Maud Joachim

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Maud Joachim
Girton College
Known forSuffragette

Maud Joachim (1 August 1869 – 16 February 1947) was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, one of the groups of suffragettes that fought for women to get the right to vote in the United Kingdom. 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.[1]

Early life and education

Maud Amelia Fanny Joachim was born to Ellen Margaret (nee Smart) and Henry Joachim in Paddington, London, on 1 August 1869.

Moral Science.[4][5]

Suffragette activism

Joachim was militant and a member of the hard line Women's Social and Political Union which was led by Emmeline Pankhurst, becoming involved in 1907.[1] She enjoyed the camaraderie and reflected that she was now with people with the same purpose.

Imprisonments

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

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.

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.[9]

Lady Lytton.[10] Joachim planted a Thujopsis Dolabrata conifer on 17 June 1910. The trees were known as "Annie's Arboreatum" after Annie Kenney.[11][12] There was also a "Pankhurst Pond" within the grounds.[13]

Alongside a number of other WSPU members, in 1913 Joachim moved away from the organisation and radical action as violent protest escalated to arson. She moved her energies towards the socialist East London Federation of Suffragettes, which offered practical support to working class women alongside campaigning for the vote.

Later life

Joachim ran an unemployment bureau and managed a toy factory for the East London Federation of Suffragettes during the First World War. She later worked with Sylvia Pankhurst on her anti-fascist Ethiopian campaign.[4]

In the 1939 Register, Joachim was listed as living on private means in Somerset Terrace in St Pancras London[2] and later moved to Mouse Cottage, Steyning, where she lived until her death on 16 February 1947.[4]

Personal life

Joachim was a vegetarian.[14] She was given a Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by WSPU, 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".[15] An inscription on the back of one of the medal's bars commemorates her being FED BY FORCE 1/3/12 (1st March 1912).[16]

Death

Maud Joachim died in Steyning in 1947.[5] On her death Joachim left legacies to fellow suffragettes Sylvia Pankhurst and Katherine Douglas-Smith as well as Girton College.[17] Dorothy Bagnold Sowter of the Women's Pioneer Housing was executor of her will.[18]

Commemoration

Joachim's WSPU medal was offered for auction at Bonhams on 3 October 2023 and sold for £41,600 inc. premium.[19] 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.[1] 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).[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Brown, Naomi (26 September 2023). "Help us fundraise to acquire Maud Joachim's medal recognising the first hunger strike in Scotland". Glasgow Women's Library. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  2. ^ a b "1939 England and Wales Register". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  3. ^ "Naturalisation Certificates and Declarations, 1870-1916". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  4. ^ a b c "Maud Joachim · Suffragette Stories". suffragettestories.omeka.net. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d "Maud Joachim". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  6. ^ "Domestic Servant raids Parliament: The Case of Charlotte Griffiths – Suffragette and Working Woman". 28 February 2018.
  7. ISBN 9781408844052
    .
  8. ^ "HH55/323". www.nrscotland.gov.uk. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  9. ^ "Suffragette Alice Perkins 1910, Blathwayt, Col Linley". Bath in Time, Images of Bath online. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  10. ^ "Eagle House". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2008.
  11. ISBN 9781351576123
    .
  12. ^ Hannam, June (Winter 2002). "Suffragette Photographs" (PDF). Regional Historian (8).
  13. ^ "Book of the Week: A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset". Woman and her Sphere. 12 September 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  14. ISBN 9781135434021
  15. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  16. ^ GWL (19 October 2023). "Maud Joachim's Hunger Strike Medal comes to GWL". Glasgow Women's Library. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  17. ^ "Katherine Douglas Smith · Suffragette Stories". suffragettestories.omeka.net. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  18. ^ "England & Wales, National Probate Calendar". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  19. ^ "Bonhams : HUNGER STRIKE MEDAL - MAUD JOACHIM Hunger strike medal awarded by the WSPU to Maud Joachim, 1912". www.bonhams.com. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  20. ^ "We Deserve A Medal: Militant Suffrage Activism". Glasgow Women's Library. 29 January 2024. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
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