Margaret and Norah O’Shea were sisters and suffragist activists. They were the children of Rodney and Elizabeth O’Shea. Margaret, the third child, was born in 1860 and Norah, the sixth child, was born in 1865. From looking at the census returns it is clear that both sisters lived privileged lives before the First World War. Due to their father’s army career, they moved around the country, but their roots were mostly in Portsmouth. In the early years of the twentieth century, they were living at East Cosham Cottage, on the northern side of the Havant Road and had private means.
An article in the Portsmouth Evening News on 7 May 1963 described Norah as ‘the red-haired rebel’ and Margaret as ‘dark, quiet and stately’. Nevertheless, it was Margaret who composed the words of their suffrage song, which was surely inspired by the hardship of local working-class women:
Forward, brave and dauntless
Daughters of this earth.
Let your dormant talents
Spring to glorious birth.
Children, toiling sisters,
Cry, and never rest;
Answer! We shall help you
Coming to our best.
Forward, fighting evils,
Deborahs, awake!
Up! And help your sisters
Victims at life’s stake.
The sisters belonged to the local branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and anecdotal evidence suggests that East Cosham Cottage was the unofficial headquarters of the Portsmouth Branch of the NUWSS from its foundation in 1909 until about 1913. It was a substantial property, with lawns suitable for the hosting of functions to support the suffragist cause. The Portsmouth Times reported on a garden fete held at the Cottage on 1 July 1909. The Hampshire Telegraph of 23 September 1910 described a garden party held two days earlier at the same venue, organised by the Portsmouth Branch of the NUWSS. There were teas and stalls and children singing. The Branch President, Mrs Lapthorn, introduced the guest speaker, Mrs Brownlow, a member of the Holborn Board of Guardians and other local bodies. Mrs Brownlow explained how the old-fashioned idea that women ought to be delicate beings, with no opinions of their own, was dying out and how this was largely due to women having realised that politics vitally affected the health and happiness of a nation of which so many of them were or would be mothers. It was estimated that there were two hundred people in attendance.
Both sisters took leadership roles in the local suffragist campaign. Norah was Honorary Secretary of the Portsmouth Branch of the NUWSS. This organisation was a member of the Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire Federation of the NUWSS and in 1912 Margaret was the Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of this federation. In July 1913, the NUWSS’ “Great Pilgrimage” reached London and culminated in a great rally in Hyde Park. At the rally, Norah chaired the Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire platform. Norah also presided on 7 November 1913 when the Portsmouth Branch moved into its headquarters in two spacious rooms at 2 Kent Road in Southsea. As Sarah Peacock has noted, these suffrage campaigners were tireless and must have displayed considerable administrative skill.
After the First World War, there were signs that the O’Shea sisters were less affluent than they had been. Although they were still living in East Cosham Cottage in 1925, they must have moved soon afterwards to rooms in Southsea, where they were still living when Margaret died in 1927. When Norah died in 1953 at the age of 88, she was living in Milton, Portsmouth.
In many ways, Margaret and Norah were representative of many single middle-class women of their time. They had no higher education and were trained for no profession and, ultimately, were dependent on the yield from investments that declined after the war. What they did have, however, was energy, commitment and concern for their fellow women. These qualities made them redoubtable champions of the cause of female suffrage in the Portsmouth area.
By Judy Jones, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project
Sources
Sarah Peacock, ‘Votes for Women: The Women’s Fight in Portsmouth,’ December 1983, The Portsmouth Papers, Number 39.
Sarah Quail (née Peacock), Struggle and Suffrage in Portsmouth: Women’s Lives and the Fight for Equality, Pen and Sword Books, 2018.
