Ramsay, Annie Catherine, 4 Wentworth Villas, Plymouth
Annie Catherine Ramsay néeThiele (1853-1921) was born in 1853 in Bermuda, the daughter of Charles Frederick Alexander Thiele, formerly of Quakenbrueck, Germany and his wife Elizabeth (née Weber), formerly of Saarbrucken, South Prussia. Annie was home educated by her father alongside her eight siblings. Her co-education alongside her brothers and sisters instilled in her a strong sense of equality between the sexes. She was never conscious that she was, for that period, an exceptionally well educated woman, and when she had her own children she was able to teach them Latin and French.[1]
In 1874 she married Andrew John Ramsay, a naval officer who had been posted to the West Indies. She travelled with her husband during his naval postings living variously in Bermuda, Malta, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Greenock, Scotland and living in lodgings when she wasn’t able to accompany him. She had three children, Palmer Devoy b 1877 in Bermuda, Mabel Lida (q.v.), b 1878 in London and Hilda Katherine (q.v.) b 1881 in Greenock, Scotland.
Ramsay was widowed in 1906 and in 1908 she leased 4 Wentworth Villas where her daughter Mabel, by then qualified as a doctor, joined her to live and to set up her medical practice, Dr Ramsay subsequently purchased the property in 1914.[2] Shortly after moving into Wentworth Villas, both Mrs and Dr Ramsay became involved in the suffrage movement, Mrs Ramsay became a committee member of the Three Towns branch of the NUWSS, of which her daughter was secretary and later became a committee member of the Plymouth Citizens’ Association. She wrote many letters to local and national newspapers and to suffrage publications such as Votes for Women and Common Cause, advocating the cause of female suffrage.
Ramsay took part in the 1911 census boycott, when she and her daughter Dr Ramsay hosted a ‘census resistance party’ at their home at Wentworth Villas, where they were joined by about twenty women to evade the census enumerator. The following morning the women had all left by 7a.m, leaving Ramsay to await the enumerator. She refused to provide any information and he left with no census data.[3] The enumerator did, however, complete a census form for the household with what information he was able to obtain from neighbours. He recorded Mrs Annie Ramsay and Dr Mabel Ramsay along with a boarder and an unnamed nurse, cook and general servant and annotated the census form “Suffragettes”. He failed to record the fact that around twenty women had been in the house during the census night.[4] Nothing more is known of the women who joined the census boycott at Ramsay’s home, although it is almost certain that one was her other daughter Mrs Hilda Andrew (q.v.) as no census return has been identified for her.
During the summer of 1913, aged 60, Ramsay also took part in the Women’s Lands End to Hyde Park Suffrage Pilgrimage. She was one of only eight women who travelled with the caravan for the whole length of the journey, marching for about six miles each day, distributing pamphlets and holding rallies at each of the overnight stops. She was one of the main speakers at the great rally in Hyde Park itself, when the marchers from around the country all met together at the end of their pilgrimage. [5]
During the war she did active work in connection with the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association. She was instrumental in collecting funds by her personal appeal for the Anglo-French Hospital, Cherbourg and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in France, Serbia and Russia. She was a member of the National Service League and before the war supported national service rather than conscription.[6]
Ramsay died in Plymouth in 1920, having proudly cast her vote in the 1918 General Election and the Sutton Constituency by-election of 1919.[7]
Entry created by Ann Bond, January 2019
[1] Information relating to Ramsay’s early life comes from her daughter Dr Mabel Ramsay’s memoir A Doctor’s Zig-Zag Road, see entry under Ramsay, Mabel.
[2] Ramsay M L, A Doctor’s Zig-Zag Road.
[3] Ramsay M L, A Doctor’s Zig-Zag Road
[4] 1911 Census of England and Wales.
[5] Ramsay M L, A Doctor’s Zig-Zag Road.
[6] WMN 10 September 1920.
[7] Ramsay M L, A Doctor’s Zig-Zag Road.