Thomas Gadd-MatthewsSuffragist, reformer1828 to 1919
January 4, 2023
Joan TuckettSuffragist, reformer1828 to 1919
January 18, 2023
Early Life
Florence was one of three daughters of Matthew Davenport Hill and Margaret Bucknall. The family were all active social, educational and prison reformers, and the sisters’ uncle was postal reformer Sir Rowland Hill.
Florence, Rosamond and Joanna were educated both in schools and at home. Growing up Florence and her sisters moved in a wide circle of reformers and writers. Growing up in such an environment fuelled the sister's beliefs in social responsibility, political awareness, prison and educational reform, particularly where it applied to girls.
Mary Carpenter's influence
In 1851, the Hill family moved to Bristol and it was here that Matthew Davenport Hill's involvement with prison reform brought him into close contact with Mary Carpenter who is buried in Arnos Vale. Mary's reform interests included educational work with society's poorest children, and the reform of the treatment of juvenile delinquents. All three girls became part of Mary Carpenter's reforming circle.
Blue plaque commorating local suffrage society
Women's Suffrage
In 1832, their father had publicly supported women’s suffrage, and in January 1868, he sent out a circular permitting his daughters to invite to his drawing room those interested in forming a society to promote women’s suffrage. The result was the founding of the Bristol & Clifton (later the Bristol and West of England) branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, the fourth such society.
The first committee comprised women and men including Florence, and another of our residents, barrister John Freeman Norris. The Rev Uriah Thomas had joined by 1871 and was joint secretary. Florence later was a member of the Central committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage and on their executive committee by 1893.
Pioneer of suffrage
She was honoured as a suffrage pioneer in 1913 when a procession organised by the NUWSS made a detour to pass Florence’s house at Headington where she then lived.
Travel and adventures
Florence then left Bristol with Rosamond, and travelled to Australia. The sisters published accounts of the institutions they visited in New South Wales, and later wrote a biography of their father.
Poor Law Guardian role
Florence took a special interest in the reform of treatment of pauper children, especially orphans, and was an advocate of boarding-out for such children, rather than admitting them to the workhouse. She served as a poor-law guardian in St Pancras. When Rosamond and Florence retired, they moved to Oxford.
Death and Cremation
Florence died in 1919 and was cremated elsewhere. Her remains were interred in a grave in Arnos Vale, along with her sister. where their parents had been laid to rest some 40 years earlier.
