Charlotte Despard

Charlotte Despard
Despard, c. 1910
Born
Charlotte French

(1844-06-15)15 June 1844
Edinburgh, Scotland[1]
Died10 November 1939(1939-11-10) (aged 95)
Belfast, Northern Ireland[2]
NationalityBritish[2]
Known forActivism in the suffragist, pacifist, Irish republican, and socialist movements; novels
Political partyCommunist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)
Spouse
Maximilian Carden Despard
​
​
(m. 1870; died 1890)​

Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist.[3] She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, the Women's Peace Crusade, and the Irish Women's Franchise League, and an activist in a wide range of political organizations over the course of her life, including among others the Women's Social and Political Union, Humanitarian League, Labour Party, Cumann na mBan, and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Despard was imprisoned four times for her suffragette activism,[4][5] and she continued campaigning for women's rights, poverty relief and world peace into her 90s.[4]

  1. ^ ONB
  2. ^ a b Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 15. p. 906.
  3. ^ Leneman, Leah (1997). "The awakened instinct: vegetarianism and the women's suffrage movement in Britain", Women's History Review, Volume 6, Issue 2.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Women's Suffrage Pioneer, Death of Mrs C. Despard". Gloucestershire Echo. 10 November 1939. Retrieved 4 July 2020.