Ball, Miss Annie, 1 Larkstone Villas, Ilfracombe
Annie Ball’s family background is unclear. However, it is certain that at some point towards the end of the nineteenth century she obtained her certificate as a trained nurse from the Royal Free Hospital in London, as she provided proof of qualification when the Nursing Register was created in 1917, in order to obtain her State Registration.[1]
By 1901 she was in North Devon. Her advertisement for the Nursing Institute that she established in Barnstaple records that this was established in 1900.[2] On the 1901 census she is shown working as a sick nurse in Sanfield, Braunton, the home of the Mortlock-Browns. Mrs Mortlock-Brown died shortly afterwards, and it seems probable that Annie had been recruited through her Institute to provide terminal care. (Mrs Mortlock-Brown’s daughter Constance (q.v.) was herself to become a suffrage activist.) On this census Annie is recorded with the age of 35 and as having been born in London.
The Trained Nurses’ Institute in Barnstaple was at Walden, 22 Ashleigh Road. In Ilfracombe it was at Larkstone Villas, which was also Ball’s home. These establishments, where Ball was the Principal or Matron, offered both a nursing home service for medical, surgical and convalescent cases, and also nurses who could attend patients in their own homes ‘for the day or week, or for daily visiting’. She offered to supply certificated medical, surgical, maternity, and fever nurses, and, as time went on, massage and remedial exercises, classes for physical drill and Swedish exercises.[3] Although it seems that both these establishments offered patient accommodation initially, by 1913 the advertisements suggest that the functions had been divided, with Ashleigh Road described as the ‘Trained Nurses Institute’ and Larkstone Villas as a ‘Convalescent Home’.[4]
Interest in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) had been growing in Ilfracombe during the second half of 1909 and in early 1910 a meeting, addressed by Miss Dugdale, was held at the Runnacleave Hall.[5] By September Votes for Women reported that ‘a local union is being formed at Ilfracombe’ and shortly afterwards an advertisement appeared for the Ilfracombe and Barnstaple branch, with Miss Ball, Ilfracombe Nursing Home, Larkstone, listed as the Hon. Literature Secretary, and Mrs Newby (q.v.) as Hon. Secretary.[6]
On 7 April 1911 the census was taken. Ball decided to take action. The various suffrage organisations had combined to use the occasion of the census to protest, using the slogan: ‘If women do not count, they will not be counted.’ Annie Ball opened up her Trained Nurses Institute in Ashleigh Road, Barnstaple, for anyone who wanted to evade the census. She resisted personally by spoiling her return. She listed her own name and the surnames of her two colleagues and ‘a general servant’. Then across the other columns she wrote a note to the registrar in which she stated that, ‘… We [unenfranchised women] consider that if we are capable of filling in a complicated census paper we are capable of making a cross in a ballot paper at a general election. When the Government allows qualified women a voice in the making of the laws they are forced to obey and the spending of the money they contribute to the state, a privilege granted to men only, we shall not refuse our help’. The local registrar also made a note on the form.
Ball’s next means of protesting came when she joined the Women’s Tax Resistance League (WTRL). Women contributed over 20 million pounds a year towards the country’s economy. But without the vote they had no say in how that 20 million was spent. In 1909 ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ became the clarion call of the (WTRL). Ball wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer declaring that she would not willingly pay the taxes until women’s suffrage had been granted. She refused to pay her ‘imperial’ (as opposed to ‘local’) taxes and as a result had goods to the value of the taxes owed seized from both her Barnstaple and her Ilfracombe properties. These were then sold, being bought back by her friends and restored to her. She had to pay expenses of £1 5s, but she remained confident that this was a telling move in the campaign.[7] She repeated this action in 1912.[8]
Annie Ball continued to be both active and visible, campaigning within her local community throughout the summer of 1911. She concentrated on the holiday campaign in Ilfracombe, as reported in Votes for Women[9]: ‘Much praise is due to Miss Ball who, whilst the secretary was away at the West Somerset by-election, arranged a dainty WSPU stall in the Ilfracombe market. It has been a great success; many people coming and having a talk on Votes for Women. The market women also showing a keen interest. Miss Ball will take the stall at the market every Saturday during the season.’[10] The branch reported at the end of the season that the market people had shown an increased interest … One woman, after being remonstrated with for her generosity in giving flowers to decorate it with said, ‘I like to do it for the sake of the Cause’.[11]
While Marie Newby, the secretary, was away ‘serving a sentence of two months with hard labour for breaking a Government window, value only £2’,[12] Ball took over the hosting of members’ meetings, such as a garden meeting that summer at Larkstone Villas, where Dr Christine Murrell spoke.[13] Christine Murrell was the first woman doctor to undertake her resident training at the Royal Free Hospital, and perhaps known to Ball through that connection. Other events appear to have included a talk by Mrs Curtis on White Slave Traffic, and a public meeting addressed by Georgina Brackenbury.[14]
Ball and Miss Ross (q.v.) took a shop at 2 High Street in the spring of 1913 which was used for a three-week exhibition of suffrage posters, and the venue for a suffrage debate and a fund-raising jumble sale.[15] This highly visible activity seems to have resulted in an increase of membership, referred to that June, and, in addition, a Men’s Political Union branch had also been formed in the town.[16] The usual summer holiday campaign was mounted, with an appeal to visitors staying in Ilfracombe for their holidays to join in selling papers, and a parade of ‘decorated pony carriages, one of which was in Tax Resistance colours’ going through the town, stopping to sell copies of The Suffragette and hand out leaflets.[17]
That autumn Ball walked out of the Ilfracombe Women’s Liberal Association (WLA). The local Liberal party had adopted a candidate for the parliamentary constituency of Barnstaple, a Conservative-held seat, who was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage, Mr Harben. Harben was so strong a supporter that, in abhorrence of the force-feeding of militant women prisoners, he resigned his candidature in the spring of 1913. He was replaced by a Mr Baker, who opposed women’s suffrage. Baker came to speak to the WLA Annual Meeting in November 1913. Ball’s WSPU colleague, Miss Eldridge, a WLA member, rose to protest against forcible feeding. She was shouted down. The chair, Mrs Gould, gave her permission to speak briefly. Eldridge asked if Mr Baker would be answering questions at the close, and, when told ‘no’, she walked out of the meeting and Ball followed her.[18] ‘There is no Liberalism here’, observed Miss Eldridge.
In 1914 Ilfracombe Urban District Council passed a resolution in favour of the Parliamentary franchise being extended to women, not at all a usual agreement among Devon Councils and perhaps attributable at least in part to the activity of the WSPU locally.[19] The Ilfracombe and Barnstaple branch of the WSPU continued to exist until 1918 but there are no further references to Annie Ball. She continued to run her Nursing Institutes and lived on at 22 Ashleigh Road, Barnstaple, where she was registered in 1939 as a ‘retired hospital nurse’.
Entry created by Pamela Vass and Julia Neville, December 2018
[1] Qualification and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk
[2] North Devon Journal, 1 Jan 1914.
[3] Described in her advertisement in the North Devon Journal, 17 Feb 1916.
[4] Votes for Women, Advertisement, 25 Sep 1913, 364.
[5] Votes for Women, 7 Jan 1910.
[6] Votes for Women, 16 Sep 1910, 818; 24 Oct 1910, 44.
[7] North Devon Journal, 6 Apr 1911. Votes for Women, 31 Mar 1911, 432.
[8] North Devon Journal, 21 Mar 1912; The Vote 20 Apr 1912, 15.
[9] Votes for Women, 25 Aug 1911, 782
[10] Votes for Women, 28 Jul 1911, 713.
[11] Votes for Women, 8 Sep 1911, 786.
[12] Votes for Women, 5 Apr 1912, 435.
[13] Votes for Women, 14 Aug 1912, 755.
[14] Referred to in Pamela Vass, Breaking the Mould: the suffragette story in North Devon. Bideford: Boundstone Books, 2017, 139; awaiting detailed referencing.
[15] The Suffragette, 18 Apr 1913, 451.
[16] The Suffragette, 13 Jun 1913, 586; 23 May 1913, 534.
[17] The Suffragette, 1 Aug 1913, 730; 8 Aug 1913, 751.
[18] Votes for Women, 28 Nov 1913, 125.
[19] Votes for Women, 13 Mar 1914, 358.