The Sisters and Social Action

Abstract

On 15 May 1919, it was announced in the press that Eglantyne Jebb and a suffragette named Barbara Ayrton Gould of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) had been arrested in Trafalgar Square for handing out leaflets demanding that the government end the blockade of the Central Powers. The Times published an article headed ‘Raise the Blockade Leaflets’ and the Daily Herald reprinted copies of the leaflets and a photograph of Jebb and Ayrton Gould standing in the street outside of the Mansion House Police Court, where they had been summoned to appear on charges of violating the Defence of the Realm Act. Eglantyne’s leaflet included a photograph of a starving Austrian baby and the statement: ‘Millions of children are suffering in health, thousands actually dying: we must save them, but we can only do so if we put aside political animosities and unite…[T]o save them is more important than…boundaries, indemnities, or any political question.’1 Her leaflet announced that a new charity called the Save the Children Fund (SCF) would be launched at an upcoming Fight the Famine Council (FFC) rally at Albert Hall.2 This chapter focuses on Eglantyne’s life between 1913 and 1919; it shows that she was increasingly drawn to direct-action organizations and to people, including her sisters, who were combining their personal, spiritual and political ideologies with meaningful voluntary social action.KeywordsSocial ActionVoluntary ActionPolitical IdeologyLiberal PartyBritish PeopleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.