Every so often, along comes an individual who puts others ahead of themselves, setting an example to their community on how to treat those less fortunate. One such person was Marie Corbett.
Born in the 19th century to wealthy upper middle-class parents who passed their liberal beliefs onto their daughter, she became an extraordinary woman, dedicating most of her life to improving the plight of others, particularly the lives of poor children.
Her daughter Margery Corbett Ashby followed her mother’s example and changed the lives of many through her political work and dedication to women’s rights.
Campaigner for women’s suffrage
Corbett was a keen supporter, like many women in Sussex, of the campaign for women’s suffrage but strongly disapproved of violence, stressing that words were more powerful tools for change. Nevertheless, she and other members of the local Women’s Suffrage Society took an active role in campaigning and Corbett was one of the prominent women in the Sussex suffrage pilgrimage.
Given the strength of her views it is not surprising that she married Charles Corbett, a highly-respected barrister, who was equally committed to the cause of women’s suffrage. He later became MP for East Grinstead and, as a couple, they were committed to improving the lot of the poor in their community, which included giving free legal advice to local people.
Their daughter, Margery, in her memoirs, recalls fondly how her liberal mother, regularly wearing breeches, often shocked her wealthy, less liberal neighbours: “My mother became an energetic cyclist, rebuked by her neighbours for showing inches of extremely pretty feet and ankles; regarded as highly indecorous.”
She also describes how her parents were seen as traitors to their class and suspects that these attitudes threw “my mother even more fervently into good works amongst the villagers, where, in the days before the welfare state, poverty was widespread”.
Emptying the workhouses
Marie Corbett’s greatest achievements were those relating to workhouses in Sussex, which were established partly to deter people from seeking help and thus soon became places where poverty and despair spiralled. Convinced that the poor were so through no fault of their own and disgusted by the awful conditions endured by the inhabitants, many of whom were orphaned children, she resolved to improve their lives, risking the condemnation of her own class who often chose to ignore the needs or even the existence of the destitute.
Despite not having the vote, women were allowed to vote for and join district councils and as a consequence to become Poor Law Guardians. Thus, Corbett stood for election and became one of the first women in the country to become a rural district councillor, where she stood for 36 years, and a Guardian for the Uckfield Workhouse.
As a member of the Ashdown Forest Boarding Out Committee, Corbett devoted her efforts to emptying Uckfield workhouse and homing the children in the community. She initially placed 40 children with foster parents, a revolutionary idea and one which was to influence the field of childcare for years to come. Popular and respected in the area, she was able to persuade the families that housed the children of the humanitarian benefits of ending the cycle of poverty.
Corbett also went on to work in Eastbourne, where the workhouse had a particularly harsh reputation for appalling conditions, especially with regard to children. Parts of London also came within her remit and at times she was visiting over 40 children with another 100 under her care.
Following in her mother’s foosteps: Margery Corbett Ashby
It is not surprising that Marie Corbett’s daughters too had a strong social conscience, with Margery Corbett Ashby also becoming a suffragist. Having read classics at Newnham College, she was impressed by the feminists she met at Cambridge and, with her sister Cicely, she founded Younger Suffragists in 1901. They organised feminist plays performed at the local theatre, including ‘How the vote was won’.
Reflecting her mother’s concern for the young, Corbett Ashby realised that local children were struggling to be fed during the First World War and set up a school canteen from her parent’s laundry room when her husband went to the Western Front in 1916.
Her appointment as Secretary of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) led to involvement with the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, later the Women’s International League, becoming president from 1923-46. As a member of this organisation, she was invited to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, advising on the formation of a women’s police force in Germany.
Post-war legislation in 1918 gave some women the vote, although the NUWSS continued to campaign for full equality. Corbett Ashby stood as a Liberal Party candidate for parliament in 1918, one of the first women to do so and the first of many attempts, but as she ruefully admitted, she never won as she was always fighting for a hopeless seat.
Campaigning for peace and women’s rights
Between the wars, Corbett Ashby was involved in international affairs, being a delegate specifically representing the interests of women at the Geneva Disarmament Conference which opened in 1932. A peace campaigner, she was nevertheless horrified by Chamberlain’s appeasement policy.
After the Second World War, she continued to advocate for peace and to give a voice to women’s rights and liberal ideas which continued throughout her life. A friend of hers from Newnham College Cambridge, Mary Hamilton, said: “Margery was intensely keen on civil liberties, free trade, international good will and democracy.”
Corbett Ashby was a founder of the Townswomen’s Guild, which she envisioned as a vehicle to teach citizenship and its responsibilities to newly enfranchised women, and also served as President of the Women’s Liberal Federation. She was a strong and vocal opponent of Margaret Thatcher. Ironically, when the Dame Margery Corbett Ashby Lectures were initiated, the person who gave the inaugural lecture was Margaret Thatcher herself.
Corbett Ashby died in 1981, her last political demonstration being when she was in her late 90s as she marched for Women’s Day of Action. Her obituary in The Times stated: “Probably no one has done more for the emancipation of women during the century than Margery Corbett Ashby.”
She was clearly a woman with influence, attested to by her name and picture on the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square – an impressive accolade indeed.
Remarkable women
Marie Corbett and her daughter Margery were truly remarkable women who changed views and lives for the better. Corbett’s idea of “fostering” children in caring homes within the community was a monumental innovation. Corbett Ashby, active in politics throughout her life, was probably the only woman in Britain to be involved in both the suffrage campaign before 1914 and the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s.
Margery Corbett Ashby is one of the Suffrage Interviews in the Women’s Library at the LSE, and a selection of her papers are held there..
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