Monck-Mason, Miss Winifred Alice, professional name, Winifred Mayo
Winifred Alice Monck-Mason (1869 – 1967) was born on 8 November 1869 in Bagulkote, Bombay.[1] Her father, Thomas Monck-Mason, was in India serving in the Bombay Civil Service. The family returned to England in the early 1870s and lived in Bath. By 1884 Winifred’s widowed mother and her children had moved to Exmouth where they lived at Enniskerry, Long Causeway until 1900.[2] The family involved themselves in the life of the town and its organisations; they supported the Sailors’ Rest, the NSPCC, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, the University Extension lectures and regularly attended the Exmouth Annual Christmas Ball.[3]
Winifred cut her teeth as an actress in Exmouth; taking part in amateur productions between 1889 and 1900, usually in the town’s public hall and often alongside young women who were eventually to be involved in the Exmouth suffrage campaign like Miss Phear and Mrs Montgomery. These regular productions must have given Winifred a taste for acting and perhaps fired her ambition because by the turn of the century she had moved to another level and was acting professionally in London’s West End.[4] She and her mother moved to London and in 1907 they joined the Kensington branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union and Winifred soon became involved in direct action to support the cause of women’s suffrage. She was arrested five times and imprisoned on three occasions – once for window-smashing at the Guards Club in Pall Mall.[5]
With three colleagues Mayo formed the Actresses Franchise League (AFL) and worked at the all-women Coronet Theatre. She gave elocution lessons to WSPU speakers and advised suffragettes about make-up and costume so they were better equipped to evade capture by the police. During 1912/13 she toured Britain making speeches on women’s issues, took part in deputations to the House of Commons and represented the AFL in an interview with the Prime Minister. In July 1913, when the Exmouth contingent of the Suffrage Pilgrims assembled in Kensington, Winifred sought them out and marched with them to Hyde Park.[6]
She died on 18 February 1967, aged 97. Her Times obituary referred to her ‘unabated interest in social and political reform’. A recording of her suffragette recollections can be heard at: www.bbc.co.uk/archive/people/64/08.shtml
Entry created by April Marjoram, September 2018
[1] India BMD ref 523928.
[2] Exmouth Journal 9 August 1884.
[3] Exmouth Journal: December 1888/90/91/92; 7 September 1889; 20 January 1894.
[4] Wearing, J P 1910+1921, The London Stage: A Calendar of Products, Performers and Personnel: 1900-1909 and 1910-1920.
[5] She appeared in court Westminster:12 Feb 1908; Bow Street:9 July 1909, 19 November 1910, 29 November 1911, 5 March 1912 – see police records on www.findmypast.co.uk/
[6] The Scotsman 20 January 1912; Daily Herald 3 July 1912; The Globe 25 August 1913; WT 29 July 1913.