Jessie Forsyth

{{Short description|1847–1937, temperance reformer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Jessie Forsyth | native_name =  | native_name_lang =  | honorific_suffix = | image = Jessie Forsyth (Standard encyclopedia of the alcohol problem, v.3, 1926).png | image_size = | alt = | caption = | order = International Organisation of Good Templars | office = | status =  | term_start = | term_end =  | predecessor = | successor = | prior_term = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1847/49 | birth_place = London, England | death_date = 1937 | death_place = Western Australia | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | citizenship = | relations = | parents =  | mother =  | father =  | relatives = {{hlist|George Andrew Duncan Forsyth (brother)|George Cruikshank (great-uncle)}} | education = | alma_mater = | occupation = {{hlist|business manager|newspaper editor}} | profession = | known_for = temperance advocate | awards =  | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }} '''Jessie Forsyth''' (1847/49 – 1937) was a British-American temperance advocate. She joined the International Organisation of Good Templars (IOGT) in London in 1872, relocated to New England for decades, and celebrated her Jubilee while residing in Western Australia. During her 50 years membership, Forsyth filled many important offices, including 15 years as International Superintendent of Juvenile Templars, in the course of which she visited jurisdictions in Great Britain, the United States and Canada and many parts of continental Europe. She edited the ''International Good Templar Magazine'' for eight years and, at different times, did the editorial work on seven other temperance publications, in addition to being a contributor of short stories and poems to newspapers and magazines.<ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908" /> She made addresses in various countries before large audiences, including one in the Royal Opera House, Stockholm, and did much secretarial work. The last years of her life were chiefly devoted to work for the WCTU until she was compelled to resign active service on account of ill health.<ref name="TheNYTemplar-1921">{{cite journal |title=FIFTY YEARS A GOOD TEMPLAR |journal=The New York Templar |volume=XLII |issue=481 |date=1921 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hrvlAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA5 |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

==Early life and education== thumb|left|As a child Jessie Forsyth was born in London, England,{{efn|While Fahey (1988) records her birth year as 1847, Leonard & Marquis (1908) and Cherrington (1926) record her birth date as April 29, 1849.<ref name="Fahey-2000" /><ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908" /><ref name="Cherrington-1926" />}} to London Scots family.<ref name="Fahey-2000">{{cite journal |last1=Fahey |first1=David M. |title=Jessie Forsyth, Good Templar: Family Records from Western Australia |journal=The Social History of Alcohol Review |date=1 September 2000 |volume=15 |issue=1–2 |pages=28–32 |doi=10.1086/SHAREVv15n1-2p28 |s2cid=223175513 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/SHAREVv15n1-2p28?mobileUi=0 |access-date=3 March 2022 |issn=0887-2783|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Her parents were Andrew and Eliza Maria (Kitteridge) Forsyth (1818-1862); Eliza's uncle was George Cruikshank.<ref name="Blocker-2003">{{cite book |last1=Blocker |first1=Jack S. |title=Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia |date=2003 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-833-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BuzNzm-x0l8C&pg=PA71 |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Jessie was orphaned at the age of 15.<ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908">{{cite book |last1=Leonard |first1=John William |last2=Marquis |first2=Albert Nelson |title=Who's who in America |date=1908 |publisher=A.N. Marquis |page=652 |volume=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eX0QOpl7iBQC&pg=PA652 |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Her siblings included a brother, George Andrew Duncan Forsyth,<ref name="Fahey-2000" /> and a sister, Maria Forsyth-Smith.<ref name="TheInternational-1896">{{cite journal |title=A WEST AUSTRALIAN GOOD TEMPLAR FAMILY |journal=The International Good Templar |date=1896 |volume=9 |page=40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GAEB9o5K8hYC&pg=PA40 |access-date=3 March 2022 |publisher=B.F. Parker |language=en}}</ref>

Forsyth was educated in a private school in London.<ref name="Cherrington-1926">{{cite book |last1=Cherrington |first1=Ernest Hurst |title=Standard encyclopedia of the alcohol problem. Vol. III Downing-Kansas; |date=1926 |publisher=Westerville, O. [American Issue Pub. Co.] |page=1019 |url=https://archive.org/details/standardencyclop03cher/page/1019 |access-date=3 March 2022}}</ref> She learned the numbering business in that city.<ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908" /> She joined the "Henry Answell" Lodge, "Favorite" Lodge of the IOGT, London, on October 14, 1872.<ref name="TheNYTemplar-1921" /><ref name="Cherrington-1926" />

==New England== Forsyth emigrated to New England,<ref name="Fahey-2000" /> in 1872, residing in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She took a position with Boston Printing & Numbering Co., a Boston, Massachusetts business house, in 1874, serving as manager, 1876–1902, and succeeding to the business, 1902.<ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908" />

She was elected Grand Vice-templar of the Junior Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1877. Two years later, she was appointed Grand Secretary, continuing in office until the reunion of the two branches of the Templars in 1887. At the session of the Grand Lodge of the World, held at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1883, Forsyth was chosen Right Worthy Grand Vice-templar, and was reelected to the office at Stockholm in 1885 and at the reunion session at Saratoga, New York, in 1887.<ref name="Cherrington-1926" /> thumb|1895 In 1890, she was elected Grand Superintendent of Juvenile Templars in Massachusetts, and was reelected three times. In 1893, and again in 1895, she was appointed by the International Supreme Lodge Right Worthy Grand Superintendent of Juvenile Templars. To this position, she was reelected in 1895 at Boston, in 1897 at Zürich, in 1899 at Toronto, in 1902 at Stockholm, and in 1905 at Belfast, serving for fifteen years in all.<ref name="Cherrington-1926" />

Forsyth was a director of Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society.<ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908" /> She was a member of the Good Templar deputation to King Oscar of Sweden in 1902.<ref name="Cherrington-1926" /> In 1904, her candidacy for the highest office of Massachusetts State Grand Lodge, IOGT, was unsuccessful, but she was elected to represent the order at the national temperance congress at St. Louis.<ref name="15apr1904-BostonGlobe">{{cite news |title=WOMAN CANDIDATE |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/430874542/?terms=%22Jessie%20Forsyth%22%20temperance&match=1 |access-date=3 March 2022 |work=The Boston Globe |via=Newspapers.com |date=15 April 1904 |page=7 |language=en}}</ref> She served as vice-president at the Anti-Alcohol Congress in Budapest, 1905.<ref name="LeonardMarquis-1908" />

She edited ''The Temperance Brotherhood'' for four years<ref name="Austin-1895">{{cite book |last1=Austin |first1=Benjamin Fish |title=The Prohibition Leaders of America |date=1895 |publisher=St. Thomas, Ont. : [s.n.] |page=8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UBfygyO7nuIC&q=forsyth+%22Massachusetts+Templar%22 |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref> in the 1880s,<ref name="Proceedings-1887">{{cite book |author1=Independent Order of Good Templars Grand Lodge of North America |title=Proceedings of the ... Annual Session of the R. W. Grand Lodge, I. O. G. T. |date=1887 |publisher=Grand Lodge of North America |location=Saratoga Springs, New York |page=3871 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AHfLkJA5xfsC&pg=PA3871 |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref> and then took charge of ''The Massachusetts Templar'', and later, the ''International Good Templar'' (1901-1908).<ref name="Cherrington-1926" /><ref name="GarratyCarnes-1999">{{cite book |last1=Garraty |first1=John Arthur |last2=Carnes |first2=Mark Christopher |title=American National Biography: Fishberg-Gihon |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-512787-4 |page=269 |volume=8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MvEpAQAAMAAJ&q=forsyth+%22International+Good+Templar%22 |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

==Western Australia== thumb|1905 In 1911, Jessie, Maria, and Maria's husband, Thomas Smith, yielded to the brotherly persuasions of George, for many years, Harbor Master at Fremantle, to settle in Western Australia.<ref name="TheInternational-1896" /> There, she soon became active in temperance work and was elected State president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), besides serving in various offices with the Good Templars. When the Australian National Prohibition League was formed (January 31, 1917), Forsyth was called to the secretariate, with headquarters at Melbourne, Victoria. She was reelected the following November. When the League amalgamated with the Strength of Empire Movement, Forsyth did not join the movement, but edited the periodical, ''The Dawn'', issued by the Fremantle Woman's Service Guild, for which organization she did other voluntary work. Early in 1920, she was appointed State Secretary of the WCTU of Western Australia, with headquarters at Perth.<ref name="Cherrington-1926" />

In the spring of 1922, Forsyth retired from official service, being the recipient of numerous grateful testimonials from her colleagues and settling at Claremont, Western Australia. That she has been unselfish and sterling worker in the temperance cause was evidenced by the fact that for 45 years, not one of the many appointments held by her was a salaried position.<ref name="Cherrington-1926" />

==Death and legacy== Never married, Jessie Forsyth died in Australia in 1937.<ref name="Fahey-2000" />

''The Collected Writings of Jessie Forsyth, 1847-1937: The Good Templars and Temperance Reform on Three Continents'', edited by David M. Fahey, was published posthumously (Edwin Mellen Press, 1988).<ref name="Forsyth-1888">{{cite book |last1=Forsyth |first1=Jessie |editor1-last=Fahey |editor1-first=David M. |title=The Collected Writings of Jessie Forsyth, 1847-1937: The Good Templars and Temperance Reform on Three Continents |date=1988 |publisher=E. Mellen Press |isbn=978-0-88946-296-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LljlAAAAMAAJ |access-date=3 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

==Selected works== * ''The Collected Writings of Jessie Forsyth, 1847-1937: The Good Templars and Temperance Reform on Three Continents'', 1988

==Notes== {{notelist}}

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forsyth, Jessie}} Category:1840s births Category:1937 deaths Category:19th-century American newspaper editors Category:20th-century American newspaper editors Category:20th-century American women writers Category:Activists from London Category:Activists from Boston Category:Activists from Perth, Western Australia Category:English temperance activists Category:American temperance activists Category:Australian temperance activists Category:British emigrants to the United States Category:American emigrants to Australia Category:Presidents of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union Category:British women newspaper editors Category:American women newspaper editors Category:Australian women newspaper editors Category:19th-century American women journalists Category:20th-century American women journalists