Rhoda Anstey
Rhoda Anstey | |
|---|---|
_suffragette.webp) | |
| Born | 1865 |
| Died | March 1936 London, England |
| Burial place | Cheltenham Cemetery |
| Education | Hampstead Physical Training College |
| Occupation(s) | Physical education teacher, activist |
| Employer(s) | Founded and worked at the Anstey College of Physical Education |
| Organization(s) | Women's Social and Political Union, Gymnastic Suffrage Society, Ling Association |
Rhoda Anstey (1865–1936), was a British Theosophist, astrologer, tax resister, suffragist and physical education teacher who founded the Anstey College of Physical Education.
Early life
[edit]Anstey was born at Jurihayes Farm near Tiverton, Devon in 1865. She was the seventh of nine children and second daughter of John Walters Anstey and his wife Suzannah Elizabeth Anstey (née Manley).[1] She attended the Swedish teacher Martina Bergman Österberg’s Hampstead Physical Training College (later known as Dartford College) for two years, studying between 1893 and 1895.[1]
Career
[edit]Anstey established The Hygienic Home for Ladies at New Cross Farm, South Petherton, Somerset in 1895.[1] She aimed to enrol middle class female students at her school, which was only the second female physical education training college to be founded in Britain.[2] This institution was succeeded by the Anstey College of Physical Training in 1897, which was established at the Leasowes in Halesowen and was set within 16 acres of grounds and with a lake. Anstey again transferred her college to Yew Tree House, Chester Road, Erdington, near Birmingham, in 1907. This was because there were greater local opportunities for teaching practice in Birmingham.[3]
Anstey created an identity for the college and adopted the Latin motto Vis Atque Gratia Harmoniaque, meaning "Strength together with Grace and Harmony".[3] The programmes ran for two years and aimed to promote physical education as a means of liberating the female mind and to inspire the students to become professional gymnastics teachers and independent women.[3] In 1918, Anstey expanded her courses to three year programmes.[4]
Anstey was described when teaching as "blunt in her manner" but with a "compassionate side that came out in benevolence to poor students."[4] She retired in 1918 and the college remained open until 1984.[2]
Anstey was also a founder member of the Ling Association in 1899 and served on its committee.[2]
Activism
[edit]Anstey campaigned for women's enfranchisement and was one of the earliest members of the Gymnastic Suffrage Society and Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).[5]
Anstey took a group of her students to London on 19 June 1910 to take part in the London procession organised by the WSPU.[6] She encouraged her students to engage in politics and would tell them that "'women would probably get the vote and they must prepare themselves to exercise it properly."[7]
She did not involve herself in violent militancy, but when the 1911 census was enumerated, Anstey participated in the suffragette boycott on behalf of the her college.[6][8] She wrote: "No Vote No Census! I protest against the injustice done to women rate-payers by the continued refusal of the government to give them the vote, and hereby refuse to fill in the census forms for my household" on her census form. She felt comfortable with this form of civil disobedience for the cause, reflecting that "this census protest is a thing I am able to do without injury to anyone except myself".[9] She later became a tax resister. In 1913 The Vote was recotding how her (and a dozen others) goods were being auctioned in retaliation for not paying her taxes.[10]
Anstey advertised her courses in the suffrage newspaper Votes for Women.[11]
Later life
[edit]Anstey took semi-retirement in 1918 and moved to King’s Welcome, Battledown, Cheltenham.[2] She died in London in 1936 and was buried in Cheltenham Cemetery.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Benn, Tansin; Webb, Ida. "Rhoda Anstey (1865 – 1936)". Connecting Histories. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
- ^ a b c d "Anstey College of physical training". Birmingham City Council. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
- ^ a b c Chandler, Tim; Cronin, Mike (11 September 2002). Sport and Physical Education: The Key Concepts. Routledge. p. 224. ISBN 978-1-134-73587-7.
- ^ a b McCrone, Kathleen E. (4 June 1988). Playing the Game: Sport and the Physical Emancipation of English Women, 1870-1914. University Press of Kentucky. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-8131-1641-9.
- ^ Hargreaves, Jennifer (11 September 2002). Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sport. Routledge. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-134-91277-3.
- ^ a b Crawford, Elizabeth (2 April 2013). "Suffrage Stories: An Entire Birmingham College Boycotts The 1911 Census". Woman and her Sphere. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
- ^ Godfrey, E. (26 October 2012). Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society: From Dagger-Fans to Suffragettes. Springer. ISBN 978-1-137-28456-3.
- ^ Elkes, Neil (6 February 2018). "How three Birmingham women led the suffragette campaign". Birmingham Live. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
- ^ Gauld, Nicola (19 August 2018). Words and Deeds: Birmingham Suffragists and Suffragettes 1832-1918. History West Midlands. ISBN 978-1-905036-48-6.[page needed]
- ^ The Vote p. 441, 25 April 1913 (link)
- ^ Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. p. 254. ISBN 978-1-135-43402-1.
- 1865 births
- 1936 deaths
- 19th-century English educators
- 20th-century English educators
- Activists from Devon
- English astrologers
- English suffragists
- English Theosophists
- English women educators
- Founders of British schools and colleges
- Organization founders
- People from Tiverton, Devon
- Suffragette 1911 census boycotters
- Tax resisters
- Women's Social and Political Union