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Theosophy
in action a century ago – personal memories of four English suffragettes
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The author of this article is Fr Kevin Tingay, now retired parish priest and former Interfaith Advisor in the Church of England Diocese of Bath & Wells. He continues with occasional lecturing at Bath Spa University. Kevin joined the TS in 1965 before entering the Anglican Church, at first participating actively in TS life as a member of Kensington and Camberley Lodges, and since then only as far as his numerous church tasks have allowed. Kevin has just started writing items for the on-line version of the Theosophical Encyclopaedia. |
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A long forgotten initiative of the TOS in its earlier years was the formation, in 1914, of a League to promote the cause of women’s suffrage and to further the women’s movement generally. Its intention was to co-operate with all organisations and individuals working for the same object and to take a neutral attitude as to tactics. The outbreak of the First World War brought a suspension of the campaigns for women’s suffrage, but the contributions of women to the war effort led to some of them getting the vote in the UK at the end of the conflict, and all of them by 1928. The formation of the TOS group bore witness to the contribution of Theosophical Society members. I had the privilege of meeting four of them in the latter stage of their lives. |
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Clara Codd as a young woman |
Leonora Cohen as a young woman |
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Eileen Casey (1886-1966) I encountered Eileen at the Liberal Catholic Church in London in the last years of her life. She was very stooped with osteoporosis and was somewhat forgetful. Her appearance was, however, deceptive. I learnt that she had been one of the most active of the militant suffragettes, imprisoned several times, and had been forcibly fed after going on a hunger strike. Released on the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 she trained as a landgirl and later as a gardener at Kew Gardens. From 1923 to1940 she worked as a teacher in Japan, and from 1940 to 1951 in Australia. She was a translator for the Board of Censors during WW2. She spoke several European languages as well as Japanese, Russian and Esperanto. She returned to England in 1951 where she continued in her commitment to the TS and related movements, and to work with her fellow veterans of the suffrage movement. |
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Clara Codd (1877-1971) Clara was a well-known organiser and lecturer for the TS but had been active in the Women’s Social and Political Union and was briefly imprisoned while supporting the movement. She ceased to be an activist on taking up full time lecturing for the TS. She has given an account of her life’s work in her autobiography, So Rich a Life, published in 1951. She spent the last years of her life in Camberley with her sisters, close to Tekels Park. At that time my wife and I were living in the Park and saw her from time to time in the last year of her life. She was always interested in encounter and dialogue with young people and had none of the censorious attitudes towards them which some of her contemporaries manifested. Whilst being a living link with the story of the TS in the earlier part of the 20th century, she was a stimulus to us who were more recent members to look to and build for the future. |
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Leonora Cohen (1873-1978) Leonora was famous, some might say notorious, as the woman who attacked the display case of some of the royal regalia in the Tower of London in 1913. She was arrested but the case against her was dismissed after the jury failed to reach a verdict. She was a native of Leeds, where she was active in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), and where, after the Great War and the achievement of the first franchise for women, she was active in social work as a prison visitor and magistrate. She spent her final years in a vegetarian home for the elderly in Colwyn Bay in North Wales. I visited her there and observed the certificate of her membership of the Order of the British Empire which she was awarded in 1928. She told me this story of her investiture at Buckingham Palace: King George V, a monarch not noted for a public sense of humour, thanked her for her public service in Leeds, and then went on to say that he hoped she had not brought her hammer to the palace on this occasion! Leonora, quick as a flash (a quality she maintained to the end of her life), replied, “There is no need for it today, Sir, as we now have the vote!” She had joined the TS in 1909. |
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Grace Roe (1885-1979) Grace was amongst the best known of suffragettes with a commitment to Theosophy. She was imprisoned and forcibly fed and her work for the WSPU is well recorded. Like other suffragettes she ceased militant activities in the Great War and applied herself to social service. When peace came she moved to America with Christabel Pankhurst and remained in California until her return to England in the 1960s. She lived in Kent in her retirement, and her final years were spent in the care of Michael Foot, MP, and his wife Jill Craigie in their London home. My most vivid memory of her is being with some of her friends at a conference where we were watching a TV news bulletin. It was the occasion of the demonstrations against the Vietnam War which were taking place outside the United States Embassy in London. She, then well into her 80s, exclaimed that if she had been ten years younger she would have been there! On other occasions she spoke of her suffragette work, including her attempts to make friends with the plain clothes police officer whose duty was to follow her wherever she went, but to pretend that he was not on a surveillance assignment! |
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These women were powerful witnesses to the ideals of equality and justice, undergirded by a spiritual world view, which the Theosophical movement was called to present to the world. There were others, men as well as women, who strove to apply Theosophy in the social sphere, in the earlier years of the last century. Gertude Baillie-Weaver, Mona Caird, Charlotte Despard, Marion Wallace Dunlop and Countess de la Warr were amongst those committed to the cause. I am working on a more detailed study which, it is hoped, will appear in the on-line version of the Theosophical Encyclopaedia. This small contribution, which may be of interest to supporters of the TOS, was requested as it is based on my personal memories of these remarkable women who remain an inspiration after 40 years or more.
Further information can be found in these books: Crawford, Elizabeth (1999) The Women’s Suffrage Movement – A Reference Guide 1966-1928. London: Routledge. Dixon, Joy (2001) Divine Feminine – Theosophy and Feminism, in England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Raeburn, Antonia (1973) The Militant Suffragettes. London: Michael Joseph.
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KevinTingay would welcome personal information on Theosophists who were active in social service and reform movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His e-mail: kgxt@btinternet.com
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