Kate Parry Frye

09 January 1878 - 16 February 1959

KPF wrote prolifically throughout her life. Her most significant work was her diary, in which she meticulousy recorded her daily life from the age of nine until only four months before her death in 1959.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

She also wrote numerous plays, only one of which, co-authored with her husband, was ever published.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

Her archive contains the typescripts of many of her unpublished plays.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

215

Selections of her 1911-1928 diary covering the campaign for the suffrage were edited and published by Elizabeth Crawford in 2013.

Milestones

9 January 1878

KPF was born at 19 Kensington Road in London, the younger of two daughters.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

1887

KPF , aged nine, first began to keep a diary.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

2 January 1898

KPF , aged almost twenty, wondered about what she might create by diary-keeping: Could it be possible to describe our lives and ourselves, I wonder, by my poor pen, as we are?

Crawford, Elizabeth, and Kate Parry Frye. The Great War: The People’s Story—Kate Parry Frye: The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette. ITV.

1 October 1958

KPF , aged eighty-one, wrote the last entry in her diary, only four months before she died. She had been keeping a diary for more than seventy years.

Crawford, Elizabeth, and Kate Parry Frye. The Great War: The People’s Story—Kate Parry Frye: The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette. ITV.

Crawford, Elizabeth, and Isobel Grundy. E-mail to Isobel Grundy.

16 February 1959

KPF died, perhaps of the effects of a stroke, at Rosslyn Nursing Home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, at the age of eighty-one, the year after her husband's death.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

Crawford, Elizabeth, and Kate Parry Frye. The Great War: The People’s Story—Kate Parry Frye: The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette. ITV.

15 April 2013

A relatively small and drastically abridged selection of KPF 's diaries was edited by Elizabeth Crawford for publication

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.

after the full collection of diaries was found damp and mildewed in a cellar in North London in 2009. Crawford wove selections from the rest into an e-book in 2014.

Crawford, Elizabeth, and Isobel Grundy. E-mail to Isobel Grundy.

Crawford, Elizabeth, and Kate Parry Frye. The Great War: The People’s Story—Kate Parry Frye: The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette. ITV.

Biography

Birth

9 January 1878

KPF was born at 19 Kensington Road in London, the younger of two daughters.

Frye, Kate Parry. “Introduction”. Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary, edited by Elizabeth Crawford, Francis Boutle Publishers, pp. 9-34.