Violet Tillard (29 December 1874 – 19 February 1922) was a British

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 ...

, nurse,

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

, supporter of

conscientious objectors A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or freedom of religion, religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for ...

, international famine relief worker and devout

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

Early life

Tillard was born in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

in 1874. She was known as "Till" to friends and family. She trained as a nurse at the Poplar and

Great Ormond Street Great Ormond Street Hospital (informally GOSH, formerly the Hospital for Sick Children) is a children's hospital located in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, and a part of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foun ...

hospitals in London.

Work with the Women’s Freedom League

Caravan tour

Tillard became involved with 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 1908 and soon rose to the position of Assistant Organising Secretary. From May to mid-October of that year she helped establish branches of the League on a caravan tour of the southeast counties of England, such as in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

. The 'Votes For Women' caravan tour passed through

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 ...

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

, Surrey and

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

. It was on this tour that Tillard met

Muriel Matters Muriel Lilah Matters (12 November 1877 – 17 November 1969) also known as Muriel Matters-Porter, was an Australian-born suffragist, lecturer, journalist, educator, actress and elocutionist. Based in Britain from 1905 until her death, Matters i ...

who was to remain a lifelong companion. Matters would later write of her friend's courage, sympathy, generosity and selflessness, stating that Tillard, "set one a standard to live by".Matters-Porter, Muriel 1930, unpublished manuscript memoir of Violet Tillard, held in the Suffragette Fellowship Collection,

Museum of London London Museum (known from 1976 to 2024 as the Museum of London) is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. The Museum of London was formed in 1976 by ama ...

Role in the Grille Protest

On 28 October 1908 the

organised a large demonstration to take place at the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative ch ...

. It was an organised protest that took place at similar times throughout the

– outside St Stephen's Entrance, the Old Prison Yard and in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. The purpose of the protest was to draw attention to the struggle of women and remove the 'Grille', a piece of ironwork placed in the Ladies' Gallery that obscured their view of parliamentary proceedings. Violet's role was in the latter part of the demonstration – to remove the offensive grille from the Ladies' Gallery. Tillard was joined in the House of Commons with her close friend

Helen Fox Helen Fox (born 1962) is an English children's author, educated at Millfield School and New College, Oxford, where she read history and modern languages. Before becoming a full-time writ ...

and two male supporters in the

Strangers' Gallery The Visitors' Gallery, formerly known as the Strangers' Gallery, is set aside for members of the public at the British House of Commons, and is intended for both invited and uninvited members of the public to watch the proceedings of the House. A ...

. Fox and Matters both chained themselves directly to the Grille and Matters began addressing the MPs directly, while the males in the Strangers' Gallery showered the house with

handbills A flyer (or flier) is a form of paper advertisement intended for wide distribution and typically posted or distributed in a public place, handed out to individuals or sent through the mail. Today, flyers range from inexpensively photocopied lea ...

. Tillard's role was to force a WFL proclamation through the Grille and lower it on to the floor of the House using string. All four protagonists were set upon by attendants but were later released that night without charge. After they were permitted to leave Matters and Tillard immediately rejoined the protest outside St Stephen's portals but were subsequently arrested for attempting to break the police lines. The pair and eleven other members of the

spent the following month in Holloway Gaol. Matters later recounted that, despite the ugly prison garb, "Till managed to look so graceful. How Cheerful she was, how philosophic when many were either 'edgy' r'weepy with strain, or rebellion."

Violet's sister and the Women's Freedom League

Violet's sister, Irene Tillard, was also involved with the

. She is known to have helped on the caravan tour of 1908, and in August 1909 was arrested with eight other members of the WFL (including

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 ...

) for picketing outside

10 Downing Street 10 Downing Street in London is the official residence and office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minister of the United Kingdom. Colloquially known as Number 10, the building is located in Downing Street, off Whitehall in th ...

, London. The picket prevented the Prime Minister,

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928) was a British statesman and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last ...

, entering his residence and the group were later sentenced to serve seven days imprisonment or pay fines of 40 shillings. As was the suffragist tradition they intended not to pay the fine and serve their imprisonment. However, as paying the fine did not require the consent of the incarcerated, the group's fines were anonymously paid against their will.

Work between 1910 and the outbreak of war

From May to early August 1910 Tillard accompanied

to Australia where her friend gave lectures focusing on her experiences in Britain agitating for change. When the 1911 census was taken, Tillard was living with Matters and Margaret Jewson in Lambeth and they participated in the suffragette census boycott. Tillard wrote on the household census form: “No Vote No Census. Should women become persons in the eye of the law this session - full information will be forwarded.” She is also known to have been in Dublin from 1912–1914, supporting the striking Dublin Transport Workers which was in the period in which the

Dublin Lockout The Dublin lock-out was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers that took place in Dublin, Ireland. The dispute, lasting from 26 August 1913 to 18 January 1914, is often viewed as the most severe and ...

occurred.

Conscientious objection to the First World War

During the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Tillard was energised into helping

. She was appointed Co-Treasurer of the No-Conscription Fellowship's Maintenance Committee. However, on 23 May 1918 Tillard found herself once again in court for her agitations. She was on trial for refusing to disclose to police the name of the person who printed the March edition of the No-Conscription Fellowship News. Tillard was found guilty under the

Defence of the Realm Act The Defence of the Realm Act 1914 ( 4 & 5 Geo. 5. c. 29) (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, four days after the country entered the First World War. It was added to as the war progressed. It gave the government wide-ranging ...

and was sentenced to 61 days imprisonment to be served once again at Holloway.

Famine relief worker in post-war Germany and Russia

In 1919 Tillard travelled to war-torn Germany to help people recover from the effects of the war. She went with a

mission organised by

Joan Fry Joan Craddock Fry (6 May 1906 – 29 September 1985) was a British tennis player. Fry was a finalist at the 1925 Wimbledon Championships where she lost in straight sets to Suzanne Lenglen. She was part of the British team that won the 1930 ...

and in December of that year Tillard formally applied to become a member of the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

. Whilst in defeated Germany she was confronted with immense misery and helped some students in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

survive the hardship. She provided relief in Germany as a nurse until October 1921 where she was transferred to

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

-ravaged Buzuluk in Russia to help organise the

relief work Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. The primary objective of humanitarian a ...

. There she found famine on a grand scale with an estimated five million dead at the conclusion of the food shortage. Confronted with mass impoverishment she wrote: :::"One feels horrible to live in such good conditions when the people are literally starving at our doors – a boy of sixteen lies dead a few yards away… It isn’t so harrowing to see them lying dead. They suffer no more. It is the doomed shadows one sees around the streets and in the homes that are most horrible." Tillard continued her tireless work with the

to help curb the suffering of the masses.

Death

Whilst in Russia Tillard's skills as a nurse were temporarily called upon in the Pavlovka District near her current post in Buzuluk. There, three fellow relief workers had fallen ill with

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

and it was her job to nurse them back to health. She was successful in accomplishing her objective but soon contracted the same disease. Tillard died of typhus on 19 February 1922. Tillard's death was to feature briefly in the writings of

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

who praised her work during the

: :::"In our bloodstained and at the same time heroic epoch, there are people who, regardless of their class position, are guided exclusively by the promptings of humanity and inner nobility. I read a brief obituary of this Anglo-Saxon woman, Violet Tillard; a delicate, frail creature, she worked here, at Buzuluk, under the most frightful conditions, fell at her post, and was buried there.... Probably she was no different from those others who also fell at their posts, serving their fellow human beings.... Here we count six such graves… These graves are a kind of augury of those future, new relations between people which will be based upon solidarity and will not be shadowed by self-seeking. When the Russian people become a little richer they will erect (we are profoundly sure of this) a great monument to these fallen heroes, the forerunners of a better human morality, for which we, too, are fighting".Trotsky, Leon 1922, 'The Military Writings of Leon Trotsky, Volume 4: 1921–1923',

Legacy

In 2023, to mark the centenary of the Volga famine (1921–1922), an art competition named after Violet Tillard was hel
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References

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tillard, Violet 1874 births 1922 deaths English suffragists English nurses English pacifists English Quakers