Marian Reeves (19 February 1879 – 30 August 1961) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

activist.

Life

Born in

Lewisham Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...

, then part of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, Reeves became interested in

women's suffrage 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 ...

, and joined the

Women's Freedom League The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom from 1907 to 1961 which campaigned for women's suffrage, pacifism and sexual equality. It was founded by former members of the Women's Social and Political Union after the Pa ...

(WFL) in 1909. She gradually came to prominence in the group, and by 1918 was the secretary of its branch in

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

. By this time, the group had broadened its interests to campaign on a wide range of feminist issues. During the 1920s, Reeves became involved with the WFL's publishing section, the Minerva Publishing Company, and in the middle of the decade she became the manager of the Minerva Club, the WFL's residential club in

Brunswick Square Brunswick Square is a public garden and ancillary streets along two of its sides in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is overlooked by the School of Pharmacy and the Foundling Museum to the north; the Brunswick Centre to the we ...

. This suffrage offshoot had been founded by Dr Elizabeth Knight and Alice Green. The club was used for meetings but also acted as a hostel for suffrage activists and fund-raising annual birthday parties were organised for

Charlotte Despard Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, the Women's Pe ...

. Despard travelled from Ireland each year to attend. The club was in the heart of

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

, and Reeves befriended many of the

Bloomsbury Set The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, ...

. She also came to know many other residents of the area, and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

she founded the London Emergency Apartment Keepers' Society (LEAKS) to support the many local owners of boarding houses and hotels. Reeves served on the national executive of the WFL for many years, and eventually became the organisation's president. She sat on many committees, including those of the Equal Pay Campaign, the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, the

Open Door Council The Open Door Council, established in May 1926, was a British organisation pressing for equal economic opportunities for women. It opposed the extension of 'protective legislation' for women, regarding such legislation as 'restrictive' and arguing t ...

, the Nationality Married Women Committee and the Women Peers Committee. She sat on the

United Nations Association A United Nations Association (UNA) is a non-governmental organization that exists in various countries to enhance the relationship between the people of member states and the United Nations to raise public awareness of the UN and its work, to promo ...

's women's advisory council, and was a vice-chair of the

British Commonwealth League The Commonwealth Countries League (CCL), founded in 1925 as the British Commonwealth League, is a voluntary pan-Commonwealth civil society organisation. The objectives are to secure equality of liberties, status and opportunities between men an ...

, the Status of Women Committee, and

the Suffragette Fellowship The Suffragette Fellowship was an organization founded in 1926 by Edith How-Martyn with the purpose of preserving the memory of the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, particularly the militant campaign led by the Women's Social ...

. She regularly attended congresses of the

International Alliance of Women The International Alliance of Women (IAW; , AIF) is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international organization that campaigned for women's suff ...

, and it was in 1961, while travelling in Ireland following a congress, that she died.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reeves, Marian 1879 births 1961 deaths English feminists People from Lewisham