Montgomery, Miss Jessie, 10 Baring Crescent, Exeter
Jessie Anne Douglas Montgomery (1850-1918)[1] was born in London, the daughter of the Rev. Robert Montgomery and Rachel, nee McKenzie. Robert Montgomery was a theologian and minister at the Percy Chapel in the parish of St Pancras until his death in 1855.[2] Mrs Montgomery and Jessie came to Exeter to live with Rachel’s sister and her husband, Canon Cook,[3] a distinguished Biblical scholar, when he was appointed prebendary and canon residentiary of Exeter Cathedral in 1864. The Cooks had a house in the Cathedral Close where Jessie lived until the 1880s when, after their deaths, she moved to the substantial (12-roomed) house in Baring Crescent. In 1911 she is recorded as living there with her cousin Dorothy Woollcombe and three resident servants.
Mrs Cook and her husband were pioneers in promoting educational opportunities for women in Exeter, along with the Bishop’s sister, Miss Temple, and Lady Bowring (q.v.).[4] The nature of Montgomery’s own education is unknown, but in such a milieu she would undoubtedly have had opportunities for guided study. She is said to have spent some time abroad and to have been fluent in French.[5] Montgomery followed the lead of Lady Bowring in working for the development of educational opportunities, both for women and for artisans. One particular method of doing this was through the University Extension Scheme under which the universities provided visiting lecturers to hold classes at local centres around the country. Montgomery is recorded as attending the 1886-7 course of lectures on ‘Four Thinkers in Life’ held at the Exeter Centre in the new galleries at the Museum and achieving distinction in the final examination.[6] Thereafter she is regularly recorded as attending courses and achieving distinction. In 1888 she became joint secretary to Exeter’s University Extension Centre on its affiliation to Cambridge University, and subsequently convenor of the Ladies’ Students’ Association.[7] She persuaded the City Council to support the development of Science and Art Schools for technical education,[8] became a Governor of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, where the classes were based,[9] and was the prime mover in establishing the Museum College, later the Royal Albert Memorial College, President of its Ladies Section and first Warden of its hostel for women students.[10] Towards the end of the First World War a committee was established to pursue university status for the college,[11] and Montgomery, supporting it in the Exeter Education Committee, said that ‘if she could see an Exeter College as a constituent part of a University for the South West she would be ready to sing her ‘Nunc Dimittis’.[12] She also worked to improve access to elementary education, and became a co-opted member of the Exeter Education Committee.[13] A broader concern about the lack of opportunities for girls led her in 1891 to join with a group of women to set up an Evening Club for girls working in the Exeter factories and paper mills, providing both classes and recreational facilities.[14]
Her connection to the movement for women’s suffrage was first made during Lady Bowring’s lifetime, and it was Montgomery who seconded the resolution for the enfranchisement of women put at the last public meeting in Exeter chaired by Lady Bowring in 1897.[15] It was not, however, until the end of 1908 that she took steps to inaugurate the Exeter branch of the NUWSS. It seems likely that in taking this step she was responding to the fact that a branch of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League had been established in Exeter in October 1908.[16] She attended some of the League’s meetings and spoke out in favour of suffrage.[17] Montgomery hosted two drawing-room meetings in her house in Baring Crescent in December 1908, which led to the formal public inaugural meeting at the Barnfield Hall on 25 February 1909.[18]
Montgomery was the first secretary of the Exeter branch (1909-1911), resigning only when the NUWSS decided that office-holders should not be active in party politics.[19] She wrote to the Press on suffrage issues, organised and presided at meetings, spoke to resolutions, and organised the Voters’ Petition in Exeter in 1910.[20] It was probably at her instigation that one of the first activities of the branch was to offer a prize for the best essay on the political enfranchisement of women.[21] A life-long Conservative and Unionist supporter, she spoke in public during the second election in 1910 advocating a Unionist vote.[22] Later she founded the Devon and Exeter Conservative & Unionist Women’s Franchise Association in 1913,[23] which organised a Sweated Industries Exhibition in Exeter in February 1914.[24]
During the campaign for women’s suffrage Montgomery never neglected her passion for the development of educational opportunities, arguing for example in the Education Committee for the reduction of unreasonably large class sizes; taking an interest in the work of the Special School for Crippled and Delicate Children; and ensuring that residents in the West of England Institution for the Blind were offered tickets for University Extension lectures.[25] She promoted Exeter’s aspirations towards full university status.[26] She was also active in religious and philanthropic activities: supporting organisations such as the Exeter Gleaners’ Union and the Additional Curates’ Society;[27] proposing a Children’s Care Committee, and supporting the work of the Charity Organisation Society and the National Union of Women Workers.[28]
When the First World War broke out she became involved in initiatives to offer hospitality to troops stationed in Exeter, organising catering at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Recreation Room on Castle Street and later in Queen Street.[29] Montgomery was the first secretary of the Exeter branch (1909-1911), resigning only when the NUWSS decided that office-holders should not be active in party politics.[30] She wrote to the Press on suffrage issues, organised and presided at meetings, spoke to resolutions, and organised the Voters’ Petition in Exeter in 1910.[31] It was probably at her instigation that one of the first activities of the branch was to offer a prize for the best essay on the political enfranchisement of women.[32] A life-long Conservative and Unionist supporter, she spoke in public during the second election in 1910 advocating a Unionist vote.[33] Later she founded the Devon and Exeter Conservative & Unionist Women’s Franchise Association in 1913,[34] which organised a Sweated Industries Exhibition in Exeter in February 1914.[35] The College Hostel of which she had once been warden was lent to the Red Cross as a temporary war hospital but she took a lively interest in its work and was one of those who proposed the publication of a hospital magazine.[36] The loss of one of the sons of her cousins, the Woollcombes, prompted her to write and publish a booklet, entitled ‘The Incarnation’, which the reviewer hoped ‘would help those in sorrow find ‘the secret of courage and hope’.[37]
Montgomery presided over the special meeting of the Exeter NUWSS branch held in October 1916 when Mrs Fawcett gave an address on ‘the position of women after the war and the present outlook of the suffrage movement’.[38] As soon as the Representation of the People Act 1918 had been passed an Exeter meeting to promote a branch of the Women’s Citizenship Association was held. Montgomery was indisposed, but sent a letter supporting the initiative and hoping that ‘the women of Exeter would bond themselves together to study in a broadminded way the problems which confronted the nation’, and she presided at the next meeting in May 1918.[39]
Montgomery died unexpectedly on 13 October 1918 while undergoing an operation at Grosvenor House Nursing Home in Southampton.[40] Her estate was valued at £12,000. She was aware that the long campaign for women’s votes had been successful, but was never able to cast her own vote. Similarly her long battle to achieve University College status for the Royal Albert Memorial College was only to be rewarded with success in 1921, delayed as it was by the war. She is commemorated by a memorial in Exeter Cathedral.
Entry created by Julia Neville, August 2018
[1] Family information from www.ancestry.co.uk
[2] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ‘Robert Montgomery’, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/19074 .Accessed 19 Aug 2018.
[3] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ‘Frederick Charles Cook’, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/6136 Accessed 19 Aug 2018.
[4] A Ladies Committee, including Cook, Temple and Bowring, with the support of the Bishop and Canon Cook, set up a course of lectures on ‘Dante and His Times’ in 1871. WT, 6 Feb 1871, 1.
[5] Devon and Exeter Gazette (DEG), 31 Mar 1914, p.3.
[6] Western Times (WT), 23 May 1887, p.2; 13 Sep 1902, p.4.
[7] WT, 10 May 1888, 2; DEG, 26 Jan 1889, p.5.
[8] DEG, 1 Jan 1891, p.3.
[9] WT, 12 Mar 1901, p.5.
[10] DEG, 8 Mar 1902, p.5; WT, 17 Sep 1901, p.5; DEG, 1 Jan 1902, p.2.
[11] DEG, 10 Oct 1917, 3.
[12] DEG, 20 Feb 1918, 3.
[13] DEG, 23 Feb 1903, 3.
[14] DEG, 8 Jan 1891, 7.
[15] Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 29 Mar 1897, 3.
[16] WT, 30 Oct 1908, 2.
[17] DEG, 17 Sep 1909, 15.
[18] DEG, 26 Feb 1909, 11.
[19] DEG, 4 Mar 1911, 2.
[20] DEG, 1 Jan 1910, 1; E&E, 14 Feb 1910, 3.
[21] WT, 20 Apr 1909, 4.
[22] Conservative & Unionist Women’s Franchise Review (CUWFR), 1 Oct 1913, 8; 1 Jan 1914, 19.
[23] DEG, 21 Feb 1914, 6.
[24] WT, 16 Apr 1910, 2.
[25] DEG, 18 Jun 1909, p.11; WT, 25 Feb 1914, p.2; WT, 5 Dec 1914, p.3.
[26] WT, 16 Apr 1910, p.2.
[27] DEG, 3 Mar 1909, p.3; 22 Oct 1914, p.2.
[28] WT, 19 March 1909, p.10.; WT, 7 Dec 1910, p.2; WT, 29 Oct 1912, p.5.
[29] WT 29 Dec 1914, p.2; 1 Jan 1915, p.8; CUWFR, 1 Jan 1915, p.5; WT, 9 Nov 1915, p.5.
[30] DEG, 4 Mar 1911, p.2.
[31] DEG, 1 Jan 1910, p.1; Express & Echo, 14 Feb 1910, p.3.
[32] WT, 20 Apr 1909, p.4.
[33] CUWFR, 1 Oct 1913, p.8; 1 Jan 1914, p.19.
[34] DEG, 21 Feb 1914, p.6.
[35] WT, 16 Apr 1910, p.2.
[36] ‘IT’, Gup and Gossip, the magazine for the Exeter war hospitals, October 1918, 16. Copy in private hands, loaned to the Exeter War Hospitals Research Group.
[37] DEG 14 Oct 1918, p.3.
[38] WT, 7 Oct 1916, p.3.
[39] WT, 5 Mar 1918, 5; DEG, 29 May 1918, p.3..
[40] DEG 14 Oct 1918, p.3; Probate Register.