Flora Merrifield
Flora Merrifield | |
|---|---|
Flora Merrifield | |
| Born | 1859 |
| Died | 1943 (aged 83–84) Brighton, England |
| Organization(s) | Brighton and Hove Women's Franchise Society Lewes Women's Suffrage Society |
| Known for | Leading suffragist |
| Father | Frederick Merrifield |
| Relatives | Margaret Verrall (sister) Charles Watkins Merrifield (uncle) Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (grandmother) |
Flora (de Gaudrion) Merrifield (1859–1943, Brighton) was a leading British suffragist in Brighton who campaigned for the women's right to vote.
Family
Flora was born in 1859 in Brighton.[1] She was the granddaughter of artist and author Mary Philadelphia Merrifield and the daughter of barrister Frederick Merrifield and his wife Maria Merrifield (née de Gaudrion). As child, Flora lived with her parents and elder sister at 48 Park Crescent in Brighton. Flora's sister later became a classical scholar Margaret de Gaudrion Verrall (née Merrifield), while her uncle was the mathematician, Charles Watkins Merrifield. As a young woman, Flora was present at the opening of the Brighton School of Art, of which her father was Chair, and presented Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll with a programme drawn up by the students.[2]
Suffrage campaigning
Flora's parents were active members of the Brighton committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage, along with Henry Fawcett and Millicent Fawcett.[3] In 1906, the Brighton and Hove Women's Franchise Society was re-founded as a local committee of the London Society, with Flora as secretary and her sister-in-law Marian Verrall as treasurer.[3][1]
A committee was formed in February 1908 from the remaining members of the committee started two years previously by Miss Watson, an organiser from London.[4] Marian Verrall of West Hoathly would later become the President of the Cuckfield and Central Sussex Women's Suffrage Society and was the sister of Flora's brother-in-law, the classics scholar Arthur Woollgar Verrall. The Brighton society grew rapidly and had five hundred members by 1910.[3]
Flora campaigned to establish a similar society in neighbouring Lewes, visiting the town several times from 1908 onwards, and chairing the meeting that led to the creation of the Lewes Women's Suffrage Society in 1910.[5] She also led suffrage campaigners on the Great Pilgrimage as they walked through Sussex to London in July 1913. Flora was secretary for the Brighton branch of the League of Nations and, after her mother's death, lived with her elderly father at 14 Clifton Terrace, Brighton.[6] She died in 1943.[1]
References
- ^ a b c "The Development of the Suffrage Movement in Brighton and Hove: New Research". Brighton & Hove Women's History Group. Retrieved 6 March 2026.
- ^ "The Royal Visit to Brighton". Sussex Agricultural Express. 6 February 1877 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ a b c Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain & Ireland: A Regional Survey, (Oxford & New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 205-206. ISBN 978-0415477390.
- ^ The 1908 report of the Brighton and Hove Women’s Franchise Society in the East Sussex Record Office.
- ^ Stenlake, Frances (2014), "'The Lady Fired Splendidly': Lewes and the Women's Suffrage Campaign" (PDF), Sussex Archaeological Collections, 152: 139–52, doi:10.5284/1086311
- ^ McCarthy, Helen (15 February 2012). The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c.1918-45. Manchester University Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-7190-8616-8.