Mildred Mansel

{{Short description|19th- and 20th-century British suffragette}} {{Infobox person | birth_date = 1868 | image = Mildred Mansel WSPU lead in Bath in about 1910 card.png | caption = Mansel on a WSPU postcard | birth_place = Roehampton, Surrey, England | death_date = 11 March 1942 | death_place = Binsted, Arundel, Sussex, England | children = 3 | parents = Arthur Guest<br>Adeline Chapman | relatives = Lady Charlotte Guest (grandmother)<br>Ivor Guest, 1st Viscount Wimborne (cousin) }}

'''Mildred Ella Mansel''' ({{Nee|Guest}}, c. 1868 – 11 March 1942) was a British suffragette and organiser for the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Bath.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Cowman |first=Krista |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6cbvP3XF0yMC&dq=mildred+mansell&pg=PP13 |title=Women of the Right Spirit: Paid Organisers of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), 1904-18 |date=2007-07-15 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-7002-0 |pages=18 |language=en}}</ref>

== Family == Mansel was born in 1868 in Roehampton, Surrey.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Mrs Mildred Ella Mansel |url=https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/1857/mrs-mildred-ella-mansel |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=Women's Suffrage Resources}}</ref> Her parents were the conservative politician Arthur Guest (1841–1898) and suffragist Adeline Chapman (1847–1931).<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Naylor |first=Ellis |title=Mildred Mansel |url=https://map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/items/show/308 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=Mapping Women's Suffrage, University of Warwick}}</ref> Her mother was a member of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and the Women's Tax Resistance League.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Crawford |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth Crawford (historian) |date=12 September 2019 |title=Chapman [née Chapman; former married name Guest], Adeline Mary (1847–1931), campaigner for women's suffrage |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-369183 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |language=en |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.369183 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8}}</ref> She had a brother, Arthur Rhuvon Guest. Her family were well connected in society, as Mansel’s grandmother was the aristocrat and linguist Lady Charlotte Guest (1812–1895)<ref name=":0" /> and her first cousin was Ivor Churchill Guest, 1st Viscount Wimborne (1873–1939), member of Parliament for Cardiff and the Liberal Party chief whip.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jenkins |first=Lyndsey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7nqBgAAQBAJ&dq=mildred+mansel&pg=PT85 |title=Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr |date=2015-03-12 |publisher=Biteback Publishing |isbn=978-1-84954-892-2 |pages=1 |language=en}}</ref>

She married Colonel John Delalynde Mansel of Bayford Lodge, Wincanton in 1888.<ref name=":3" /> They had three children, two daughters and a son.<ref name=":1" /> Her daughter Juliet Mansel (born 1898) lived with the Catholic religious writer Baron Friedrich von Hügel and his wife, Mary Catherine Herbert, while she attended boarding school in High Wycombe and was considered a fourth daughter by von Hügel.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Wrigley-Carr |first=Robyn |title=The Baron, his niece and friends : Friedrich von Hügel as a spiritual director, 1915-1925 |date=25 June 2013 |access-date=30 July 2025 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of St Andrews |url=https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/3588 |language=en |pages=86-90}}</ref> During World War I, both her daughters Marcia and Juliet became nurses.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Mildred Mansel |url=https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/bio-mildred-mansel |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=Suffragette Stories}}</ref>

== Activism ==

=== Suffrage === Mansel became an campaigner for women's enfranchisement and was a member of the WSPU by 1909.<ref name=":2" /> During the Bill of Rights March on 29 June 1909, Mansel was arrested with Evelina Haverfield and Emmeline Pankhurst as they had tried to break into the House of Commons and present a petition to Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2018-06-15 |title=Sherborne & the fight for women's suffrage |url=https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/sherborne-the-fight-for-womens-suffrage/ |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=The Old Shirburnian Society |language=en-GB}}</ref>

Mansel became an organiser of the Bath WSPU branch in 1910 and supported the establishment of a new branch in Yeovil.<ref name=":4" /> When Grace Roe was sent to Ipswich to recruit for the WSPU and set up a branch, she invited Mansel and Marie Brackenbury to support her there.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crawford |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth Crawford (historian) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uUrKCVn9VZkC&pg=PA86 |title=The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey |date=2013-04-15 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-01054-5 |pages=86 |language=en}}</ref> [[File:Fructu-Luteo Holly on 21 October 1910 planted by Mildred Mansel.jpg|thumb|Mary Blathwayt's dad's photo of the Fructu-Luteo Holly planted on 21 October 1910 by Mansel]] On 21 October 1910, Mansel was invited to plant a tree at Eagle House, known as "suffragette's rest".<ref name=":5" /> She planted an ''Ilex Aquifolium Fructu-Luteo Holly'' and the surviving plaque is held in the collection of the Roman Baths Museum.<ref name=":5" /> She became friends with Mary Blathwayt of Eagle House, who helped Mansel to balance the local WPSU accounts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Liddington |first=Jill |date=2008 |title=Organizing for Citizenship and Democracy |url=https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/hwj/dbn010 |journal=History Workshop Journal |language=en |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=259–265 |doi=10.1093/hwj/dbn010 |issn=1363-3554|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In 1911, Mansel participated in the suffragette boycott of the 1911 census and hired 12 Lansdowne Crescent in Bath to be used by the 35 local census evaders, including Blathwayt.<ref name=":2" /> She also participated in an 'at home' meeting in the home of Mary Morris in preparation for a London Procession,<ref>"At Home". ''Votes for Women''. 26 May 1911. p. 569.</ref> and gave a speech in support of women's suffrage with Annie Kenney at Melksham Town Hall.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melksham Remembers |url=https://www.melkshamremembers.org.uk/walks/Market.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624195333/https://www.melkshamremembers.org.uk/walks/Market.html |archive-date=2021-06-24 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=Melkshamremembers.org.uk}}</ref>

Mansel was arrested again in November 1911 in Wales and was sentenced to a week in prison.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wallace |first=Ryland |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mh9mDwAAQBAJ&q=mansell&pg=PT87 |title=The Women's Suffrage Movement in Wales, 1866-1928 |date=2018-05-15 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-329-7 |pages=1907 |language=en}}</ref> Mansell was sent to Holloway Prison for a week after an action where she broke windows at the War Office, London.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Maggie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lXt6DwAAQBAJ&dq=mildred+mansell&pg=PT42 |title=Hidden Heroines: The Forgotten Suffragettes |last2=Lomas |first2=Janis |date=2018-10-23 |publisher=The Crowood Press |isbn=978-0-7198-2762-4 |language=en}}</ref>

After the failure of the Conciliation Bill on 19 February 1912, Mansel wrote in WSPU newspaper ''Votes for Women'' that the bill's fate was "an object-lesson" for women about what they could expect from "a man-made Parliament responsible to men only."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fletcher |first=Ian Christopher |date=2006 |title=Opposition by Journalism? The Socialist and Suffragist Press and the Passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1912 |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/pah.2006.0004 |journal=Parliamentary History |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=88-114 |access-date=30 July 2025}}</ref>

From 1913 Mansel was put in charge of coordinating the movement of suffragettes between safe houses to shelter them after being released from prison under the "Cat and Mouse Act." Due to her familial connection with Ivor Guest she was considered "untouchable".<ref name=":0" /> As part of this role, she rented a flat in London for Grace Roe.<ref name=":1" /> Also during 1913, Mansel visited her friend Christabel Pankhurst in Paris, France.<ref name=":2" />

In 1914, Mansel said to a group of suffrage supporters: “Something has been said about our Union being “underground. Does this meeting look as though we were underground? We are underground, and overground, and everywhere.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Purvis |first=June |author-link=June Purvis |date=2019-11-10 |title=Did militancy help or hinder the granting of women's suffrage in Britain? |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2019.1654638 |journal=Women's History Review |volume=28 |issue=7 |pages=1200–1234 |doi=10.1080/09612025.2019.1654638 |issn=0961-2025 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

== Poverty == Mansel is considered as the possible author of the 1911 book ''Five Months in a London Hospital'', which recounted poverty and medical treatment in London's poor areas.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mayne |first=Alan |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Archaeology_of_Urban_Landscapes/inrRyZ1l28sC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Mildred+Mansel&pg=PA11&printsec=frontcover |title=The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland |date=2001-12-13 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-77975-3 |editor-last=Murray |editor-first=Alan |pages=17 |language=en |chapter=Ladies and London Poverty 1860-1940 |editor-last2=Christian |editor-first2=James}}</ref>

== Later life == Mansel attended a reunion dinner on 11 February 1928 to celebrate Equal Franchise, which was also attended by Nina Boyle, Teresa Billington-Greig, Edith How-Martyn, Muriel Matters, Anna Munro, Emmeline Pethwick-Lawrence and Daisy Solomon.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Luscombe |first=Eileen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3sTSEAAAQBAJ&q=mildred+mansell+suffragette |title=History and Legacy of the Suffragette Fellowship: Calling all Women! |date=2023-10-20 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-98710-2 |language=en}}</ref>

When Emmeline Pankhurst died on 14 June 1928, Mansel was one of her pallbearers, alongside other former suffragettes Georgiana Brackenbury, Marie Brackenbury, Marion Wallace Dunlop, Harriet Kerr, Kitty Marshall, Rosamund Massy, Marie Naylor, Ada Wright and Barbara Wylie.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Purvis |first=June |author-link=June Purvis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wtx_AgAAQBAJ&dq=barbara+wylie&pg=PA353 |title=Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography |date=2003-09-02 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-34191-7 |pages=253 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Pugh |first=Martin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IGelJr1eZDoC&dq=harriet+kerr+wspu&pg=PA408 |title=The Pankhursts: The History of One Radical Family |date=2008 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-09-952043-6 |pages=408 |language=en}}</ref>

Mansel founded the Mid Somerset Musical Competitive Festival in 1934.<ref name=":5" />

She died in 1942 in Binsted, Arundel, Sussex.<ref name=":5" />

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links ==

* [https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-289966/mrs-mansel/ Postcard with a portrait of Mansell holding a copy of the WSPU newspaper ''Votes for Women''] at the London Museum

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mansel, Mildred}} Category:1868 births Category:1942 deaths Category:British suffragettes Category:Women's Social and Political Union Category:People from Roehampton Category:Eagle House suffragettes