The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168973   Message #4082510
Posted By: GUEST,Derek Schofield
08-Dec-20 - 06:08 PM
Thread Name: Sharp in Appalachia
Subject: RE: Sharp in Appalachia
Always good to hear from knowledgeable people ... thanks Brian, Mike and Steve.
At 12.39, Dick (The Sandman) wrote this: "Sharp was against the women's suffrage movement. His sister, Helen Sharp, was an avid Suffragist who risked arrest and violence for her views."
Not sure if this is a quote from elsewhere.
Whatever, it needs correcting.
Sharp's sister was Evelyn, who was a suffragette not a suffragist. She served time in prison for her actions. Cecil did not agree with her tactics, but nevertheless invited her to the Stratford summer school in 1913 just after her release from prison. She declined, but they decided not to quarrel about suffragette actions. Evelyn wrote in a letter to him that she was yet to be convinced that he was a confirmed "Anti". At the time of her campaigning, he was teaching the royal princes and distanced himself from her actions. He was 10 years older than her, had been away at school and then in Australia when she was growing up, so they weren't particularly close. In the 1920s, and then after his death, Evelyn became more active in folk dancing and served on various committees of the EFDS. For more see Angela John, Evelyn Sharp: Rebel Woman, 1869-1955 MUP 2009.
Derek Schofield