Harston, Miss Leonie Constance, 1 Ashleigh Road, Barnstaple
Leonie Constance Harston[1] (1873 – 1945) was born in St Pancras, London, in 1873, the daughter of Edward French Buttermer Harston and Mary formerly Willmott. Edward Harston, as his obituary described,[2] had ‘a brilliant career’ emigrating to New Zealand as a young man and becoming one of the original members of the Legislative Council, and then practising in the United States of America. On his return he established a practice, Harston and Bennett, in the City of London. He was a Liberal in politics.
In 1881 Leonie and her parents, together with older sister Mabel and younger sister Rhoda, were living in Havelock Road, Croydon but by 1891 the family had moved in to Kensington. Leonie’s mother died in 1892 and her father remarried. In 1901 Leonie was living in Barkston Gardens, Kensington, with her father and stepmother. She has no occupation listed but later referred to having been a pupil of ‘Mr Julius Rolshoven in London and Florence’. Rolshoven was an American artist who studied in Europe and worked in London before settling in Florence in 1902, so it seems that it is during this period that Harston was one of his students.
Harston’s special interest at this period was watercolours, and, when in 1907 her father decided that the family should move to Barnstaple for his health,[3] she rented a studio at the rear of Hill’s View, Bear Street, away from the family home at 1 Ashleigh Road, a 10-room house where they kept two resident servants. In November 1907 Leonie held an exhibition of her paintings and sketches there, and advertised a programme of Art Classes for Ladies to begin in January 1908.[4] In April 1908 she advertised her Summer Term and sketching classes, but there are no further references to the classes, and it is not clear whether the enterprise was unsuccessful or whether she was able to continue the classes, advertising by word of mouth.[5]
She held another exhibition of paintings in September 1908, but again there are no further references to exhibitions, so perhaps it was at this point that her interests began to develop in different directions, although she was described on the 1911 census as an artist, working on her own account.[6] She appears to have become more active in the community from 1910 onwards, and one way in which she made a contribution to community life was by organising and writing and producing tableaux and writing sketches for entertainments put on in aid of charitable appeals, in aid of liquidating the debt on the Pilton Church Room, for example, or at a bazaar in aid of funds for the repair of the steeple at the Parish Church.[7]
One of the organisations for which she performed was the Barnstaple Women’s Liberal Association (WLA). Her father had become a vice-president of the local Liberal Club,[8] but the first reference to Harston engaging in Liberal activities is the reference to her reciting ‘an exceedingly smart set of verses, hitting off the political situation, which she had specially written’ at a public meeting held as part of the campaign for the December 1910 General Election.[9] (The Barnstaple seat was held at both elections in 1910 by Liberal MP Ernest Soares.) Harston also attended modelling classes at the Barnstaple Art School, where she was a national prize winner in 1911.[10]
Harston continued to organise entertainments for the Barnstaple WLA[11] but also became involved in their work to establish other branches in the neighbourhood: she gave a speech at a meeting in Marwood held in August 1911 with a view to forming an Association, where she explained the objects and methods of the Association, and in 1912 one in Bickington, one in Croyde and one in Mortehoe.[12] She acted as delegate for the branch to the Devon Union of Women’s Liberal Associations, of which she became joint secretary in 1912 with Olive Hepburn (q.v.).[13] In Barnstaple itself she volunteered to become the Captain’ of the local Crusade movement, which resulted in the formation of a local branch of the Junior Liberal League in 1912.[14]
Edward Harston, Leonie’s father died early in March 1912, and soon afterwards Harston moved her studio from Hill’s View to 23 Joy Street, a larger property, which she also used as the headquarters for the Junior Liberal League, which achieved a membership of over 100 by August 1912.[15] The programme for the League, as she described it in April 1912, was to include a physical culture class which would also discuss ‘politics of the day’, although by August 1912 the political discussions were still in the future, and she aimed in the sessions to teach ‘consideration and good fellowship … seeing things from other points of view than their own’.[16] She believed in the importance of physical education, and wrote to the papers expressing support for the building of a swimming bath for girls and boys in Barnstaple.[17]
She continued her own political education, taking the National Free Trade Union examinations in February 1912, which led to her political addresses including material on free trade and emigration.[18] She was an advocate for the benefits of the new National Insurance Act[19] and it may have been her support for this measure and the potential benefit for women which led to her becoming an honorary member of the new Female Court ‘Pride of Taw Vale’, of the Ancient Order of Foresters (Friendly Society).[20] She also became involved in the proposal to create a branch of the Workers’ Educational Association in Barnstaple and served on the committee which successfully recommended its establishment.[21]
Harston also became involved in the movement for women’s suffrage. In the report of the initial ‘garden’ meeting in Barnstaple in June 1911 she was stated to have volunteered to act as Secretary, and she organised the subsequent formal meeting held in December 1911 to determine the establishment of a branch, at which she volunteered to act as Treasurer.[22] The Barnstaple branch too utilised her services as entertainments officer, providing a ‘Grand Entertainment’ at their fund-raising event in February 1912,[23] but she also helped with educational work, for example at the meeting held at the Pilton Gove Works in January and the public meeting in the parish rooms in March.[24]
Her strong support for women’s suffrage was to lead her into difficulties with the Barnstaple WLA. In a speech seconding a resolution on the Criminal Law Amendment (White Slave Traffic) Bill at the Devon Union of WLAs in October 1912 she had declared that she was a ‘very strong Suffragist’, and this had apparently been reinforced by what she had heard when attending the Women’s Liberal Federation conference in London.[25] Unfortunately the pro-suffrage prospective parliamentary candidate selected to stand when the sitting member retired, Mr Harben, had recently resigned his candidacy because of the introduction by the Liberal government of force-feeding women prisoners. His replacement was Mr H. Baker, who opposed women’s suffrage. He attended the AGM of the Barnstaple WLA and Harston, concluding her report on the Women’s Liberal Federation event, stated that while she would continue to work for Liberalism she could not conscientiously work for an anti-Suffragist and that she would therefore be resigning her work with the Junior Liberal League and ‘captaincy’ of the crusade. Baker brushed off her statement and refused to answer questions on women’s suffrage, but the WLA executive committee held a special meeting at which they resolved (by 32 votes to 5):
That this Committee desires to dissociate itself in the strongest possible manner from the line taken by Miss Harston at the public meeting on Monday evening, believing that her remarks were utterly uncalled-for and at variance with the policy of the Association, and as a protest, hereby requests Miss Harston to retire from her position on this Committee. Further, this Committee expresses its utmost confidence in Mr H.A. Baker, and pledges itself to do all in its power to further his candidature.[26]
This caused something of a storm. The following week the North Devon Journal included a letter from Leonie herself, denying rumours that she had become a militant suffragette, or gone to work for the Unionist party, and stating that ‘Mrs Pankhurst at the Albert Hall is no better than Sir Edward Carson in Ulster, and they are equally doing harm to the causes they pretend to support’. It also included a letter from ‘Perplexed’ stating that the author cannot reconcile the action of the Executive with the motion they had passed a few weeks earlier in favour of women’s suffrage; and a report from a meeting of the Barnstaple Junior Women’s Liberal League committee where that body expressed its utmost confidence in Miss Harston and waited upon her to prevail her to reconsider her decision to resign’, which it appears she agreed to do.[27]
Though she may have continued to work with the Junior Liberal League there are no further reports of her activities there or with other WLA events. Harston continued her involvement with the Barnstaple NUWSS branch, acting as delegate to the Provincial Council meeting in Exeter in the spring of 1913 and donating towards funds being raised for the Great Pilgrimage that summer.[28] In July 1913 she made a farewell speech to a public meeting of the branch, where she mentioned that she was ‘leaving the town for suffrage work in London’.[29]
From that date Harston appears only occasionally in Barnstaple until the end of the First World War, noting as helping at teas at Christmas for wounded soldiers, or decorating the church with her mother at Easter. She later summarized what she had done in London as follows:
I have been for many years a member of the Women’s Local Government Society, and when in London, served on the Committee of that Society and studied various aspects of Local Government. While in town after the war broke out I served as Secretary of a Care Committee in the heart of London and in connection with that had to do with School Medical Inspections, Juvenile Advisory Committees and other similar work. Also I worked at the Education Office at Ealing for nine months in the place of a man who had joined up, so am familiar with the working of the Education Act.[30]
It is probable that she should be identified with the Miss Harston who appears briefly in the spring of 1914, as secretary to the Ealing and Acton NUWSS branch, residing at 23 St Stephen’s Road, West Ealing.[31]
From August 1917, perhaps in response to the appeal to women to volunteer, Leonie Harston worked for the Red Cross. Her two separate Red Cross cards provide slightly different information, but it appears that she took up the post of clerk at the headquarters of the busy Exeter War Hospitals. Later she became head clerk, and also acted as superintendent at one of the staff hostels. She worked without pay for the first year, and then was paid £1 16s 5d per week. She was still serving in July 1919 when the last of the hospitals closed.[31.1]
After the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed Harston returned to Barnstaple in a break from her war work. She was involved in the formation of the Barnstaple Women’s Citizens Association, and, perhaps through her Women’s Local Government Society connections, secured Mrs Strachey to address a public meeting on the topic in June 1918. At this event it was agreed to form a branch with Miss Chichester of Arlington Court (q.v.) as President and Harston herself as secretary.[32]
The creation of an Acting Secretary post and the fact that Harston addressed the meeting on ‘War Work’ may suggest that she had not yet returned on a permanent basis to Barnstaple. This she was to do, and in 1919 she was re-elected Secretary of the Barnstaple Women’s Citizens’ Association, and became involved in the conference they convened on the National Housing Question later that year.[33] With their backing she stood in the municipal council elections in November 1919, although without success, coming last but one in the North Ward poll.[34] She continued to be active in Barnstaple civic affairs for some time, although she ultimately moved back to the south-east.
Harston died on 23 Jan 1945 in Sanderstead, though her probate record describes her as ‘of 30 Hans Road, Chelsea’. Her estate was valued at over £2600.
Entry created by Marilyn Smee and Julia Neville, December 2018
[1] Census and family information from www.ancestry.co.uk.
[2] North Devon Journal (NDJ), 7 Mar 1912.
[3] Ibid.
[4] NDJ, 21 Nov, 12 Dec 1907.
[5] NDJ, 2 Apr 1908.
[6] NDJ, 16 Sep 1908.
[7] NDJ, 23 Jun, 13 Oct 1910.
[8] NDJ, 24 Feb 1910.
[9] NDJ, 8 Dec 1910.
[10] NDJ, 3 Aug 1911.
[11] Such as that reported in NDJ, 14 Dec 1911.
[12] NDJ, 31 Aug 1911; 11 Jan & 15 Feb 1912.
[13] NDJ, 18 Jan & 10 Oct 1912.
[14] NDJ, 19 Oct & 14 Dec 1911; 4 Apr 1912.
[15] NDJ, 14 Mar, 4 Apr, 22 Aug 1912.
[16] NDJ, 4 Apr & 22 Aug 1912.
[17] NDJ, 3 Oct 1912.
[18] NDJ, 8 & 15 Feb 1912.
[19] NDJ, 14 Dec 1911.
[20] NDJ, 19 Sep & 10 Oct 1912.
[21] NDJ, 7 Nov & 19 Dec 1912.
[22] Common Cause (CC), 29 Jun 1911, 212; NDJ, 14 Dec 1911.
[23] NDJ, 1 Feb 1912.
[24] NDJ, 18 Jan & 21 Mar 1912.
[25] NDJ, 10 & 17 Oct 1912.
[26] NDJ, 17 Oct 1912.
[27] NDJ, 24 Oct 1912.
[28] Western Times, 23 May 1913; CC, 20 Jun 1913, 181.
[29] CC, 11 Jul 13, 18.
[30] NDJ, 23 Oct 1919.
[31] CC, 1 May 1914, 90.
[31.1] https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Card?sname=harston&id=98603 & 04. Accessed 30 June 2019.
[32] NDJ, 6 Jun 1918.
[33] NDJ, 25 Sep & 2 Oct 1918.
[34] NDJ, 23 & 30 Oct, 6 Nov 1919.