Bull, Miss Laura, 74 Victoria Road, Exmouth
Laura Leonora Bull LRAM(1866–1951)was born and was brought up in Exmouth, at Russell House in the Strand. She was the daughter of Rev W T Bull BA, the Minister at the Ebenezer Chapel. In 1911 she described herself as a Professor of music and was living with sister-in-law and one servant in a modest house (9 rooms) at 74 Victoria Road.[1] Laura was a certificated teacher of the violin and gave private lessons from her home in Victoria Road.[2] She also made a significant contribution to the musical life of the town; she was the organist at weddings at the Congregational church, organised concerts in the Public hall and gave violin solos to support charities like the YMCA.[3]
She was a committee member of the Exmouth branch of the NUWSS which was formed in 1912,[4] but prior to that she had been active in the Women’s Liberal Association in Exmouth (EWLA). In February 1908 she arranged a programme of music for the EWLA annual meeting and supported the address by Miss Hill of Plymouth who was an advocate of votes for women.[5] In 1909 she attended a talk (along with Miss Earp and Miss Phear – future NUWSS members) at the EWLA by Mr C M Lloyd on the recent Poor Law Commission report which advocated devising a system of ‘preventing destitution’ rather than just relieving it.[6]
In 1912 she was elected the representative for the Devon and Cornwall Liberal Association at the Annual meeting of EWLA[7] and at the annual meeting of the Honiton Division Liberal Association she supported the statement made by Miss Phear (of Exmouth) on behalf of WLA that ‘ladies could work with far greater heart and keenness if they had a candidate who could see his way to adult suffrage’.[8] Laura Bull married her sister’s widowed husband, master mariner Henry Seaman Carter, in the summer of 1942. They lived in Exmouth until they died, he in 1950 and she on 1 January 1951; they are both buried in Littleham churchyard.
Entry created by April Marjoram, June 2018
[1] Information from the 1911 census
[2] ExJ, 25 Apr 1903.
[3] ExJ,, 1900-1910.
[4] WT, 22 Feb 1916.
[5] ExJ, 29 Feb 1908.
[6] ExJ, 27 Nov 1909.
[7] WT, 26 Apr 1912.
[8] WT, 25 Apr 1915.