Alice Morrissey
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Mary Alice Connolly Morrissey (c. 1868 – 1912) was a British Roman Catholic socialist leader and
suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
activist from Liverpool, who was imprisoned in the campaign for
women's right to vote Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
.


Life

Born into a Catholic family, Mary Alice Connolly's brother became a priest. In 1891, Connolly married John Wolfe Tone Morrissey, who was elected as Liverpool's first socialist councillor. They both had a public political profile and worked together, locally and nationally until her sudden death in 1912. Morrissey was also, in her own right, a branch convenor for political organisations in Merseyside, as well as a
Poor Law Guardian Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930. England and Wales Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the poor ...
. She co-founded the Liverpool WSPU branch and was imprisoned twice for suffragette activism.


Suffrage and socialism

Morrissey was a socialist in the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a devout and active
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
and also joined the movement for votes for women, firstly in the
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
Women's Suffrage Society (a branch of the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In March 1919 it w ...
(NUWSS), the suffragists) in 1904. Morrissey quickly left that society, along with Dr Alice Ker, as Morrissey saw it as undemocratic and class led. Morrissey was forthright in criticising the lack of a campaign to go out and educate women across all areas of the city to be ready to use the vote. Morrissey went onto become a militant suffragette leader in starting up, alongside Mabel Labouchere (who was branch secretary until 1907), the Liverpool branch of the
Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...
(WSPU) the
suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
s. Morrissey was considered a friend of the WSPU leaders, the Pankhursts and Hannah Mitchell. However her public profile focussed on her role in the local labour movement, but ''The Labour Leader'' praised not her socialist fervour or strength of her case for female enfranchisement, but for her care for the 'creature comforts' of ILP potential recruits at the 'Socialist Socials' in the early 1900s. In 1906, Morrissey was among the women protesting and heckling during a speech by the then Liberal Prime Minister Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman ( né Campbell; 7 September 183622 April 1908) was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. ...
to an audience of around 6,000 at the Sun Hall. Morrissey and Patricia Woodlock also held large open outdoor meetings, but were less often invited to the more elite 'at home' drawing room discussions amongst middle-class women of WSPU. Although both suffrage organisations and political parties discouraged dual membership because of conflicting policy perspectives, social activism and suffragette activism were equally important to Morrissey, who served as the ILP branch secretary (1907–08) and first female delegate to the Liverpool Labour Representative Committee. Morrissey was a strong campaigner for John Hill, ILP candidate in the by-election for Kirkdale constituency in September 1907. Morrissey spoke along with other socialist women including Mary Bamber at ILP public meetings and was praised by ''The Labour Leader,'' for that and cited as an example in complaints about the attitude of some WSPU members who were not seen positively supporting ILP candidates, who were actually sympathetic to their cause. But in Liverpool the two movements sometimes held joint protest events and their local leaders appeared to recognise the individual women's rights to hold opinions for both causes. Morrissey led ILP meetings with Woodlock, Emma Hillier, Hattie Mahood, and others to build up socialist support for women's suffrage, but the women did not have the power to control and plan their activities in ILP compared with the WSPU. The suffragette movement recognised Morrissey's roles as an "agitator, orator, organiser and due two prison terms, a martyr." When Ada Flatman left the Liverpool WSPU, suddenly in late 1910, following a disagreement on tactics, Morrissey volunteered as interim WSPU secretary and organiser. Morrissey also became District Secretary of the Women's Cooperative Guild (WCG) in 1911. Morrissey and her husband toured around the south of England for ILP propaganda just before she died suddenly in 1912.


Faith and politics

The Catholic Church did not take a political stance on women's suffrage at the start, rather its spiritual leaders pronounced concerns about the impact of political engagement in the role of women in civil society, for example Cardinal Manning the Archbishop of Westminster (a former Anglican) said in 1871 at St. Mary Moorfield he hoped English womanhood would ‘resist by a stern moral refusal, the immodesty which would thrust women from their private life of dignity and supremacy into the public conflicts of men. His successor,
Cardinal Vaughan Herbert Alfred Henry Joseph Thomas Vaughan (15 April 1832 – 19 June 1903) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1892 until his death in 1903, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1893. ...
, was more open to change and was reported as saying '‘I believe that the extension of the Parliamentary Franchise to women upon the same conditions as it is held by men would be a just and beneficial measure, tending to raise rather than to lower the course of national legislation.’ Morrissey clearly was among the Catholic community who agreed with the more liberal approach, and was seen as principled in her prison experience as reported in the Catholic press. Morrissey and fellow Catholic WSPU leader, Patricia Woodlock, were imprisoned in March 1907, for suffragette activism. Other Catholic women activists locally included Florence Barry daughter of a Persian Austrian merchant, Bertha Quinn a clothing worker of Leeds, Violet Bryant a nurse of Newcastle, and even an Augustinian nun, Mother Mary Frances (of St Augustine's Priory girls school in Ealing), who chained herself to railings, broke windows and was imprisoned for the cause. Other Catholic women led debates and discussions instead, such as Gabrielle Jeffery, Mary Kendall,
Alice Meynell Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell (née Thompson; 11 October 184727 November 1922) was a British writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. She was considered for the position of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom ...
, Elisabeth Christitch, and Leonara De Alberti (who became the editor of the ''Catholic Suffragist)'' establishing the first Catholic Women's Suffrage Society in 1911. By 1919, Christitch was given a
Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...
Papal The pope is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the pope was the sovereign or head of sta ...
audience with
Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV (; ; born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, ; 21 November 1854 – 22 January 1922) was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His pontificate was largely overshadowed by World War I a ...
the head of the Catholic faith, who was reported as having said '‘we should like to see women electors everywhere’. Despite strong and sometimes violent sectarian movements in Merseyside, it is noted that the women: Catholic Women's suffrage groups and Protestant
Church League for Women's Suffrage The Church League for Women's Suffrage (CLWS) was an organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. The league was started in London, but by 1913 it had branches across England, in Wales and Scotland and Ireland. Aims an ...
members worked effectively together, with joint events occasionally, remarkable co-operation for that era, even for
Eleanor Rathbone Eleanor Florence Rathbone (12 May 1872 – 2 January 1946) was an independent British Member of Parliament (MP) and long-term campaigner for family allowance and for women's rights. She was a member of the noted Rathbone family of Liverpool. ...
, outspoken against WSPU militancy but content to work with its individuals in Merseyside, where key women engaged in society across political, religious and class divides, perhaps uniquely.


WSPU activism and prison

Morrissey established the Liverpool branch of the Pankhurst's WSPU with Patricia Woodlock and Emma Hillier, neither of whom were establishment figures: Woodlock the daughter of an impoverished artist and Hillier self-funding with a range of careers from missionary to dressmaker. Morrissey's first arrest was at Belle Vue Manchester June 1906, when she and her husband were heckling at a Liberal rally, and this was treated sympathetically by the socialist press. Morrissey was imprisoned in Holloway, and on her release was quoted in "Catholic Suffragist Released," in the ''Catholic Herald,'' 5 April 1907 saying 'so little deterred was she by her recent experience that she hoped they would not rest until they had 76 women out of every large town in goal." And the same publication printed Morrissey's prison-letter in an article "Votes for Women", on 26 April 1907 reporting Morrissey as writing that no nation was free while its women lived in "political silence," and adding "history teaches us that it is only by some people making sacrifices, that we will be freed." In 1907, the three leaders set the focus and agenda for the Liverpool WSPU branch, homed in premises accessible to all at 6 Colquitt Street. As two had socialist backgrounds, they aimed to educate working women, holding street meetings in working class areas, factory gate meetings at lunch time, inviting former mill worker suffragette
Annie Kenney Ann "Annie" Kenney (13 September 1879 – 9 July 1953) was an English working-class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie ...
to take a week of campaigning in the city. When
Mary Gawthorpe Mary Eleanor Gawthorpe (12 January 1881 – 12 March 1973) was an English suffragette, socialist, trade unionist and editor. She was described by Rebecca West as "a merry militant saint". Life Gawthorpe was born in Woodhouse, Leeds to John G ...
led the Lancashire branches of WPSU there was support for these methods across the industrial north west. By 1908 the numbers attending had grown and in one case estimated as over a thousand. Under the branch leadership of
Alice Davies Alice Davies (1870 - ''alive in'' 1919 ) was a British suffragette and nurse. She was imprisoned for protesting for women's right to vote by smashing windows, went on hunger strike and was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger ...
, Morrissey was mentioned for organising
Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst (; Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the women's suffrage, right to vote in United Kingdom of Great Brita ...
's visit to the Hardman Hall in 1912.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morrissey, Alice 1860s births 1912 deaths Date of birth missing Date of death missing British socialists British people of Irish descent British Roman Catholics Women's Social and Political Union Women's rights activists from Liverpool