Harding, Miss Rose, 5 Higher Summerlands, Exeter
Rose Gertrude Harding[1] (1862-1941) was the daughter of Joseph and Louisa Harding. Joseph Harding was a wine and spirit merchant and brewer, with premises in Paul Street and at St Ann’s Well Brewery, which he founded. He was a Conservative, active in local government, a long-serving councillor, and mayor of Exeter in 1871. Rose had three sisters, Mary, Louisa and Isabella (Jessie), and five brothers, Frank, Lansdown, Percy, Gills and Reginald. The family lived at 6 Hill’s Court in Pennsylvania when Rose was a child, then at Millbrook on the Topsham Road, but by 1891 they had moved back closer to the city centre, to 1 Higher Summerlands. Joseph Harding died there in 1908, leaving an estate valued at almost £34,000. In the 1911 census Rose is shown living with her mother, and her sisters Mary and Jessie at 5 Higher Summerlands. They employed a house-parlourmaid and a cook.
In 1894, Harding was elected unopposed to the Exeter Board of Guardians to represent St Sidwell district 2 (Newtown) as part of a ‘slate’ of women candidates organised by ‘The Ladies Association’[2] and served for a single term. She stood again at the Guardians’ election in 1907 for St Matthew’s Ward, with the support of the local Conservative Association, but failed to be elected.[3] Like her father she was a Conservative, and a member of the West Habitation of the Primrose League.[4]
Her interest in social work led her to work particularly with girls and young women in organisations such as the St James Girls’ Recreation Club, of which she was a founder member along with Jessie Montgomery (q.v.)[5], the Girls’ Friendly Society,[6] and the Diocesan Association for the Care of Friendless Girls, of which she was the Secretary, and which ran a number of different homes, including Melbourne House, St Olave’s and St Mary’s, involved in prevention, rescue and training for girls who had been or were at risk of sexual exploitation.[7] She was a member of the local Charity Organisation Council[8] and Secretary to the Exeter branch of the National Union of Women Workers.[9] She was at the inaugural meeting of the Exeter District Nursing Association and seconded the motion for its formation proposed by Dr Domville.[10]
Harding was a keen supporter of the Guiding movement. It is not clear how this movement began in Exeter, but she is mentioned as ‘captain of the Exeter Girl Guides’ in 1914, and later specifically as captain of Exeter 3 (YWCA) company which by June 1915, when they were inspected by Miss Baden-Powell, had 50 members.[11] She also acted as drill instructor to Guides and Brownies.[12] The YWCA was another organisation she supported, and she is referred to as Assistant Secretary in 1915.[13]
Harding was a member of the Exeter branch of the NUWSS and is mentioned with her mother and sister at the Spreytonway garden party in 1909.[14] In 1913 she accompanied her eighty-three year old mother in a carriage at the rear of the procession through Exeter on the 1913 NUWSS pilgrimage.[15] She also supported Mrs Creighton when she came to address women in Exeter in October 1913.[16] Her mother died at their Summerlands home on 13 February 1915. Her sister-in-law, Mrs Frank Harding, who lived at St German’s House, and was thus a neighbour of Mary Pring (q.v.) was also a member of the NUWSS and is referred to as hosting NUWSS events and sending flowers to decorate the Barnfield Hall.[17]
During the war Harding provided support for Countess Fortescue’s Linen League and subsequently became head of the Splint Room at the Devon and Exeter War Hospitals Supply Depot.[18] She also became involved in the Exeter Branch of the League of Honour of Women and Girls of the Empire, established in Exeter by the NUWW at ‘a crowded meeting’.[19] As she described at a later NUWW meeting ‘The object of the League is to bind together women and girls of the Empire to uphold the standard of woman’s duty and honour by prayer, purity and temperance’.[20] At that point (January 1915) there were 600 members.
After the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act she was elected as a committee member of the new Exeter Women’s Citizenship Association. She stood as a Women’s Party candidate with EWCA backing in the city council elections in 1919.[21] In her speech in St Matthew’s Ward, she said that ‘Women now had the privilege of the vote, and they must take their share of the work which devolved upon them’, and referred to her experience of work in child welfare.[22] Although neither the Conservative nor the Liberal party fielded a candidate against her, at the poll she lost to the Labour candidate by 257 votes to 733.[23]
Rose Gertrude Harding died on 19 September 1941 at 2 Elm Grove Road. Her estate was valued at £23,000.
Entry created by Julia Neville, September 2018.
[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk.
[2] DEG, 6 Dec 1894.
[3] DEG, 13 Mar, 4 Dec 1907.
[4] DEG, 7 Feb 1907.
[5] DEG, 13 Dec 1904; WT, 4 Nov 1910; 7 Jan 1916.
[6] DEG, 1 Jul 1903.
[7] WT, 19 Sep 1912; Kelly’s Directory of Devon, 1914; DEG 1 Apr 1916. A history of the organisation has been published by E.D. Irvine, ‘A Century of Voluntary Service: The Exeter Diocesan Association for the Care of Girls’, Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol.113, pp133-145, (1981).
[8] DEG, 11 Nov 1902.
[9] WT, 26 Oct 1910; 29 Oct 1912; DEG, 24 Nov 1915.
[10] DEG, 14 Oct 1910.
[11] DEG, 16 Oct 1914; 7 Jun 1915; 26 Jan 1916.
[12] WT, 11 May 1917.
[13] DEG, 10 Dec 1915.
[14] DEG, 17 Jul 1909.
[15] WT, 7 Jul 1913.
[16] DEG, 24 Oct 1913.
[17] DEG, 14 Oct 1909; WT, 17 Mar 1910; DEG,1 Nov 1912.
[18] WT, 20 Oct 1914; 13 Mar 1918.
[19] WT, 26 Nov 1914.
[20] DEG, 22 Jan 1915.
[21] WT, 3 May 1919.
[22] WT, 9 May 1919.
[23] WT, 12 May 1919.