Overview to Mary Sheepshanks

Mary Sheepshanks lived at 89 Erskine Hill in the1920s

Born 1872. Educated Cambridge.

After graduation worked at the University Women’s Settlement in Southwark, after which she became Vice-President of Marley College. She was a socialist, feminist and pacifist. Was initially a member of WSPU and whilst at Morley College she invited Christabel Pankhurst to speak. Her pacifism caused her to disagree with the more violent suffragette actions (although she admired the bravery of such women). She campaigned for the more moderate NUWSS.

In 1913 she become secretary of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance and the editor of its journal, Ius Suffragii (The Law of Suffrage). She maintained her pacifism during the First World War despite significant levels of personal abuse. In the inter-war years she continued to campaign for peace and the victims of war. She welcomed refugees from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia to her home and renounced her pacifism at the start of World War II. However she was opposed to blanket bombing and nuclear weapons.

She died in 1960 in Hampstead.

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