The Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser of 12th June 1912 carried the headline ‘Militant Suffragettes’. The report described a meeting of the Redhill Branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) that was held in the Redhill Market Hall to honour Joan Cather and other special guests who had been recently released from Holloway Prison. Joan was a remarkable woman who dedicated her life to the cause of women’s suffrage.
Joan Cather (1882-1967) was born in Hendon, the daughter of solicitor Arthur Waller and his wife Jane. By 1901, with both parents dead, Joan was living with her paternal Aunt Caroline in New Steine, Brighton and was described in the census as ‘living on her own means’.
In April 1908 in Brighton at the age of 27 years Joan married John Leonard Cather, known as Leonard, a Royal Naval Lieutenant. Together they set up home in Redhill and were living in Red Cottage in Cavendish Road by 1911.
Joan and her husband were passionate supporters of equal rights for men and women and were highly active in the suffrage movement. Joan was the Honorary Secretary of the Redhill branch of the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only organization founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. Her husband, Leonard, (now retired from the navy and running a business building metalwork for cars), fully supported her activism. He was a member of the militant Men’s Society for Women’s Rights.
Joan is not included in the 1911 census return. Like many other suffragettes she refused to take part in the census, saying “if women don’t count neither shall they be counted.”
Her husband wrote on the form:
‘Conscientious scruples prevent me from rendering a return of the female occupants of this house for the purpose of assisting the preparation of statistical tables which will be used as the basis of further vexatious legislation affecting women, and in which they have no voice. Should the Conciliation Committee’s Bill be passed into law this session the additional details required will be forthcoming’.
In pencil, the enumerator has noted that two women have been recorded by the Registrar, in the Summary Book, as ‘the probable number’.
In March 1912 Joan using the false name of Josephine Carter was arrested for breaking London government office windows. She was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment with hard labour. While the name ‘Josephine Carter’ appears on the Suffragette Roll of Honour, Joan Cather’s does not.
During her stay in Holloway Prison, Joan was subjected to force feeding. Leonard later wrote to The Times in 1913 highlighting the ‘abundant testimony [which] is available of the frequently unscientific, insanitary, and violent manner of its application’. The newspaper declined to publish his letter so Leonard forwarded it to Votes for Women who printed it in full.
On her release from Holloway, the WSPU awarded Joan the Holloway Brooch and the Hunger Strike Medal in recognition of her suffering.
The Inscription reads: Presented to Joan Cather 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.
The brooch and medal are now by the British Museum
On 28 September1912 the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser published a letter that Joan sent in following a speech made by Lord Robert Cecil in Redhill.
On the left of the Conservative party, Cecil supported women’s suffrage and as a barrister he had defended Emmeline Pankhurst. By 1912 he had broken ranks to support women’s suffrage but he was opposed to militancy.
Joan took issue with Cecil’s assertion that women would have already obtained the vote but the Government had ‘torpedoed’ it because some suffragettes had ‘foolishly and deliberately killed their best chance of getting what they desired.’
She made a stringing response:
‘If the so-called supporters of Women suffrage in the House of Commons had kept faith with women in time of peace, they would not now be bewailing their return to militancy. There have been two periods of truce during the history of the militant movement, one in 1910 and another in 1911. On each occasion the Government has tricked and betrayed the women suffragists. There will not be another truce until the Government themselves become responsible for a measure giving votes to women on the same terms as men.’
Despite her words, there was another truce. In1914 at the outbreak of World War 1 women’s suffrage activities were suspended for the duration of the conflict. Joan worked as a nurse and Leonard returned to the Royal Navy, (and was lucky to survive when his ship HMS Goliath was torpedoed in the Dardanelles).
When the war ended Joan and Leonard settled in Bexhill on Sea and became active supporters of the renamed League of the Church Militant where they campaigned for the right of women to become priests, a battle which was not won in their lifetime. In 1928 all women over 21 were finally given the same voting rights as men in the Equal Franchise Act.
Sources:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG252202
Image of Hunger strike medal and portcullis brooch awarded to Joan Cather, 1912, both featuring the movement's colours of green, white and purple:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/suffrage-objects-british-museum
The Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, 12 June and 28 September 1912