Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Gladys Evans: Suffragette
Anyone know anything about Gladys Evans, Suffragette? Active around 1908-1912. Daughter of a London stockbroker, born and lived between Woodberry Down and the New River reservoir. But did she live in Muswell Hill in 1912? She says she did.
She features in today's Irish Times Archives extract for 19th July 1912. Liberal PM Herbert Asquith was in Dublin with the Irish Parliamentary Party trying to sell their joint Home Rule Bill. A group of suffragettes including Gladys and Mary Leigh got themselves over to Dublin to make his visit memorable by protesting his attitude to the franchise, hired boats on the Liffey to get to him and later dumped a hatchet with a suffragette message into his carriage. Then last night (well, 98 years ago) Gladys and two others attended the Theatre Royal, set their box on fire and flung a blazing chair into the orchestra as the first performance ended. Asquith may not have been in attendance, but he's certainly due to speak in the theatre tonight on the Home Rule Bill.
It seems Gladys was the leader, well equipped with oil, matches and other incendiary stuff as she set about setting the carpets around the "cinematograph box" alight. She was finally brought down by a Sergeant Cooper of the Connaught Rangers and Colour-Sergeant Shea of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who had been seated in the dress circle with their wives. They vanquished the flames with their mackintoshes but even as they jumped on her she continued to threaten "a few more explosions in the second house (ie. the 9 o'clock show) - this is only the start of it!"
Only Gladys was arrested. She later told police her name and that her address was Uzilli Cottage, Muswell Hill, North London and that she was 29 years old.
Much the same account appears in the New York Times.
So anyone here live in Uzilli Cottage, Muswell Hill? However I see at her trial in August, Sergeant Cooper in evidence called it Uzelle Cottage. Gladys was given 5 years custodial (the judge may have been named Clive Carter, but then maybe not) - so Gladys promptly went on hunger strike, suffered some fairly rough force-feeding, and in October was released after six weeks. She spent some time in Belgium (I think) to recuperate from her force-feeding. Two years later she joined the war effort, driving trucks in France apparently. The rest of her life was spent in New York.
BUT Gladys told the DMP one lie last night, 18th July 1912. She said she was 29. No, she was born in 1877 just south of Manor House, so she was 35. Did she tell them a second one? Did she ever set foot in Muswell Hill? Was there ever a cottage called Uzilli or even Uzelle ? I like Gladys and am inclined to believe her. Which woman wouldn't knock off half a dozen years on a late July night when facing a stalwart duty sergeant of the DMP ?
Please find Uzilli or Uzelle Cottage - even if it means Muswell Hill may get another Haringey Green Plaque.
She features in today's Irish Times Archives extract for 19th July 1912. Liberal PM Herbert Asquith was in Dublin with the Irish Parliamentary Party trying to sell their joint Home Rule Bill. A group of suffragettes including Gladys and Mary Leigh got themselves over to Dublin to make his visit memorable by protesting his attitude to the franchise, hired boats on the Liffey to get to him and later dumped a hatchet with a suffragette message into his carriage. Then last night (well, 98 years ago) Gladys and two others attended the Theatre Royal, set their box on fire and flung a blazing chair into the orchestra as the first performance ended. Asquith may not have been in attendance, but he's certainly due to speak in the theatre tonight on the Home Rule Bill.
It seems Gladys was the leader, well equipped with oil, matches and other incendiary stuff as she set about setting the carpets around the "cinematograph box" alight. She was finally brought down by a Sergeant Cooper of the Connaught Rangers and Colour-Sergeant Shea of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who had been seated in the dress circle with their wives. They vanquished the flames with their mackintoshes but even as they jumped on her she continued to threaten "a few more explosions in the second house (ie. the 9 o'clock show) - this is only the start of it!"
Only Gladys was arrested. She later told police her name and that her address was Uzilli Cottage, Muswell Hill, North London and that she was 29 years old.
Much the same account appears in the New York Times.
So anyone here live in Uzilli Cottage, Muswell Hill? However I see at her trial in August, Sergeant Cooper in evidence called it Uzelle Cottage. Gladys was given 5 years custodial (the judge may have been named Clive Carter, but then maybe not) - so Gladys promptly went on hunger strike, suffered some fairly rough force-feeding, and in October was released after six weeks. She spent some time in Belgium (I think) to recuperate from her force-feeding. Two years later she joined the war effort, driving trucks in France apparently. The rest of her life was spent in New York.
BUT Gladys told the DMP one lie last night, 18th July 1912. She said she was 29. No, she was born in 1877 just south of Manor House, so she was 35. Did she tell them a second one? Did she ever set foot in Muswell Hill? Was there ever a cottage called Uzilli or even Uzelle ? I like Gladys and am inclined to believe her. Which woman wouldn't knock off half a dozen years on a late July night when facing a stalwart duty sergeant of the DMP ?
Please find Uzilli or Uzelle Cottage - even if it means Muswell Hill may get another Haringey Green Plaque.
Tags for Forum Posts: GladysEvans, MuswellHill, suffragettes
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kit on
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If only we had a HOLer in New York to nip down to the public library and cadge that address from Gladys's private papers...
Entry at familytreemaker.genealogy.com, provided by Joan Skinner, a niece in Canada:
Gladys Evans, suffragette. Born December 15 1877, died 1967, daughter of Arthur Henry Evans and Amy Martha Gigney.
She worked at Selfridge's in London for three years. She had emigrated to Canada in 1911 but returned to England in March of 1912 on learning of the trial of Mrs. Pankhurst and the Lawrences. She was imprisoned in Dublin Women's Gaol for trying to set fire to the Abbey Theatre in July 1912. She got out of prison on October 23rd 1912. While in prison she was on a hunger strike and was force fed for nine weeks. She could have married Hugh Mount Joy O'Connor, her lawyer, when he was on leave. Two suffragette women left her money. The organization sent her to Berne, Switzerland to recuperate from kidney damage caused by the forcible feeding. She drove a supply truck in WW I and then went as a chauffeur to a relief mission in Blerancourt Chateau, Aisne France near the Belgian Border. Anne Morgan paid for her to come to New York and take a Frances Fox Beautician's course. Worked in Long Island at a nursing home. In her sixties she developed what would now be called Alzheimers. She could not come back to the Skinners in Montreal because she was in the US illegally and "my father got her a railway pass to Los Angeles where Ethel and eventually the "Little Sisters of the Poor" looked after her."
She gave all her suffragette papers to the New York Public Library.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Thanks Kit. I'm sure her niece Joan was fairly accurate with those details (apart from confusing the older Theatre Royal with the then new Abbey). Wonder what she means by: "She could have married . . . . when he was on leave."
Right HOL Admin - next time you're in NY, there's a job for you.
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Permalink Reply by HoL Site Admin on
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This is a yellow card for working against the very ethos of social media OAE.
Your plea should be to all members to activate their networks or make the visit on behalf of the community.
Any more of this frightful pre-communications age heresy and it'll be off with your head.
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Naturally I meant: "on your next virtual visit to the big apple" - and no, 'tisn't limited to our Great Leaders & Helmspersons.
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According the 1901 census the address is Uzielli Cottages, Pages Lane.
There might be a record of her living there in the 1911 census if anyone has access to it.
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Thanks Angela. Uzielli! Sounds like something you'd blow at the World Cup. Obviously neither that Connaught Ranger nor the Irish Times correspondent could read their own handwriting.
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