Ulyat, Mrs Mary, Port Meadow, 2 Seymour Villas, Bridgetown, Totnes
Mary Louisa Ulyat née Stopford (1855-1946)[1] was born in Hanover Square, Belgravia, London, to Robert and Emily Stopford. Her father had a distinguished naval career before retiring with the rank of Admiral[2] to Grosvenor House, Mount Ararat Road, Richmond. Mary and her sister were educated at home by a governess. She married William Ulyat, a Church of England priest, on 11 Sep 1882 in St Matthias church in Richmond, Surrey. William became Vicar of Freeland in Eynsham, Oxfordshire where they were living in 1891 and 1901. William and Mary had no children. William converted to Roman Catholicism in 1903, as a result of which he had to resign his living.[3] In 1911 the Ulyats were living in an eight-roomed house at Port Meadow, Totnes, with one resident servant, and William described himself as ‘of independent means’.
Mary became the first Treasurer of the Totnes Branch of the NUWSS when it was formed at the end of 1911.[4] She spoke at the NUWSS public meeting in Totnes in March 1912,[5] and collected 180 names on a petition for women’s suffrage which she sent to local MP Francis Mildmay to persuade him of the need for the enfranchisement of women.[6] She did not succeed in convincing him although he acknowledged the ‘influential’ nature of those who had signed. When the first secretary to the branch left Totnes Mary Ulyatt became secretary,[7] and was on the platform at the public meeting held by the NUWSS in February 1913 where she addressed the meeting, seconding the motion. She also wrote to the local press dissociating the NUWSS from the militant methods of the WSPU.[8]
During the First World War Mary Ulyatt worked in the Totnes Dressings Depot, producing sphagnum moss dressings for wounded soldiers. She also served on the committee there. After the war she does not appear to have taken a part in public life, although she did act as proposer for the Liberal candidate at the parliamentary election in 1924.[9]
William died in 1929, but Mary continued to live at Port Meadow until her death in a Torquay Nursing Home on 19 October 1946. Her effects at her death were valued at almost £10,000.
Entry created by Julia Neville, with thanks to Ken Prout– August 2018
[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk.
[2] Wikipedia entry for Robert Fanshawe Stopford, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fanshawe_Stopford Accessed 13 Aug 2018.
[3] Ken Prout, ‘The Totnes Suffragists’, Totnes Review, June 2018, pp.4-8, p.4.
[4] CC, 1 Feb 1912, p.10, in an account of the inaugural meeting held on 19 Dec 1911.This incorrectly refers to her as ‘Wyat’.
[5] WDM, 19 Mar 1912.
[6] WT, 8 Feb 1913.
[7] She is first referred to as secretary in CC, 3 Oct 1912, p.19.
[8] Prout, p.6.
[9] Prout, p.6.