Gertrude Baillie Weaver
Born
Gertrude Renton

8 June 1855
Kensington, London, England
Died26 November 1926 (1926-11-27) (aged 71)
Wimbledon, London, England
Occupation(s)Activist, writer
Spouses
Henry Arthur Colmore Dunn
​
​
(m. 1892; died 1896)​
    Harold Baillie-Weaver
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1901; died 1926)​

    Gertrude Baillie-Weaver (née Renton; 8 June 1855 – 26 November 1926) was an English suffragette and writer who published as Gertrude Colmore. She co-founded the National Council for Animals' Welfare and wrote in support of animal and human rights. Her books about Suffragette Sally and Emily Wilding Davison were republished in the 1980s.

    Personal life

    Gertrude Renton was born on 8 June 1855 in Kensington, London. Her parents were Elizabeth (née Leishman) and John Thomas Renton, a stockbroker. She had five older sisters.[1]

    In 1882, she married lawyer Henry Arthur Colmore Dunn, who died in 1896. In 1901, when she was in her forties, she married the feminist Harold Baillie-Weaver, who was a barrister and a Theosophist. He was an advocate for human and animal rights.[1]

    Writing and activism

    Baillie-Weaver wrote under the name Gertrude Colmore. She published poetry, short stories and novels in support of theosophy and women's suffrage and against vivisection and physiology.[1]

    In 1907 she published The Angel and the Outcast, a melodramatic novel in support of animal rights. The following year she published Priests of Progress with the same theme. This book was so successful in putting forward an anti-vivisection message that physiologists had meetings to decide how they could counter her campaign. She served on the committee that managed Battersea General Hospital which was notably opposed to any experimentation using either animals or humans.[1][2] In 1912 she called for animals to be included in the Geneva Convention in a pamphlet she co-wrote for the Humanitarian League.

    Saffrom Waldon suffragist Public-meeting

    She supported women's suffrage by writing short stories for Votes for Women and The Suffragette newspapers. She chaired the suffrage group in Saffron Waldon. She was an early member of the Women's Freedom League and her husband spoke for the Men's League for Women's Suffrage.[3] In 1911, as the campaign for women's suffrage became increasingly militant, she published Suffragette Sally, a fictional account that included references to real people.

    A statue in Regent's Park dedicated to Baillie-Weaver and her husband

    Emily Wilding Davison was a militant suffragette who died in 1913 when she was run over by the King's racehorse during a protest at Epsom. Baillie-Weaver wrote a long obituary. It was later published as The Life of Emily Davison.[4] The following year her work Mr Jones and the Governess was published by the Women's Freedom League.[5]

    In 1926 she published A Brother of the Shadow which returned to the themes of The Angel and the Outcast and Priests of Progress. The villain is a professor of physiology who uses mind-control to make people kill themselves.[1]

    Legacy

    Baillie-Weaver died in Wimbledon, London, on 26 November 1926; her husband died eight months before.[1]

    Baillie-Weaver and her husband were commemorated with a statue in St John's Lodge public gardens in Regent's Park, London erected in 1931. The statue by Charles Leonard Hartwell celebrates their work and the National Council for Animals' Welfare which they founded. It shows a woman "Protecting the Defenceless" and is known as The Shepherdess,[6] or The Goatherd's Daughter.[7]

    References

    1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kean, Hilda (2004). "Weaver, Gertrude Baillie- [née Gertrude Renton; pseud. Gertrude Colmore] (1855–1926), writer and feminist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55694. Retrieved 4 November 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
    2. ↑ "Battersea General Hospital". Lost hospitals of London. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
    3. ↑ "Object of the Month – March 2018 |". saffronwaldenmuseum.swmuseumsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
    4. ↑ Atkinson, Diane (2018). Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes. London: Bloomsbury. p. 415. ISBN 9781408844045. OCLC 1016848621.
    5. ↑ Colmore, Gertrude (1914). Mr. Jones and the Governess. Women's Freedom League.
    6. ↑ "Gertrude & Harold Baillie Weaver". London Remembers. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
    7. ↑ Banerjee, Jacqueline (2011). "The Goatherd's Daughter, by Charles Leonard Hartwell (1873–1951)". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
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