For a copy of the image, please visit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/25200499798/
Susila Bonnerjee is the Indian woman on the left as you look at the image, confirmed by a photo of a group of students taken in 1894 from Newnham College, Cambridge (many thanks to Anne Thomson, Archivist, for the photograph).
For further information and interviews, please contact:
Clare Wichbold clare.wichbold@gmail.com
Sumita Mukherjee sumita.mukherjee@bristol.ac.uk
Gillian Murphy g.e.murphy@lse.ac.uk
Susila Anita (Susie) was the daughter of W C and Hemangini Bonnerjee, and moved to England with her family from Calcutta as a child. She was a student at Newnham College, Cambridge, as was her sister, and she went on to study at the London School of Medicine for Women, qualifying in 1899. She went into private practice at Ealing, which coincided with her involvement in the Church League. Dr Bonnerjee died at Lahore in 1920.
Founded in 1909, the Church League for Women’s Suffrage was the leading Anglican campaigning body, embracing the whole spectrum of suffragists and suffragettes. Both men and women are in the photograph of the General Council, with a number of clergymen in attendance. These include the League’s President, the Bishop of Lincoln and Reverend Claude Hinscliff, the founder of the League who had presided at Emily Wilding Davison’s funeral only a fortnight before.
Clare Wichbold’s suffrage research was being undertaken as part of the Eastern Cloisters Project at Hereford Cathedral, funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund.
Florence Canning was born in Hereford in 1863, joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1906, was imprisoned at least once, became chairman of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage in 1912, and campaigned across the country in support of women’s suffrage until her death in 1914.
The Women’s Library was established in 1926 with the aims of preserving the history of the women’s movement and to provide a resource for newly enfranchised women to enter public life. The library’s collection is a cross-domain collection containing printed materials, archives and 3D objects. The majority of the material dates from the late 19th century to present day. The overarching theme of the collection is campaigns for women’s rights and for women’s equality.
LSE Library has digitised a selection of suffrage journals, pamphlets and annual reports from the Women’s Library collection. You can view it here. There are also a number of suffrage images on LSE Library Flickr site.