Dame Margery Corbett Ashby was a dedicated supporter of women’s rights. She spent much of her long life fighting for women’s right to equal suffrage and citizenship around the world.
Born in 1882, she spent her childhood in the family home of Woodgate House (now called Cumnor House), in the village of Danehill in East Sussex. Her father, Charles, was a radical member of the Liberal Party, and served as East Grinstead’s first Liberal MP between 1906 and 1910. Her mother, Marie, took an active interest in local affairs. She found foster homes for the children in the local workhouse when she discovered that they were being kept with elderly people and those with mental health problems. Both her parents tirelessly campaigned for women’s rights.
Later in life Ashby recalled that, ‘No one can have had a happier childhood, brought up with a younger brother and sister, in a large country house. I shared every advantage with my brother equally, from love and affection to the best possible education and opportunities.’[1]
From 1901, she attended Newnham College, Cambridge. Although she passed all her exams she was not awarded a degree; women were not granted degrees from Cambridge until 1947.
Margery appreciated the privileges her upbringing had given her and followed in her parent’s footsteps by championing civil liberties. While attending Newnham, she became a member of the Cambridge branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
In 1907, she became secretary of the NUWSS and edited their journal, The Common Cause. Soon after, she became involved in the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) and was a speaker at their conferences in Berlin (1904) and Stockholm (1911). She was a suffragist, not a suffragette, as she did not agree with the use of violence to achieve change.
In 1910 she married a barrister, Brian Ashby. Their only child, Michael, was born in 1914, and became a consultant neurologist. After WWI, as a Liberal candidate, Margery stood for parliament eight times, but without success. After the war, she also became involved in disarmament: in 1932 she was the United Kingdom’s delegate to the Geneva Conference. There were just four other women delegates; one each from the USA, Uruguay, Poland and Canada.
Ashby continued to be involved in women’s rights after the granting of partial suffrage. In 1924 she was elected president of the IWSA (from 1946, known as the International Alliance of Women), and she held the post until she retired in 1946. Prior to the IWSA’s 1935 conference, held in Istanbul, she travelled to Turkey. At a meeting with the city’s mayor, she remarked: ‘What a pity that women will come from all over the world to modern Turkey, and find Turkish women still without the vote’.[2] It was said that this comment was passed on to the president, Kemel Atatürk. A few months later, an edict was proclaimed, giving all Turkish women equal voting rights with men.
She remained active in politics after WWII and in 1952, at the age of 70, became the editor of International Women’s News. In recognition of her international work, she was appointed DBE in 1967.
She was well liked in the village where, even as an adult, she was still known as “Miss Margery”. She had an active mind and energetic personality. At the age of 90 she became the first President of Danehill Parish Historical Society. There, at the age of 95, she spoke for 80 minutes, first delivering a vivid and engaging talk entitled “From the Feudal to the Jet Age”, in which she reflected on the social changes and events she had experienced in her long life, and then answering questions from the audience.
Still committed to women’s rights, she took part in the Women’s Day of Action in London in 1980. She died in Danehill on 22nd May 1981, at the age of 99. In 2018, Ashby, alongside 58 other suffrage campaigners, was honoured on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Garrett Fawcett, which stands in Parliament Square.
by Valerie Blaber U3A
[1] Margery Corbett Ashby, Memoirs of Dame Margery Corbett Ashby (1996).
[2] Adele Schreiber and Margaret Mathieson, Journey Towards Freedom: Written for the Golden Jubilee of the International Alliance of Women (1955).
Sources
Karen M. Offen, European Feminisms 1700-1950: A Political History (2000)
Danehill Parish Historical Society, Woodgate and the Corbett family. Includes the text of “From the Feudal to the Jet Age” at the KEEP East Sussex Records Office.
Special thanks to Hylda Rawlings, founder member of Danehill Parish Historical Society, for sharing her memories of Dame Margery.
