Gertrude Eaton

{{short description|British musician and suffragist (1864–1940)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} {{engvarB|date=August 2019}} {{Infobox person | image =  | alt =  | caption = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth year|1861}} | birth_place = Swansea, Wales | death_date = {{death date and age|1939|3|8|1861|df=y}} | death_place = Hampstead, England | other_names = | occupation = Singer, composer | years_active = | known_for = Society of Women Musicians | notable_works = }} '''Gertrude Eaton''' (1864 – 8 March 1939) was a Welsh singer, and co-founder of the Society of Women Musicians. She was also active as a suffragist, and on the issue of prison reform.

==Early life and education== Gertrude Eaton was born in 1864, in Swansea, the fifth daughter of businessman and magistrate Robert Eaton of Bryn-y-mor, and his wife Helen.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Oxford dictionary of national biography.|others=British Academy., Oxford University Press.|date=21 May 2024 |isbn=9780198614128|edition=Online|location=Oxford|oclc=56568095}}</ref> The Eatons were a prominent family; the imposing Bryn-y-mor was built by an ancestor in the eighteenth century.<ref>Anne Logan 'The Life of Gertrude Eaton (1864): musician, tax resistor and penal reformer (Women's History: the journal of the Women's History Network Special Issue: 1918-2018, Vol 2, Issue 11 ISSN|2059-0156</ref>

Eaton studied music in Italy, and from 1894 to 1897 at the Royal College of Music.<ref>Pamela Blevins, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-Yfi4xbCv3oC&dq=Gertrude%20Eaton%20singer&pg=PA12 ''Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott: Song of Pain and Beauty''] (Boydell and Brewer Ltd. 2008): 12. {{ISBN|9781843834212}}</ref>

==Career== In 1911, Eaton co-founded the Society of Women Musicians with composers Katharine Emily Eggar and Marion Scott.<ref>Anita Mercier, [https://books.google.com/books?id=in3HqDj_e78C&dq=Gertrude%20Eaton%20singer&pg=PA32 ''Guilhermina Suggia: A Life''] (Ashgate Publishing 2008): 32-33. {{ISBN|9780754661696}}</ref><ref>Laura Seddon, [https://books.google.com/books?id=YBCyCQAAQBAJ&dq=Eaton%20Eggar%20Scott&pg=PA102 "Intergenerational Relationships: The Case of the Society of Women Musicians"] in Lisa Colton and Catherine Haworth, eds., ''Gender, Age, and Musical Creativity'' (Ashgate Publishing 2015): 102. {{ISBN|9781472430854}}</ref> The first meeting was held in October 1911, when Eaton was elected treasurer; she also spoke at that first meeting.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=hvLhw6KckNoC&dq=Eaton%20Eggar%20Scott&pg=PA535 "Society of Women Musicians"] ''The Musical Times and Singing-Class Circular'' 52(1 August 1911): 535.</ref><ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4000964/society_of_women_musicians_organized/ "Organizing a 'Society of Women Musicians' in London"] ''New York Times'' (22 October 1911): SM9. via Newspapers.com {{open access}}</ref> She served a term as president of the Society from 1916 to 1917.<ref>[http://www.rcm.ac.uk/media/rcmacuk/content/images/library/Society%20of%20Women%20Musicians%20v2.pdf Catalogue of Papers relating to the Society of Women Musicians held at RCM Library Archives, London] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029041754/http://www.rcm.ac.uk/media/rcmacuk/content/images/library/Society%20of%20Women%20Musicians%20v2.pdf |date=29 October 2015 }}: 1.</ref>

Gertrude Eaton was also active on the issues of suffrage and prison reform, and served a term as president of the Howard League for Penal Reform.<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33364747 "Capital Punishment: Women Discuss its Abolition"] ''The West Australian'' (19 June 1930): 3.</ref> Eaton used her musical training to teach fellow activists to use their voices for confident public speaking.<ref>Anita Anand, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Cd4yBgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Gertrude%20Eaton%22%20Kensington&pg=PA292 ''Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary''] (Bloomsbury 2015): 292. {{ISBN|9781632860811}}</ref> As secretary of the Women's Tax Resistance League, in summer 1911, her household silver was seized when she refused to pay taxes as a suffrage protest.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=BkAwngNsqTIC&dq=Gertrude%20Eaton%20prison%20reform&pg=RA1-PT260 "Tax Resistance"] ''The Vote'' (5 August 1911); reprinted in Lucy Delap, Maria DiCenzo, and Leila Ryan, eds., ''Feminism and the Periodical Press, 1900-1918'' (Taylor and Francis 2006). {{ISBN|9780415320269}}</ref> She also evaded the census in 1911 as part of an organized suffrage protest.<ref>Jill Liddington, ''Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship, and the Battle for the Census'' (Oxford University Press 2014). {{ISBN|9781847798886}}</ref> She was said to be "instrumental" in getting penal reform on the agenda of the League of Nations.<ref>Mrs. D. M. Northcroft, [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aZlAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TaUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4266%2C2726762 "Women in Prison Administration: An Interesting Appointment"] ''The Glasgow Herald'' (17 April 1935): 10.</ref> Eaton was one of the British delegates to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom meeting in Zurich, Switzerland in 1919.<ref>[http://www.wilpf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/these-dangerous-women-wilpf-bo.pdf ''These Dangerous Women: WILPF Women Working in Partnership''] (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom 1915): 22.</ref>

Eaton died on 8 March 1939, aged 77 or 78, at Hampstead. Her colleague Margery Fry wrote in an obituary of Eaton, "She would take endless pains to help a cause or an individual when her sympathy was aroused."<ref>Margery Fry, "In Memoriam: Gertrude Eaton" ''Howard Journal of Crime and Justice'' 5(4)(January 1940): 230. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2311.1940.tb01053.x</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *[http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/451292.html "Photograph of Suffragette Gertrude Eaton"], Museum of London. *[http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/454367.html "Postcard"] featuring another portrait of Gertrude Eaton, Museum of London.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eaton, Gertrude}} Category:1861 births Category:1939 deaths Category:Welsh suffragists Category:English pacifists Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Music Category:20th-century English singers Category:20th-century English women singers