Penney, Miss Mary, 3 Claremont Grove, Exmouth
Mary Bentley Penney MBE (1868-1950) was born in Waterloo Lancashire. Her father, David Johnston Eckford Penney (third son of Lord Kinloch), was in the Indian Civil Service. When Mary was four he died in Bombay ‘of fever after a few day’s illness’.[1] By 1871 her mother, together with her four children, had moved into her parents’ home in Sherbourne and stayed living with them whilst her children were growing up. In 1887 the family moved to 3 Claremont Grove Exmouth, very close to the house of Mrs Monck Mason who was later a suffragette activist. This was their home until early 1909 when Mary and her mother moved into an apartment at 1 Morton Crescent.
Mary served on the committee of the Exmouth NUWSS and in 1912 she attended the debate for and against franchise when Miss Helen Ward (NUWSS) spoke for franchise in Exmouth.[2] In the autumn of 1912 she was the Exmouth representative at the event at College Hall Exeter to discuss the ‘present political prospects of the suffrage cause’ organised by the Exeter Suffrage Society and local branches of the NUWSS.[3] In November 1913 the south-west branch of the NUWSS held a fund raising event in Exeter – a Fete and Forest of Christmas Trees; Mary organised one of the side shows on behalf of the Exmouth branch.[4]
She was a practising member of the Exmouth Detachment of the British Red Cross Society[5] and during WW1 she was the head clerk and treasurer for the Exmouth Auxiliary Hospital, for which she was recognised with an MBE.[6] She continued to live in Exmouth after the war but at some point later in her life she moved to Budleigh Salterton where she died on 27 September 1950.[7]
Entry created by April Marjoram, June 2018
[1] The Gentleman’s Magazine, June 1837, p.833.
[2] DEG, 23 May 1912.
[3] WT, 1 Nov 1912.
[4] WT, 29 Nov 1913.
[5] DEG, 31 Jul 1912.
[6] London Gazette, 30 Mar 1920.
[7] Probate Register.