Title
Charlotte Despard (née French) (1844-1939), Feminist and Social ReformerDate1913
MediumWatercolour on paper
Dimensions
65 x 48 cm
Signedlower left: Lucy Fildes/ 1913
Credit LineBequeathed, 2016
Object numberNGI.2017.12
DescriptionBorn into a military family in Kent, Charlotte French enjoyed a conventional Victorian upbringing. In 1870, she married Maximilian Carden Despard, and Anglo-Irish businessman, and shortly afterwards began writing romantic novels. After a period of seclusion after her husband’s death in 1890, she emerged as an energetic philanthropist, focussing her attention on the slums of Battersea. Soon after, she was appointed a member of the Vauxhall Board of the Lambeth Poor-law Union. She applied herself with similar energy to political commitments, supporting the Social Democratic Federation, the Independent Labour Party and the Women’s Social and Political Union (of which she became honorary secretary).With Millicent Fawcett and Emmeline Pankhurst, she spearheaded the campaign for women’s votes. Imprisoned twice in Holloway Prison, she eventually became President of the Women’s Freedom League. During the First World War, she joined the socialist pacifist movement, and her commitment to international socialism intensified following the Bolshevik revolution. She subsequently involved herself in the Indian independence movement, Save the Children, the Labour party and the British Communist Party, the London Vegetarian Society and the Irish Self Determination League. A long-standing advocate for Irish Home Rule, she found herself at odds with her brother, who in 1918 had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
She moved to Dublin in 1921/22, where she continued her work in the area of civil rights and relief of distress. She became the leader of the Women Prisoners’ Defence League, and a close associate of both Countess Markievicz and Maud Gonne. Opposed to the term ‘Mrs’ and its Irish equivalent ‘Bean Uí’, she became known in Ireland as ‘Madame Desperate’.
She was classified as a dangerous subversive under the terms of the Free State’s Public Safety Act of 1927, and having been targeted by anti-communists, moved to Belfast, where she became involved in a campaign to unite unemployed Protestant and Catholic workers. She died in Belfast, but was buried, with republican honours, at Glasnevin cemetery, near the grave of Countess Markievicz.
The portrait was inherited by Margaret Ridgway from her mother Anna Munro. It had been given to Munro, a Scottish Suffragette, by Despard, a friend and fellow member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. This watercolour is derived from a full-length studio photograph, in which Despard, President of the Women’s Freedom League, sits at a table.
ProvenancePresented, by the sitter to Anna Munro, a Scottish suffragette and fellow member of the Women’s Social and Political Union; Bequeathed, 2016