Willcocks, Miss Mary, BA, 35 Pennsylvania Road, Exeter
Mary Patricia Susan Willcocks[1] (1869-1952) was the daughter and only child of John and Sarah Willcocks (formerly Hensleigh). She was born on 17 March 1869 at Cleeve, near Ermington, where her father farmed. She recalled her childhood in South Devon many years later, bringing vividly to life the atmosphere of the farmhouse kitchen.[2] It appears that her parents separated while Mary was still young. John remained farming at Winsor, near Yealmpton, and Mary and her mother moved to Plymouth where she attended Plymouth High School for Girls. She took a London University BA degree by ‘correspondence course’, and taught English literature at St George’s Training College Edinburgh and later at Leamington High School.[3] Her first novel, Widdicombe, was published in 1905 and soon after that she moved to Exeter and made her living by writing romantic novels with strong determined women heroines, serials and literary criticism and lecturing on literary and philosophical topics. Her novels include The Wingless Victory (1907), A Man of Genius (1908), The Way Up (1910), Wings of Desire (1912), The Wind among the Barley (1912), The Mouse Trap (1913). She is recorded on the 1911 census as living with her mother and one resident servant in a 9-room house at 38 Powderham Crescent.
Willcocks said that she had supported the cause of women’s suffrage since the 1890s.[4] It seems likely that she was the ‘authoress of high repute’ who was one of the Exeter banner bearers for the WSPU rally in Hyde Park in June 1908.[5] She also joined the Exeter branch of the NUWSS when it was formed in February 1909[6] and quickly took on a leading role, appearing on the platform at public meetings and being elected to the committee.[7] She spoke often at Exeter meetings[8] and also at Topsham,[9] Sidmouth,[10] Newton Abbot,[11] Plymouth,[12] Budleigh Salterton,[13] Appledore,[14] Totnes,[15] and Barnstaple[16]. She took part in the Suffrage demonstration in London on June 19 1909, walking behind the graduate banner.[17] She was part of the deputation to lobby Mr Duke MP in 1912.[18] In 1911 she took on the post of Hon. Secretary of the newly-formed South West Federation of Suffrage Societies.[19] She found this hard work, observing that in Newton Abbot she was ‘struggling against much indifference’ and gave it up after a year in order to devote herself to speaking.[20] In 1913 she joined the Pilgrimage for the stages from Totnes to Exeter and spoke at Newton Abbot and Totnes.[21]
Willcocks also took an interest in social issues. She campaigned in 1912 for school dental services and spoke against White Slave traffic.[22] She addressed a meeting of the Exeter Peace League in 1914.[23]
She spoke in 1913 on behalf of a Labour party candidate in the City Council elections, though she was prepared to work on suffrage issues with the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association.[24] She was an advocate for Trades Union membership.[25] By 1918 she had joined the Labour Party, speaking at a May Day rally encouraging women voters also to join,[26] and she stood (unsuccessfully) as Labour candidate for the City Council in St James Ward in November 1918.[27]
During the First World War she was a member of Exeter’s Unemployment Relief Committee and ran the Exeter Toy Factory, an initiative supported by the local NUWSS branch to provide employment for young women thrown out of work in the early months of the War.[28] She became a member of the War Pensions Local Committee, nominated by Exeter Trades and Labour Council,[29] and her high profile in Exeter society is shown by the fact that she was featured in an article promoting domestic cultivation of vegetables.[30] She also took an interest in the cases of some local conscientious objectors, lobbying the Exeter Appeal Tribunal on their behalf, and writing to others she thought might support their cause.[31]
Willcocks took a leading role in promoting the Workers’ Educational Association in Exeter.[32] She was concerned about the famine in Europe that followed the end of the war and was a founder member of the Exeter branch of the Save the Children Fund, and served on the committee.[33] She became a member of the Exeter and District branch of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, where she pressed for the appointment of women magistrates in the city.[34] Later she supported the introduction of handicraft classes in Exeter’s prison.[35] She continued to write and speak, though after the early 1920s her talks were on literary and cultural topics rather than political ones and her writings became biographies rather than novels.
Willcocks had moved to 35 Pennsylvania Road after her mother died in 1913. In 1939 she was living at 88 Pennsylvania Road with her long term companion, teacher Winifred Storey. Mary Willcocks died at 1 Pennsylvania Crescent, Exeter on 22 November 1952 at the age of 82. Her estate was valued at £2500.
Entry created by Julia Neville, August 2018
These websites provide more information about Mary Willcocks’s writing:
Julie Sampson, http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/m-p-willcocks-was-writer-from-west.html
Bob Mann, http://longmarshpress.co.uk/articles-by-bob-mann/devons-forgotten-feminist/
Sandra Kemp, Charlotte Mitchell and David Trotter (eds.) Oxford Dictionary of Edwardian Fiction, (Oxford 1997, article on ‘Willcocks, M.P.’ available on line at: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198117605.001.0001/acref-9780198117605-e-1241?rskey=9xvsMs&result=1. Accessed 17 August 2018
[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk.
[2] WMN, 6 Jan 1938.
[3] E&E, 23 Jun 1910.
[4] WT, 7 Apr 1914.
[5] WT, 23 Jun 1908.
[6] WT 16 Feb 1909.
[7] WT, 1 Dec 1909.
[8] e.g. E&E, 2 Mar 1910; E&E, 24 May 1910, DEG 23 Mar 1912.
[9] DEG, 14 Jan 1910; WT, 25 Nov 1910.
[10] CC, 2 Mar 1911; DEG, 25 Jan 1912 & 14 Sep 1912.
[11] DEG, 31 Oct 1912.
[12] CC, 1 Dec 1910; WDM, 20 Mar 1912; 27 Jun 1912.
[13] CC, 30 Nov 1911.
[14] CC, 1 Feb 1912.
[15] CC, 1 Feb 1912.
[16] WT, 1 Dec 1913.
[17] E&E 24 May 1910.
[18] CC, 8 Mar 1912.
[19] CC, 26 Jan 1911.
[20] CC, 27 Apr 1911 p.21; 8 Dec 1911.
[21] WT, 4 Jul 1913; CC 11 Jul 1913.
[22] DEG, 12 Mar 1912; WT, 29 Oct & 4 Nov 1912.
[23] WT, 6 Mar 1914.
[24] WT, 1 Nov 1913; DEG, 13 May 1914.
[25] CC, 3 Mar 1916.
[26] WT, 6 May 1918.
[27] WT, 7 Nov 1918.
[28] WT, 17 Aug 1914; 28 Nov 1914
[29] DEG, 16 Jan 1918
[30] WT, 12 May 1916, with photograph of her and the vegetables she had grown in her garden.
[31] WT, 6 May 1916, p.2; DHC 54/6/1, Letters of Mary Willcocks (catalogued as Mary Wilcocks).
[32] WT, 12 Oct 1917; DEG 7 May 1919.
[33] WT, 30 Sep 1919.
[34] WT, 14 Jul 1922.
[35] WMN, 7 Dec 1935.