Ethel Snowden

Ethel Snowden, Viscountess Snowden (born Ethel Annakin; 8 September 1881 – 22 February 1951), was a British socialist, human rights activist, and feminist politician. From a middle-class background, she became a Christian Socialist through a radical preacher and initially promoted temperance and teetotalism in the slums of Liverpool. She aligned to the Fabian Society and later the Independent Labour Party, earning an income by lecturing in Britain and abroad. Snowden was one of the leading campaigners for women's suffrage before the First World War, then founding The Women's Peace Crusade to oppose the war and call for a negotiated peace. After a visit to the Soviet Union she developed a strong criticism of its system, which made her unpopular when relayed to the left-wing in Britain.

Snowden married the prominent Labour Party politician and future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden. She rose up the social scale in the 1920s, much to her pleasure, and she welcomed appointment as a Governor of the BBC and as a Director of the Royal Opera House. Although her husband received a Viscountcy, money became tight and she led the way in caring for him; after his death, she resumed temperance campaigning as well as journalism. She tended to be a controversial public speaker, who would fill with enthusiasm for a project and pursue it to the disregard of anything that stood in her way; it was said of her that "tact or discretion were foreign to her nature".

Early life

Ethel Annakin was the daughter of Richard Annakin, a building contractor. Her father also became involved in politics and later served as an Alderman of Harrogate,'' CP'' 2nd ed., vol. XIII, p. 498. becoming Mayor of the town in 1930–31. She is described by Philip Snowden's biographer Colin Cross as a "woman of strong will and striking good looks". She trained as a teacher at Edge Hill College in Liverpool, and while there joined the congregation of radical preacher Rev. Charles Frederic Aked (1864–1941); after listening to his sermon on "Can a Man be a Christian on £1 a week?" she became a socialist and joined with Aked's social work in the slums of Liverpool promoting teetotalism. She also joined the Fabian Society.

According to her future husband, the Labour politician Philip Snowden, they had met at a Fabian meeting in Leeds"An Autobiography, by Philip, Viscount Snowden", vol 1, Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934, p. 112. probably in about 1903, although Mary Agnes Hamilton thought they met at the Bradford house of William and Martha Leach. Harrogate, a spa town not dependent on the milling industry, was regarded as a higher class area and it was rare for someone of Ethel's background to be a socialist. She took her first lecture on behalf of the Yorkshire Independent Labour Party at Keighley Labour Institute in September 1903, possibly arranged by Snowden. In 1904 she started working as a schoolteacher at Walverden School in Nelson, Lancashire which was only 9 miles from Snowden's home at Cowling, and became a regular visitor, although Philip Snowden's mother Martha could not abide to meet her, thinking her pretentious and patronising.Cross, p. 62.

Marriage

A story told within the ILP and generally believed was that Ethel had proposed to Philip, which was against the marriage customs of the time. They had a quiet wedding with few guests at the registry office in Otley on 13 March 1905, with Philip Snowden explaining that they had learned that their socialist friends in the West Riding were planning a 'Socialist demonstration' at what they were hoping would be a family celebration. It is also thought that both families were opposed, and Philip Snowden did not tell his mother until he sent a telegram after the marriage had taken place. There was no honeymoon. Snowden subsequently tried to make friends with Martha but never entirely succeeded, with Martha frequently criticising her for concentrating on her own political career to the detriment of looking after her husband (who had long-term mobility difficulties).

Ethel and Philip Snowden set up home at Spencer Place in Leeds, and Ethel began to earn an income from lecture fees. She was interviewed for the woman's page of the ''Blackburn Weekly Telegraph'' where her husband was Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, telling the paper that "Our great motto .. is liberty, equality of opportunity and fraternity. Our great principle is love". She lectured in South Wales on socialism and women's suffrage in autumn 1905, but was ill during the 1906 election campaign and unable to help Philip in his successful election contest in Blackburn. She undertook a successful lecture tour of the United States in 1907, possibly arranged through Dr Aked who was then in New York; the tour was successful as American audiences seemed to like her way of speaking. The Snowdens gave up their Leeds home during this tour and moved to Baron's Court Road in west London.

Woman's suffrage

After 1906 Snowden became increasingly active in supporting women's suffrage, being one of the national speakers for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies; she decried the concentration on such things as dresses, jewels and cake recipes and wrote a book called ''"The Woman Socialist"'' in 1907 which advocated state control of marriage, joint title by women to the housekeeping money, and a state salary for mothers; she also wanted housekeeping organised collectively in each street and declared that under socialism women would have "no need to paint face and tint hair". Her strong views seemed to influence her husband, although Snowden was always a 'suffragist' and never endorsed the violent tactics of the suffragettes.

During a 1910 trip to the United States, Ethel Snowden was interviewed and sketched by Marguerite Martyn of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch.'' During the interview, Snowden mocked anti-suffrage parliamentarian Rowland Baring, 2nd Earl of Cromer, by affecting an accent and, as Martyn put it:

Standing stiffly as if suffering from a choking parliamentary collar, adjusting an imaginary monocle, producing imaginary notes from an imaginary Prince Albert coat pocket, clearing her throat and "er-ing" and "aw-ing" prodigiously, Mrs. Snowden proved herself an accomplished mimic and actress. djacent image./blockquote>

In 1914 Ethel Snowden was speaking at 200 public meetings a year on the subject, and temporarily resigned from the Independent Labour Party in order that her political allegiance did not cause problems with her campaigning on the issue.

Pacifism

The Snowdens left Britain for a long, world-wide, lecture tour in July 1914; while they were in Canada, news came of the outbreak of war. Philip Snowden asked whether he should return but was told not to, possibly because of his known pacifism which Ethel shared. While in Portland, Oregon Ethel gave an interview which produced a headline reading "Briton M.P. advises British Soldiers to Shoot Their Officers" which her husband considered damaging. She was near to being a complete pacifist, and joined her husband in campaigning for a negotiated peace in 1916. Since 1915, along with other women such as Agnes Harben, after the 1915 International Alliance of Women, Snowden felt a desire to develop a British campaigning organisation, and in 1917 she became the organiser and principal speaker for the Women's Peace Crusade, and estimated that she had addressed half a million people in the last year of the war; her main campaign speech was an appeal for men to "love" one another.

Russia

At the end of the war, Snowden was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in its Women's Section. This position made her a very prominent figure within the left-wing movements and led to a great deal of foreign travel, including to Berne and Vienna (to try to re-establish the Socialist International), Palestine, Georgia and twice to the United States. Most notably, she was named to a joint TUC-Labour Party delegation to Russia in early 1920 which was sent to be an impartial inquiry into the Bolshevik Revolution. After her return she published a book, ''Through Bolshevik Russia'', which revealed her own findings. Although she liked Lenin ("the merry-eyed fanatic of the Kremlin"), her general reaction was profoundly critical. She upbraided a Bolshevik who told a public meeting that a British revolution would start in three months, insisting that "we want power, but we do not want a revolution", and observed that "Everyone I met in Russia outside the Communist Party goes in terror of his liberty or his life". She had told a reporter for the ''Evening Standard'' on her return that "I oppose Bolshevism because it is not Socialism, it is not democracy and it is not Christianity", and likened working conditions to slavery.

Snowden's denunciations of the Soviets made her unpopular with the left within the Labour movement and resulted in her being voted off the National Executive Committee in 1922. Her prominence led to invitations to stand for Parliament. Snowden refused to stand in Plymouth Devonport against Lady Astor on grounds that Astor's service was invaluable. She was selected at one point as Labour Party candidate for Leicester East, but gave up the candidature when a by-election was called there in Spring 1922 (the Labour candidate won).

Social rise

With Philip Snowden back in Parliament for Colne Valley in 1922 and Labour as the official opposition, Lord and Lady Astor arranged a dinner party where King George V and Queen Mary could meet Labour leaders Snowden, J. R. Clynes, James Henry Thomas and their wives. Snowden became firm friends with Queen Mary. The couple put together all their earnings and savings in 1923 to buy a country house of ten rooms, Eden Lodge, set in an acre of land at Tilford in Surrey. Above her mantelpiece in the drawing room at Eden Lodge were later placed signed photographs of the King and Queen. They sold their London home at Golders Green and took a flat near Parliament in St Ermine's Court, but Ethel was angry when her husband was not allocated the living quarters at 11 Downing Street on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924.The Snowdens did not generally host parties, partly because they were both hard workers, but did like to meet up with old friends. They enjoyed music and Ethel was a good pianist. She started a rivalry with Beatrice Webb for the position of the leader among the Labour ministers' wives. After the fall of the Labour government, Ethel Snowden toured Canada and criticised Ramsay MacDonald's leadership in public speeches which were widely reported back in Britain and assumed to be the views of her husband. Although later moderating her language, she stood by her words when questioned by reporters on her return.

Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin appointed Ethel Snowden a governor of the newly established British Broadcasting Corporation
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