Overview to Henrietta Barnett

Henrietta Barnett lived in South Square

Mrs S A Barnett is listed as a Vice President of the London Society for Women’s Suffrage, part of the NUWSS in annual reports prior to the First World War. In the 1913 Annual Report, the Society also expressed regret on the death of Canon Barnett who had also supported the extension of the franchise to women and thus was “was a loss to all social workers and not least to suffragists”.

Henrietta Barnett disapproved of militant suffragism. In her book, The Story if the Growth of Hampstead Garden Suburb (192?), she described those who tried to burn down the Free Church as : ‘naughty and daring and faithless ladies’, but this does suggest a grudging admiration. She was a supporter of votes for women, not least because of her experience of working with disadvantage women in the East End of London,  She had been national Vice President of the National Union of Women Workers from 1895-6 and later was Chairman of the Hampstead Garden Suburb branch of National Council of Women (the successor organisation) so she was definitely committed to social reform and the advancement of women (although the NCW was staunchly non-political). She had many close friends and contacts in suffrage movement.

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