Charlotte Despard


Charlotte Despard was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the Irish Women's Franchise League, and an activist in a wide range of political organizations over the course of her life, including among others the Women's Social and Political Union, Humanitarian League, Labour Party, Cumann na mBan, and the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Despard was imprisoned four times for her suffragette activism, and she continued actively campaigning for women's rights, poverty relief and world peace right into her 90s.

Early life

Charlotte French was born on 15 June 1844 in Edinburgh and lived as a child in Ripple, Kent, the daughter of Irish Captain John Tracy William French of the Royal Navy and Margaret French, née Eccles. Despard was always dubious of authority and ran away from home at the age of 10 getting a train to London 'to become a servant.' Whilst living in York and London, Despard saw the life in the slums, which inspired her political views. Despard's brother John French became both a leading military commander during World War I and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, putting them on opposing political sides in later life. She also had two sisters, one Catherine Harley who served in the Scottish Women's Hospital during the war in France.
Despard regretted her lack of education, although she did attend a finishing school in London. With her sisters, Despard travelled to in Germany and Paris (there at the start of the Franco-Prussian war; the same year, 1870, she married businessman Maximilian Carden Despard, and travelled with him across his business interests in Asia and India, but he then died at sea in 1890; and they had no children. Despard wore black for most of the rest of her days.

Novels

Despard's first novel, was published in 1874. Over the next sixteen years, Despard wrote ten novels, three of which were never published. Outlawed: a Novel on the Women's Suffrage Question was written jointly with her friend, Mabel Collins and published in 1908.

Charity

Following her husband's death when she was 46, Despard was encouraged by friends to take up charitable work. Despard was shocked and radicalised by the levels of poverty in London and devoted her time and money to helping poor people in Battersea, including a health clinic, soup kitchen for the unemployed, and youth and working men's clubs in this slum area. Despard lived above one of her welfare shops in one of poorest areas of Nine Elms during the week and converted to Roman Catholicism. Despard also worked with women and girls clubs. In 1894, Despard stood and was elected as a Poor Law Guardian for Lambeth poor law union, and remained until she retired from the board in 1903.

Politics

Despard became good friends with Eleanor Marx and was a delegate to the Second International, including to the fourth congress in London in 1896. Despard actively campaigned against the Boer War as a "wicked war of this Capitalistic government" and she toured the United Kingdom speaking against the use of conscription in the First World War, forming a pacifist organisation called the Women's Peace Crusade to oppose all war.
outside No. 10 Downing St prior to being arrested on 19 August 1909

Women's suffrage

Despard was a vocal supporter of the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party. In 1906 Despard joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and later was imprisoned four times for activism on women's franchise, twice in Holloway gaol. Despard had become frustrated with the lack of progress from NUWSS and she joined the more radical Women's Social and Political Union. Despard became one of their recognised orators and described as a 'tireless and popular leader.. a striking figure with her thin sharp features and grimly tight lips'
In 1907, Despard was one of the women who formed the Women's Freedom League, whose motto was 'Dare to be Free', after disagreements over the autocratic way in which the WSPU was run.
Despard was an active Catholic and on Ash Wednesday in 1907, Despard went with others to the House of Commons and got arrested. In establishing WFL, Despard was joined by Teresa Billington-Greig and Edith How-Martyn, Alice Abadam, Marion Coates-Hansen, Irene Miller, Bessie Drysdale, Maude Fitzherbert as signatories to a letter to Emmeline Pankhurst explaining their disquiet on 14 September 1907. In 1911, when first imprisoned with Nina Boyle, Despard was furious when someone paid the fines, allowing them to be released right away; Boyle remarked upon Despard's 'complete and absolute fearlessness'.
Sylvia Pankhurst imprisoned with Despard in 1907, also remarked at her death that 'She was one of our most courageous and devoted social workers. When I was in prison with her in 1907, I was impressed by her truly magnificent courage.'
Despard was also closely identified with new passive resistance strategies including women chaining themselves to the gate of the Ladies' Gallery in the Palace of Westminster; and also a "No taxation without representation" campaign, during which her household furniture was repeatedly seized in lieu of fines, along with Virginia Crawford, Despard realised that the women's movement groups had to work together at times as well.
In 1909, Despard met Mohandas Gandhi in London, in her role in the Women's Freedom League.
In 1919, Despard was one of twenty British delegates to the Women's International League Congress in Zurich. She is pictured next to Helen Crawfurd from Glasgow.
In 1928, Despard was one of the suffrage movement leaders at the celebratory breakfast for the passing of the Equal Franchise Bill.

Founding refugee hospital and school

From 1912 to 1921, she worked with Kate Harvey, another pacifist feminist and tax resister, along with other prominent members like Sophia Duleep Singh. Despard wrote in her diary re Kate Harvey that "the anniversary of our love" began on 12 January 1912, though it remains unclear the extent of what she meant by the words. Kate Harvey converted her house, Brackenhill, in Highland Road, Bromley, to a thirty-one-bed hospital, initially intended for wounded soldiers in World War I. However, refugee women and children were sent there instead. Despard and Harvey bought a 12-acre tract in Upper Hartfield, which they also called 'Brackenhill'. Previously, Harvey had become involved in Theosophy, as did Despard and the children from Bromley were transferred to The Cloisters, an open-air school dedicated to that cause in Letchworth. The School in Hartfield became an Open Air School, which closed in 1939.

Later life

Unlike other suffragists, Despard refused as a pacifist to become involved in the British Army's recruitment campaign during World War I, a stance different from that of her family: her brother, Field Marshal John French, was Chief of the Imperial General Staff of the British Army and commander of the British Expeditionary Force sent to Europe in August 1914, and their sister Catherine Harley served in the Scottish Women's Hospital in France.
Despard was an active member of the Battersea Labour Party during the early decades of the 20th century. She was selected as the Labour candidate for Battersea North in the 1918 General Election when then aged 74; however, her anti-war views were unpopular with the public and she was defeated.
Despard got involved on other causes such as the London Vegetarian Society, becoming vice-president in 1931, Save the Children charity, Indian independence movement. Despard was a board member of the World Congress of Faiths in the 1930s.
She remained actively political well into her 80s and 90s, giving anti-fascist speeches in the likes of Trafalgar Square in the 1930s, and touring the Soviet Union to look at workers conditions there and later joining the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Activism in Ireland, and communism

In 1908 Despard joined Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Margaret Cousins and other feminists to form the Irish Women's Franchise League. She urged members to boycott the 1911 Census and withhold taxes and provided financial support to workers during the 1913 Dublin Lock Out. In 1909 Despard met Mahatma Gandhi and was influenced by his theory of passive resistance.
Despard settled in Dublin after World War I and was a supporter of de Valera, remaining bitterly critical of her brother, now Field Marshal the Earl of Ypres, but they were later reconciled.
During the Irish War of Independence, together with Maud Gonne and others, she formed the Women's Prisoners' Defence League to support republican prisoners. She was classed as a dangerous subversive under the 1927 Public Safety Act by the Irish Free State government for her opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and her house was occasionally raided by the authorities.
In 1930, Despard toured the Soviet Union. Impressed with what she saw she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and became secretary of the Friends of Soviet Russia organisation. In 1933 her house in Dublin was burned down by an anti-communist mob.
She died, aged 95, after a fall at her new house, Nead-na-Gaoithe, Whitehead, County Antrim, near Belfast in November 1939. She was buried in the Republican Plot at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Legacy

On death, she was described as someone who 'brought home to English people an understanding of what womenhood could be capable of when inspired by fiery ardour for what it truly believed to be a great cause for humanity.' Sylvia Pankhurst remembered her 'fine spirit' and said of Despard 'She was one of our most courageous and devoted social workers.'
In London, two streets are named after her, one in Battersea SW11, and another in Archway, Islington. At the end of the latter is the Charlotte Despard pub, named in her honour.
Her name and picture are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London.

Publications