Alice Cliff Scatcherd

Alice Cliff Scatcherd (1842–1906) was an early British suffragist who in 1889 founded the Women's Franchise League,[1][2] with Harriet McIlquham, Ursula Bright, Emmeline Pankhurst, Richard Pankhurst and Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy.

Scatcherd was born in Wortley and was a lifelong campaigner for women's rights who lived much of her life in Morley, West Yorkshire including in Morley Hall.

Suffragist career

She was secretary for the Leeds branch of the National Society for Women's Suffrage (NSWS).

Scatcherd was active in speaking out at events in the 1870s as typified by an example on 24 March 1877, when she appeared alongside Lydia Becker and other early suffragettes to discuss women's access to the vote in Macclesfield.[3] The chairman, J. W. White, addressed the meeting saying that "it appeared somewhat strange that whereas the British Parliament had been engaged from time to time for many years back in conferring rights and removing disabilities, there should still exist any large and intelligent section of society outside the electoral community. They had not yet found any good reason given for excluding from parliamentary suffrage women who had already voted in municipal and school board elections; therefore they intended to reiterate their demands until they were conceded". Scatcherd was supported by Henry Birchenough in seconding the first resolution which was moved by Joshua Oldfield Nicholson.

The Alice Cliff Scatcherd scrapbook (SCAT B SCA) comprises letters, photographs and letterpress relating to the national suffrage campaign, politics, education and Morley civic life and is held at Leeds Central Library.[4]

Family

Alice Cliff was born in 1842 to Joseph and Alice Cliff. According to the 1851 census the family lived in Wortley, Leeds and Scatcherd had three brothers and three sisters.[5] Alice Cliff married Oliver Scatcherd on 3 October 1871 in Morley.[6] He was a solicitor and lived in Morley House at the time of his marriage.[6] Scatcherd was critical of the existing nature of marriage and refused to attend wedding services in established churches where women took a vow of obedience to men.[2] She is said to have shocked late 19th Century conservative society by travelling Europe with her husband without a wedding ring.[7]

Scatcherd is buried in the Scatcherd Mausoleum in St Mary in the Wood churchyard, Morley.

References
  1. Wright, Maureen (2011), Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy and the Victorian Feminist Movement the Biography of an Insurgent Woman, Manchester University Press, ISBN 9780719081095
  2. Holton, Stanley (2002), Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women's Suffrage Movement, Routledge, ISBN 9781134837878
  3. "No. 86 8 Women's Suffrage Journal 1877". heinonline.org.
  4. "Secret Library Leeds Blog".
  5. Ancestry.com. 1851 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
  6. Ancestry.com. West Yorkshire, Non-Conformist Records, 1646-1985 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
  7. Cherriman, Becky (19 August 2016). "The Warp and Weft of Alice Cliff Scatcherd".

also she lived in Filey


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