Agnes Elizabeth Slack or Agnes Elizabeth Saunders (15 October 1858 – 16 January 1946) was a leading

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

Temperance Temperance may refer to: Moderation *Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed *Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion Culture * Temperance (group), Canadian dan ...

advocate.

Life

Slack was born in

Ripley, Derbyshire Ripley is a town in the Amber Valley borough of Derbyshire, England. History Little information remains as to when Ripley was founded, but it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book, when it was held by a man called Levenot. In 1251 Henry III grante ...

in 1858. Her

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

Wesleyan Methodist parents were Mary Ann (born Bamford) and Thomas Slack. Her father made bricks and her elder brother,

John Bamford Slack Sir John Bamford Slack (11 July 1857 – 11 February 1909) was a British politician, member of the Liberal Party and Methodist lay preacher. Life Slack was born in Ripley, Derbyshire in 1857. His Liberal Wesleyan Methodist parents were Mary An ...

, would become a minister and politician. At the age of 14 she was sent to a boarding school in Lincoln. Methodists believed in

temperance Temperance may refer to: Moderation *Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed *Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion Culture * Temperance (group), Canadian dan ...

and religion was Slack's life's work. In 1895 she became the secretary of the National British Temperance Women's Association and the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union. Entrance Gates to Wesley's Chapel

Slack had good connections with American

Woman's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international Temperance movement, temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social ref ...

and she referred to their President, Lillian Stevens as "mother". She continued her education afterwards attending summer schools at Oxford and Cambridge in bible studies before the first world war. During this time she established strong links with the American vice-President

Anna Adams Gordon Anna Adams Gordon (1853–1931) was an American social reformer, songwriter, and, as national president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union when the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, a major figure in the Temperance movement. Biography E ...

in Boston. Gordon became the President of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union when Stevens died in 1914. In 1920 the USA banned alcohol. In 1925 there were two women's temperance organisation's in the UK, because of a disagreement over the suffrage movement in 1893. She was the last President of the National British Temperance Women's Association until it merged with the

Women's Total Abstinence Union Women's Total Abstinence Union (WTAU) was a British women's organization active during the temperance movement in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters were at 4 Ludgate Hill, London. In addition to a president, there were 41 vice-presidents. The ge ...

. As a result, she was the founding President of the

National British Women's Total Abstinence Union National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

.Eve Colpus, ‘Slack , Agnes Elizabeth (1858–1946)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 201
accessed 10 Aug 2017
/ref> The following year, her niece

Aelfrida Tillyard Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard (5 October 1883 – 12 December 1959) was a British author, medium, lecturer on Comparative Religion and associated religious topics, spiritual advisor and self-styled mystic. Early life Tillyard was born ...

, published the first biography of her life, documenting her travels to Canada, America, Scandinavia and South Africa. In the same year she became the first woman to preach at

Wesley's Chapel Wesley's Chapel (originally the City Road Chapel) is a Methodist church situated in the St Luke's area in the south of the London Borough of Islington. Opened in 1778, it was built under the direction of John Wesley, the founder of the Metho ...

. Slack married an architect named Charles Saunders in 1943 and she died in

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of ...

in 1946.

Books

*“Agnes E. Slack” (“Two Hundred Thousand Miles Travel for Temperance in Four Continents”) by Aelfrida Tillyard, 1926. Published by W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, Cambridge, England. *Slack, A. E. (1908), ''My travels in India'', published by John Heywood Ltd, Manchester, England. *''People I have met and places I have seen: some memories of Agnes E. Slack'', 1942

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slack, Agnes Elizabeth 1858 births 1946 deaths People from Ripley, Derbyshire British activists British women activists Woman's Christian Temperance Union people 20th-century British non-fiction writers British travel writers British memoirists 20th-century British women writers British women memoirists British women travel writers