Theodora Bonwick

Theodora Bonwick
Born27 December 1876
Shepherd's Bush, London, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died10 November 1928 (1928-11-11) (aged 51)
London, England, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
EducationStockwell College of Education
OccupationHeadteacher
Known forradical views on suffrage and sex education

Theodora Ellen Bonwick (27 December 1876 – 10 November 1928) was a British headteacher, trade unionist, educationist and suffragette.

Life

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Bonwick was born in Shepherd's Bush in London in 1876. Her family had returned from Australia as Bonwick's three elder siblings were born there.[1] Her parents were Sarah (born Beddow) and schoolteacher William Priessnitz Bonwick. Her mother was a suffragist and she had been active in the Women's Liberal Federation.[2] They worked together for the Temperance movement and at a Sunday school.

Bonwick trained as a teacher at Stockwell College of Education, where she obtained a BA degree. Reports recorded her ability for teaching and she received a teacher's certificate.[1]

In 1905 she joined the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and became a suffragette.[2] When Women's Sunday was organised in 1908 with women marching to Hyde Park it attracted 300,000 spectators.[3] Bonwick was one of the speakers.[2]

Bowick became the secretary of the Hornsey branch of the WSPU. She tried to intercede in the dispute that had broken out in the suffragette leadership between Annie Kenney, Christabel Pankhurst and Sylvia Pankhurst. Emmeline was out of the country and Christabel was telling her younger sister that there was no room for dispute within the WSPU. Bonwick wrote a long letter to Christabel and another to Sylvia asking her to "lie low" as the public should not see more internal conflict in the WSPU.[4] Sylvia was ejected from the WSPU for her socialist and democratic views[5] and Borwick became the president of the Women Teachers' Franchise Union (WTFU) in 1914.[2]

She worked at Enfield Road School for Girls in Hackney and before 1914 she was the headteacher there.[2] She achieved a first when she obtained permission from the parents of the school to deliver sex education to her classes.[6] No other school in London was doing this and when a 1914 enquiry considered this it was rejected – because the teachers would find it difficult.[6]

After the war she was head of York Way Girls' School in King's Cross. She again was radical in following the Dalton Plan and she also opposed competitive sports. School inspectors noted that she was a good head but they disagreed with her views.[2]

Death and legacy

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Bonwick died in London in 1928,[2] the year that all adults in Britain gained the right to vote. In 1990 Bonwick was chosen with three others, Agnes Dawson, Emily Phipps and Ethel Froud, to be featured in Hilda Kean's book, 'Deeds Not Words: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers'.[7]

References

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  1. ^ a b Team, IOE Archives. "IOE LibGuides: National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) Collection: NUWT member focus". libguides.ioe.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Bonwick, Theodora Ellen (1876–1928), educationist and women's rights activist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/63836. Retrieved 2 January 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ "Museum of London | Free museum in London". collections.museumoflondon.org.uk. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  4. ^ Purvis, June (2 September 2003). Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-134-34192-4.
  5. ^ Winslow, Barbara (18 October 2013). Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics And Political Activism. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-22010-6.
  6. ^ a b Hall, Lesley A. (19 November 2012). Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-137-29268-1.
  7. ^ Smith, Hilda L.; Kean, Hilda (1992). "Deeds Not Words: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers". History of Education Quarterly. 32 (4): 551. doi:10.2307/368975. ISSN 0018-2680. JSTOR 368975.
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