Charlotte Despard

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Standard Name: Despard, Charlotte
Birth Name: Margaret Charlotte French
Married Name: Margaret Charlotte Despard
Indexed Name: C. Despard
Indexed Name: Mrs M. C. Despard
Nickname: Madame Desperate
CD , who wrote and published during almost sixty years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, began with romantic novels, then allowed her already existent interest in political issues to percolate into her fiction. From the time of the suffrage struggle she became an editor, a prolific journalist, and a pamphleteer. Some of her poetry reached print when she was in her nineties. Despite her great importance to the suffrage struggle and to Irish and other left-wing politics of her several generations, her diaries and letters remain unpublished.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Mrs Alexander
Her father, Robert French , was a solicitor from a Roscommon family. He was fond of hunting and sports in general.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. D. Bryce.
59
The French family which produced writer and suffragist Charlotte Despard was said to...
Occupation Inez Bensusan
Organisers chose to present two feminist plays by men, Woman on Her Own by Eugène Brieux , translated by Charlotte Shaw (Bernard Shaw 's wife), and A Gauntlet by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson .
Hirshfield, Claire. “The Woman’s Theatre in England: 1913-1918”. Theatre History Studies, Vol.
15
, pp. 123-37.
125-6
All...
politics Mona Caird
MC stepped into the public eye in the 1880s as a radical member of the women's movement, a supporter of all kinds of linked causes. An article in the Review of Reviews in 1893 equated...
politics Constance, Countess Markievicz
It was among her own boys' group that CCM first began to go by the title of Madame rather than Countess. Anne Haverty explains: In eschewing the Mrs of English usage, certain women showed...
politics Edith Craig
EC and Christopher St John worked with Charlotte Despard 's new Women's Freedom League .
Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives. Cassell.
83
politics Isabella Ormston Ford
Several members of the Women's International League were committed suffragists, including Helena Swanwick , Maude Royden , Margaret Ashton , Kate Courtney , and Charlotte Despard . Others were IOF 's old friends from the...
Friends, Associates Mary Gawthorpe
During her time with the WSPU, MG worked with Christabel Pankhurst (who was twenty-four when Gawthorpe first met her, before she had yet met Isabella Ford ), whom, like Ethel Snowden , she knew from...
Family and Intimate relationships Katharine Bruce Glasier
KBG 's husband, John Bruce Glasier , fell ill in 1915 with cancer of the bowel. The combined physical and psychological demands of travelling, writing, and speaking for the cause finally took their toll under...
politics Maud Gonne
In the long, agonising, and ultimately successful struggle for independence MG was again strenuously active in Ireland. She supported political prisoners and those condemned to execution, and worked with Charlotte Despard for the Irish White Cross
Residence Maud Gonne
From the early 1920s MG lived at Roebuck House in Clonskeagh (south Dublin), which at first she owned jointly with Charlotte Despard . She lived there with Despard until the latter moved to Belfast...
Friends, Associates Maud Gonne
In her later years MG confirmed her friendships with a number of politically-involved women such as Charlotte Despard (with whom she shared a house for more than a decade), Constance Markiewicz , and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington
politics Eva Gore-Booth
The congress was organized by a pacifist group that had split from the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS ) over the issue of supporting the British war effort. Margaret Llewelyn Davies ,...
politics Sarah Grand
In an interview in 1896, SG made clear her belief in the need for female suffrage: We shall do no good until we get the Franchise, for however well-intentioned men may be, they cannot understand...
politics Cicely Hamilton
CH was an active member of several suffrage organizations, always aligning herself with the non-militant suffragists. She first belonged to the Women's Social and Political Union , but in 1907 she left to join the...
Textual Features Cicely Hamilton
The pageant required more than fifty actresses, only three of whom had speaking parts, to portray famous women from history (not all of them remembered today). In the initial, Scala production, the only speaking role...

Timeline

31 May 1898: George Bedborough, secretary of the Legitimation...

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31 May 1898

George Bedborough , secretary of the Legitimation League which sought to change the law to improve the position of illegitimate children, was arrested, largely in an attempt to damage the League through him.

23 October 1906: During a demonstration at the opening of...

National or international item

23 October 1906

During a demonstration at the opening of Parliament , eleven Women's Social and Political Union supporters were for the first time arrested and imprisoned: for two months in Holloway .

27 June 1907: The Women's Franchise began weekly publication...

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27 June 1907

The Women's Franchise began weekly publication in London; it featured contributions from major societies within the suffrage movement and from individuals.

October 1907: Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Emmeline...

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October 1907

Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence , wanting to maintain control over the Women's Social and Political Union agenda, removed by fiat dissident members of the executive and cancelled the forthcoming annual conference.

November 1907: Charlotte Despard and Teresa Billington Greig...

National or international item

November 1907

16 September 1909: The Women's Freedom League Temporary Newsheet...

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16 September 1909

The Women's Freedom League Temporary Newsheet began weekly publication in London.

28 October 1909: Charlotte Despard edited the first issue...

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28 October 1909

Charlotte Despard edited the first issue of The Vote: Organ of the Women's Freedom League, a weekly magazine from London covering a range of feminist issues, including suffrage.

27 July 1911: The Women's Franchise, which featured contributions...

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27 July 1911

The Women's Franchise, which featured contributions from major societies within the suffrage movement and from individuals, ceased publication in London.

February 1912: Helen Houston produced the first issue of...

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February 1912

Helen Houston produced the first issue of Business Girl, a monthly publication from the Institution of Women Shorthand Typists in London.

25 May 1912: The Irish Citizen, a suffrage newspaper jointly...

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25 May 1912

The Irish Citizen, a suffrage newspaper jointly edited by Francis Sheehy Skeffington and James Cousins , began weekly publication in London.

15-21 June 1913: The Congress of the International Women's...

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15-21 June 1913

The Congress of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance was held at Budapest in Hungary.

Christmas 1914: German and Allied forces at the front lines...

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Christmas 1914

German and Allied forces at the front lines began an informal cease-fire, which lasted up to five days, in honour of the season.

July 1920: The Irish Citizen ended publication after...

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July 1920

The Irish Citizen ended publication after a British soldier wrecked the press.

6 July 1928: Four days after the Representation of the...

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6 July 1928

Four days after the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act received the royal assent, a celebratory breakfast was held at the Hotel Cecil in London.

10 November 1933: The Vote, a weekly magazine covering a range...

Building item

10 November 1933

The Vote, a weekly magazine covering a range of feminist issues including suffrage, ended publication.

Texts

Despard, Charlotte. A Modern Iago. Remington, 1879.
Despard, Charlotte. A Voice from the Dim-Millions. Griffith and Farran, 1884.
Despard, Charlotte. Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow. Samuel Tinsley, 1874.
Despard, Charlotte. Jonas Sylvester. Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowry, 1886.
Despard, Charlotte, and Mabel Collins. Outlawed. Henry J. Drame, 1908.
Despard, Charlotte. Songs of the Red Dawn. Odhla Printing, 1932.
Despard, Charlotte. The Rajah’s Heir. Smith, Elder, 1890.
Despard, Charlotte, and Christopher St John. Woman in the New Era. The Suffrage Shop, 1910.
Despard, Charlotte. Woman’s Franchise and Industry. Women’s Freedom League, 1913.