Elsie Edith Bowerman (18 December 1889 – 18 October 1973) was a British lawyer, suffragette, political activist, and RMS Titanic survivor.
Early life
Elsie Edith Bowerman was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the only daughter of William Bowerman and his wife Edith Martha Barber.[1] Her father, William, was a prosperous businessman and died when Elsie was five years old. She attended Wycombe Abbey as a boarder from the age of 11 in 1901, becoming the youngest student there.[2] She later wrote the biography of Frances Dove, her headmistress during her time at Wycombe. After spending some time in Paris, Elsie continued her education at Girton College, Cambridge, where she studied for the Medieval and Modern Languages Tripos and received a class II in her final examinations in 1911.
Suffragette activism
Whilst at Girton she became a committed suffragette, taking part in informal activism such as giving out Votes for Women to others and organising suffrage events for her peers. She once had Emmeline Pankhurst stay for a night when she gave a talk in nearby Cambridge. Despite being an active member of the WSPU, there is no record of Elsie taking part in militancy at this time.
Shortly after the 1910 general election, the suffragettes agreed to a truce from militancy in order to give The Conciliation Bill, a cross-party initiative to grant a limited form of women suffrage, the best chance of succeeding. This truce lasted till November 1910, when the Government announced it would allocate no more time to the Bill. In response, suffragettes marched on Parliamentary Square and clashed with police in an event known as Black Friday. Elsie's mother, Edith, who was also a member of the WSPU, took part in this event. She later told author Antonia Raeburn that ‘a nearby policeman [gave] her a blow on the head. ‘He caught me by the hair and flinging me aside said: ‘Die then!’ I found afterwards that so much force had been used that my hairpins were bent double in my hair and my sealskin coat was torn to ribbons.’[4]
In 1914, Elsie was appointed the Eastbourne district organiser for the WSPU.
Aboard the Titanic
On 10 April 1912 Elsie Bowerman and her mother Edith boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton as first class passengers[1] in cabin 33 on deck E, for a trip to America and Canada to see her father's relations in North America. Both women had been active in suffrage activism right up until their departure; the Saturday before sailing Elsie attended an open-air meeting in Hastings in support of the cause.[5] Although initially reported as missing, both women were rescued in lifeboat 6, alongside Molly Brown and Frederick Fleet, the ship lookout who had originally spotted the iceberg. The suffragette periodical, Votes for Women, celebrated their survival, stating that they were ‘very enthusiastic workers in the cause.’[6] After the Titanic disaster, they reached America and carried on with their plans to visit British Columbia, Klondyke and Alaska.
After the partial enfranchisement of women in the Representation of the People Act 1918 and the Parliament (Qualification of Women Act) 1918, Christabel Pankhurst decided to stand as a parliamentary candidate in the 1918 general election. Pankhurst stood as a candidate of the Women's Party, a short-lived successor to the WSPU, in Smethwick. The Women's Party was formed by Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst and its policies contained a mix of feminism and nationalistic propaganda. Elsie, who would have turned 30 four days after the general election and was therefore, under the age requirements of the Representation of the People Act 1918, ineligible to vote, acted as Christabel's election agent.
The Women's Guild of Empire
Alongside fellow former suffragette Flora Drummond, Elsie co-founded The Women's Guild of Empire in later 1919 or early 1920. By 1925, the group claimed 20,000 members.[7] This organisation was anti-fascist, anti-communist and pro-Conservative.[8] The Guild opposed trade unions, arguing that strikes and lock-outs contributed to post-war unemployment. The Scotsman called the Guild '‘one of the most active organisations for countering Communist or Bolshevist propaganda in Scotland today.’[9]
In April 1926, the Guild organised a large procession to protest the industrial unrest that was shortly to lead to the General Strike in London under the slogan 'Women Unite to Save the Nation.'[10] Elsie wrote to the editor of The Spectator publicising the event; stating that ‘20,000 women’ were expected to attend, and emphasising that those attending ‘are the wives of working men who have had personal experience of strikes, and know what hardships they mean.’[11]
Barrister
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 allowed women to become barristers and solicitors for the first time. Elsie was amongst the early cohorts of women barristers. She joined Middle Temple and was called to the bar in 1924, practising till 1938.[2] She was the first woman barrister to appear at the Old Bailey, in a case in which she was part of a prosecuting team against Harry Pollitt, a prominent communist, for libel.[2] She also practiced on the South Eastern Circuit, one of the regional routes that barristers travelled on in England and Wales. Elsie wrote a legal book titled The Law of Child Protection.
^"Other Election Reports". Votes for Women. 21 January 1910. p. 270.
^Raeburn, Antonia (1973). The Militant Suffragettes. Michael Joseph. p. 156. ISBN978-0718110208.
^"New Readers Wanted!". Votes For Women. 19 April 1912. p. 460.
^"Heroism that Knows no Sex". Votes for Women. 26 April 1912. p. 466.
^"Women's Guild of Empire". Wishaw Press. 27 November 1925. p. 4.
^Scott, Claude Fredrick, ‘Caring about the British Empire: British Imperial Activist Groups, 1900-1967, with Special Reference to the Junior Imperial League and the League of Empire Loyalists’ (King’s College London, 2014), p. 50-51
^"Anti-Socialist Propaganda in Scottish Constituencies". The Scotsman. 11 March 1921. p. 4.
^"Stop Strikes and Lock-Outs". Motherwell Times. 2 April 1926. p. 1.
^"The Women's Guild of Empire Procession". The Spectator. 20 March 1926. p. 17.
