906 for attempting to make a speech in the House of Commons. This was one of the first acts of suffragette militancy. She met Margaret Sanger in 1915 and they created a conference in Geneva. How-Martyn toured India talking about birth control. She had no children and died in Australia.
Dame Margery Irene Corbett Ashby, was a British suffragist, Liberal politician, feminist and internationalist.
Ada Nield Chew was a campaigning socialist and a British suffragist. Her name is on the plinth of Millicent Fawcett's statue in Parliament Square, London.
Margaret Ashton was an English suffragist, local politician, pacifist and philanthropist, and the first woman city councillor for Manchester.
Ray Strachey was a British feminist politician, artist and writer.
Jessie Chrystal Macmillan was a suffragist, peace activist, barrister, feminist and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in mathematics. She was an activist for women's right to vote, and for other women's causes. She was the second woman to plead a case before the House of Lords, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Lady Frances Balfour was a British aristocrat, author, and suffragist. She was one of the highest-ranking members of the British aristocracy to assume a leadership role in the Women's suffrage campaign in the United Kingdom. Balfour was a member of the executive committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage from 1896 to 1919. As a non-violent suffragist, she was opposed to the militant actions of the Women's Social and Political Union, whose members were called the suffragettes.
Catherine Elizabeth Marshall was a suffragist and campaigner against conscription during the First World War. She moved from women's votes to peace and worked in Geneva supporting the League of Nations.
Agnes Garrett was an English suffragist and interior designer and the founder in 1888 of the Ladies Dwellings Company.
Nessie Stewart-Brown JP was a British suffragist and Liberal Party politician. Her name and picture is on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square.
Agnes Pochin was an early British campaigner for women's rights. She funded campaigns, wrote one of the first tracts and was one of the three speakers at the first suffrage meeting in Manchester.
Philippa Strachey, CBE was a British suffragist. She organised major suffrage demonstrations and went on to lead the Fawcett Society.
Catherine Osler or Catherine Courtauld Osler; Catherine Courtauld Taylor was a British social reformer and suffragist.
Annot Robinson, nicknamed Annie, was a Scottish suffragette and pacifist. She was sentenced to six months for trying to break in to the House of Commons. She helped to found the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
The statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, honours the British suffragist leader and social campaigner Dame Millicent Fawcett. It was made in 2018 by Gillian Wearing. Following a campaign and petition by the activist Caroline Criado Perez, the statue's creation was endorsed by both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The statue, Parliament Square's first monument to a woman and also its first sculpture by a woman, was funded through the government's Centenary Fund, which marks 100 years since some women won the right to vote. The memorial was unveiled on 24 April 2018.
Eliza Mary Sturge was a British women rights activist based in Birmingham. She was first woman elected to the Birmingham school board in 1873.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "Royden, Agnes Maude". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 32 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. p. 298.{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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