Maud Joachim

{{Short description|English suffragette (1869–1947)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} {{Use British English|date=August 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = Maud Joachim | image = Suffragette Maud Joachim 1910. Blathwayt, Col Linley.jpg | caption = | birth_name = Maud Amelia Fanny Joachim | birth_date = {{Birth date|1869|02|16|df=y}} | birth_place = Paddington, London, England | death_date = {{Death date and age|1947|02|16|1869|08|01|df=y}} | death_place = Steyning, West Sussex, England | death_cause = | other_names = | organisation = Women's Social and Political Union<br>East London Federation of Suffragettes | known_for = Suffragette | education = Girton College, Cambridge | occupation = | title = | boards = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = Joseph Joachim (uncle)<br>Etheldred Browning (cousin)<br>Francis Browning (cousin) | signature = | awards = Hunger Strike Medal | website = | footnotes = }}

'''Maud Amalia Fanny Joachim''' (1 August 1869 – 16 February 1947) was an English suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She was jailed several times for her protests. Joachim was one of the first suffragettes to go on hunger strike when imprisoned, a protest at not being recognised as political prisoners. She was later a member of the socialist East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) and campaigned against fascism.

== Early life and education == Maud Amelia Fanny Joachim was born to Ellen Margaret (née Smart) and Henry Joachim in Paddington, London, on 1 August 1869.<ref>{{cite book |title=Girton College register: 1869-1946 |section=Joachim, Maud Amalia Fanny |page=62 |date=1948 |publisher=Girton College |location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Campbell |first=Sinead |date=2023-10-11 |title=Maud Joachim: the Suffragette who supported the East End. |url=https://towerhamletsslice.co.uk/romanroad/maud-joachim-bow-east-end-suffragette-history/ |access-date=2026-03-03 |website=Tower Hamlets Slice |language=en-GB}}</ref> She had three sisters, Gertrude was older than her and Dorothy and Nina were younger. Her father, a wool merchant had been born in Hungary and became a naturalized British subject in 1856, and received a certificate of naturalization in February 1874 following the Naturalization Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 14).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Naturalisation Certificates and Declarations, 1870-1916 |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/offers/join?dbid=9156&gsfn&gsln&h=107706&sub=9288966289260544&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ancestry.co.uk%2Fdiscoveryui-content%2Fview%2F107706%3A9156%3Ftid%3D%26pid%3D%26queryId%3Dadd6e1691126eeb3d2f9db7ff3559883%26_phsrc%3DACJ419%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=www.ancestry.co.uk}}</ref> Her paternal uncle was the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="spartj" /> Etheldred Browning and Frank Henry Browning were her maternal cousins<ref>{{Cite web |title=WPH and the suffrage movement |url=https://womenspioneer.co.uk/history/wph-and-the-suffrage-movement/ |access-date=2025-12-07 |website=Women's Pioneer Housing |language=en-GB}}</ref>

Joachim was educated at Girton College, Cambridge between 1890 and 1893, studying moral science.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Maud Joachim |url=https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/bio-maud-joachim |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=Suffragette Stories}}</ref><ref name="spartj">{{Cite news |title=Maud Joachim |language=en |work=Spartacus Educational |url=http://spartacus-educational.com/WjoachimM.htm |access-date=2018-06-18|last=Simkin|first=John}}</ref>

==Suffragette activism== [[File:Suffragettes at the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.jpg|thumb|WSPU suffragettes Joachim, Hilda Dallas, Harriett Kerr and one other at the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race]] Joachim was militant and a member of the hard line Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which was led by Emmeline Pankhurst, becoming involved in 1907.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Naomi |date=2023-09-26 |title=Help us fundraise to acquire Maud Joachim's medal recognising the first hunger strike in Scotland. |url=https://womenslibrary.org.uk/2023/09/26/help-us-fundraise-to-acquire-maud-joachims-medal-recognising-the-first-hunger-strike-in-scotland/ |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=Glasgow Women's Library |language=en-GB}}</ref> She enjoyed the camaraderie and reflected that she was now with people with the same purpose, writing in ''Votes For Women'' that: "What one finds on joining the WSPU is, that one is brought into contact with a great number of people whose ideals are the same as one’s own, and that the isolation and the reproach are things of the past."<ref name=":4" />

===Imprisonments===

* In February 1908 Joachim and groups of suffragettes were delivered to the front door of the House of Commons, transported in pantechnicon vans. This event was called the "Pantechnicon Raid", the group was arrested, and she was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://ukvote100.org/2018/02/28/domestic-servant-raids-parliament-the-case-of-charlotte-griffiths-suffragette-and-working-woman/ | title=Domestic Servant raids Parliament: The Case of Charlotte Griffiths – Suffragette and Working Woman | date=28 February 2018 }}</ref> * In June 1908 Joachim was arrested again after an attempt to visit the Prime Minister, along with Mrs Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick- Lawrence, Jessie Stephenson and Florence Haig. Joachim was thwarted and a crowd rushed the police. Joachim was sentenced to three months in Holloway Prison.<ref name=spartj/> * In 1909 Joachim was in Scotland working in Aberdeen.<ref name=":3" /> That November she joined a protest that disturbed a talk by Winston Churchill at Kinnaird Hall in his constituency of Dundee.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leneman |first=Leah |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Guid_Cause/Va-IAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Maud+Joachim&dq=Maud+Joachim&printsec=frontcover |title=A Guid Cause: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Scotland |date=1995 |publisher=Mercat Press |isbn=978-1-873644-48-5 |pages=87 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> She was arrested along with Helen Archdale, Catherine Corbett and Adela Pankhurst, refused to pay a fine, and was sentenced to ten days in Dundee Prison. During their sentence the five women went on hunger strike.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leneman |first=Leah |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Martyrs_in_Our_Midst/-hgXAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Maud+Joachim&dq=Maud+Joachim&printsec=frontcover |title=Martyrs in Our Midst: Dundee, Perth and the Forcible Feeding of Suffragettes |date=1993 |publisher=Abertay Historical Society |isbn=978-0-900019-29-6 |pages=10-11 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Atkinson |first=Diane |title=Rise up women! The remarkable life of the suffragettes |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2019 |isbn=9781408844052 |pages=177–178|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YwNbEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA177&dq=Maud+Joachim+Rise+Up&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjjl5PNx4OTAxViVEEAHe_uMzsQ6AF6BAgGEAM}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=HH55/323 |url=https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/exhibitions/women-suffrage/hh55-323.html |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=www.nrscotland.gov.uk}}</ref> * Joachim was arrested again on 18 November 1910 at the Black Friday event, but was not charged.<ref name=":3" />

In an imaginative protest organised with Katherine Douglas Smith, Joachim held up traffic in the West End by the two riding black bay horses up the Strand, at the same time advertising a suffragette meeting at the Royal Albert Hall.

thumb|right|Mary's brother William Blathwayt and Joachim at Eagle House in 1910

=== Residency at Eagle House === Joachim was invited to Eagle House in 1910. A plaque was made and her photograph was recorded by Colonel Linley Blathwayt.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bathintime.co.uk/image/249278/blathwayt-col-linley-suffragette-alice-perkins-1910|title=Suffragette Alice Perkins 1910, Blathwayt, Col Linley|website=Bath in Time, Images of Bath online|language=en|access-date=2018-01-02}}</ref>

Eagle House near Bath in Somerset had become an important refuge for suffragettes who had been released from prison after hunger strikes. Mary Blathwayt's parents planted trees there between April 1909 and July 1911 to commemorate the achievements of suffragettes including Emmeline Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Charlotte Despard, Millicent Fawcett and Lady Lytton.<ref>{{cite web|title=Eagle House |work=Historic England |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1115252 |access-date=25 November 2008 |df=dmy }}</ref> Joachim planted a ''Thujopsis Dolabrata'' conifer on 17 June 1910.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dobbie |first=Beatrice Marion Willmott |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Nest_of_Suffragettes_in_Somerset/DWNFAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Maud+Joachim&dq=Maud+Joachim&printsec=frontcover |title=A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset: Eagle House, Batheaston |date=1979 |publisher=The Society |isbn=978-0-9505390-1-0 |pages=62 |language=en}}</ref> The trees were known as "Annie's Arboreatum" after Annie Kenney.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hammond|first1=Cynthia Imogen|title=Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765-1965 ": Engaging with Women's Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape|date=2017|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781351576123|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FikxDwAAQBAJ&q=Eagle+House+Batheaston+John+Wood+Elder&pg=PT189}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hannam|first1=June|title=Suffragette Photographs|journal=Regional Historian|date=Winter 2002|issue=8|url=http://www2.uwe.ac.uk/faculties/CAHE/Documents/Research/Regional-history/RH8Hannam.pdf}}</ref> There was also a "Pankhurst Pond" within the grounds.<ref>{{cite web|title=Book of the Week: A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset| date=12 September 2012 |url=https://womanandhersphere.com/2012/09/12/book-of-the-week-a-nest-of-suffragettes-in-somerset/|publisher=Woman and her Sphere|access-date=27 October 2017|last=Crawford|first=Elizabeth}}</ref> Joachim was back in London when the 1911 census was enumerated and refused to provide any information to the census enumerator as part of the suffragette boycott.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-02-14 |title=Suffrage Stories: 1911 Census: Vanishing For The Vote |url=https://womanandhersphere.com/2014/02/14/suffrage-stories-1911-census-vanishing-for-the-vote/ |access-date=2024-11-17 |website=Woman and her Sphere |language=en|last=Crawford|first=Elizabeth}}</ref>

Alongside a number of other WSPU members, in 1913 Joachim moved away from the organisation and radical action as violent protest escalated to arson.<ref name=":4" /> She moved her energies towards the socialist East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS), joining in 1914. The ELFS offered practical support to working-class women alongside campaigning for the vote.<ref name=":4" />

== Later life == Joachim ran an unemployment bureau and managed a toy factory for the ELFS during World War I.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> She later worked with Sylvia Pankhurst on her anti-fascist Ethiopian campaign.<ref name=":1" />

In the 1939 Register of England and Wales, Joachim was listed as living on private means in Somerset Terrace in St Pancras, London,<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=1939 England and Wales Register |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/offers/join?dbid=61596&gsfn&gsln&h=8481151&sub=2533575459110912&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ancestry.co.uk%2Fdiscoveryui-content%2Fview%2F8481151%3A61596%3Ftid%3D%26pid%3D%26queryId%3Dadd6e1691126eeb3d2f9db7ff3559883%26_phsrc%3DACJ419%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=www.ancestry.co.uk}}</ref> and later moved to Mouse Cottage, Steyning, West Sussex, where she lived until her death on 16 February 1947, aged 77.<ref name=":1" />

==Personal life==

Joachim was a vegetarian.<ref name=":3">Crawford, Elizabeth. (2003). ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Women_s_Suffrage_Movement/ygXwlK_mj50C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Maud+Joachim&pg=PA311&printsec=frontcover The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928]''. Taylor & Francis. p. 311. {{ISBN|9781135434021}}.</ref> She was given a Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by WSPU,<ref name=":4" /> the box engraved with "''Presented to Maud Joachim by the Women's Social and Political Union in recognition of a gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship a great principle of political justice was vindicated''".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brooks |first=Libby |date=2023-09-22 |title=Glasgow Women's Library appeals for help to buy suffragette medal |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/22/glasgow-womens-library-appeals-for-help-to-buy-suffragette-medal |access-date=2023-09-22 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> An inscription on the back of one of the medal's bars commemorates her being FED BY FORCE 1/3/12 (1st March 1912).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-19 |title=Maud Joachim's Hunger Strike Medal comes to GWL |url=https://womenslibrary.org.uk/2023/10/19/maud-joachims-hunger-strike-medal-comes-to-gwl/ |access-date=2023-10-26 |website=Glasgow Women's Library |language=en-GB}}</ref>

==Death==

Maud Joachim died in Steyning, West Sussex, in 1947.<ref name=spartj/> On her death Joachim left legacies to fellow suffragettes Sylvia Pankhurst and Katherine Douglas-Smith as well as Girton College.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="biog">{{Cite web |title=Katherine Douglas Smith · Suffragette Stories |url=https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/bio-katherine-douglas-smith |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=suffragettestories.omeka.net}}</ref> Dorothy Bagnold Sowter of the Women's Pioneer Housing was executor of her will.<ref>{{Cite web |title=England & Wales, National Probate Calendar |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/offers/join?dbid=1904&gsfn&gsln&h=18801701&sub=281767036616704&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ancestry.co.uk%2Fdiscoveryui-content%2Fview%2F18801701%3A1904%3Ftid%3D%26pid%3D%26queryId%3Dadd6e1691126eeb3d2f9db7ff3559883%26_phsrc%3DACJ419%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=www.ancestry.co.uk}}</ref>

== Commemoration == Joachim's WSPU medal was offered for auction at Bonhams on 3 October 2023 and sold for £41,600 inc. premium.<ref>{{Cite web |title=HUNGER STRIKE MEDAL - MAUD JOACHIM Hunger strike medal awarded by the WSPU to Maud Joachim, 1912 |url=https://www.bonhams.com/auction/29249/lot/14/hunger-strike-medal-maud-joachim-hunger-strike-medal-awarded-by-the-wspu-to-maud-joachim-1912/ |access-date=2023-09-30 |website=www.bonhams.com |language=en}}</ref> Glasgow Women's Library set up a fundraising campaign to buy it, raising £28,000 from c.500 individual donations with the rest of the purchase price supported by the Scottish Government's National Fund for Acquisitions.<ref name=":0" /> The medal featured as the star object in the exhibition ''We Deserve A Medal: Militant Suffrage Activism'' at the library (1 February-31 May 2024).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-01-29 |title=We Deserve A Medal: Militant Suffrage Activism |url=https://womenslibrary.org.uk/event/we-deserve-a-medal-militant-suffrage-activism/ |access-date=2024-01-31 |website=Glasgow Women's Library |language=en-GB}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joachim, Maud}} Category:1869 births Category:1947 deaths Category:English people of Hungarian descent Category:People from Paddington Category:Activists from London Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Category:English suffragettes Category:Eagle House suffragettes Category:Hunger Strike Medal recipients Category:Women's Social and Political Union Category:Joseph Joachim