Allen, Miss, South View, Teignmouth
Miss Allen of South View, Teignmouth, is mentioned in Common Cause as the secretary to the Teignmouth and district branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) when it was formed at the end of 1909.[1] The report mentions that Miss Allen had ‘worked hard in preparing the work of the organisation before Miss Edwards (the NUWSS organiser in the West Country) took it in hand’.[2] ‘Miss Allen’ is also mentioned in Norma Smith’s report of a meeting she organised at the Christmas market in Newton Abbot when Allen had come over ‘at short notice’ to support her and to open the meeting.[3] Miss Allen’s final listing as secretary to the branch appeared in January 1911 and by March 1911 a new secretary has been found.[4]
It is, unfortunately, not at all clear who this ‘Miss Allen’, active in Teignmouth during the period 1909-11, was. The address ‘South View’ shown in Common Cause refers to a house inhabited at the 1901 census by Joseph Allen, a 75-year- old widower, his daughter, Josephine, and son, Arthur.[5] Joseph Allen had been a banker from a Quaker family. His family, including three daughters, had all been living in Chiselhurst in 1891. Mary, Joseph’s wife, died in 1892 and it seems likely that this led to Joseph and some of his family moving to Teignmouth.
However, Josephine Allen seems unlikely to be the Miss Allen mentioned. In 1907 she married Lawrence Satow, a commander in the Royal Navy, and in the 1911 census they are shown as living in Rose Cottage, Swilley, Devonport. Although another family member could have taken on caring for Joseph, both Josephine’s known sisters, Ada and Catherine, were already married and would not have been ‘Miss Allen’ during the period 1909-11. Yet after Joseph’s death in 1910 it was a ‘Miss Allen’ who applied to Teignmouth Urban District Council for permission to place benches on the seafront which her application stated would be in ‘her father’s memory’.[6]
Any further details about the identity of ‘Miss Allen’ would be much appreciated. Please contact Devon History Society if you have further information.
Entry created by Marilyn Smee, October 2018
[1] Common Cause, 30 Dec 1909.
[2] Common Cause, 11 Nov 1909.
[3] Common Cause, 15 Dec 1910.
[4] Common Cause, 5 Jan; 30 Mar 1911.
[5] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk .
[6] Devon and Exeter Gazette, 11 Jan 1911.