Mary Raleigh Richardson, Suffragette

Helena Wojtczak releases historical biography of Mary Raleigh Richardson, suffragette

Local author and historian Helena Wojtczak, most famous for Strange Exits from Hastings, volumes I and II, releases a new book detailing the remarkable life of Mary Raleigh Richardson, suffragette arsonist. Dee Williams reports.

Helena, born in Sussex, who resided in London and is now a resident of St Leonards, is something of a remarkable woman herself.

I first came upon her whizzing down the seafront promenade on her mobility scooter, advertising her Strange Exits from Hastings books via a rather large sign pinned to the back of her scooter. Once seen, never forgotten. I next came across her at an event on Hastings Pier and immediately recognised her signage and stopped for a chat.

I have, like so many before me, bought both of her Strange Exits from Hastings books which can be found in a number of local bookshops including Waterstones. If you would like to know more about Helena and her many published books, then visit her website The Hastings Press and you will soon see how she managed to appear on Woman’s Hour not once but twice!

Here at Hastings Online Times we wish her much success with her latest work, listed below.

MARY RALEIGH RICHARDSON
The suffragette arsonist who slashed the Rokeby Venus
by Helena Wojtczak
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

This first book-length biography of the suffragette Mary Raleigh Richardson reveals for the first time her true identity, ancestry, childhood and education, as well as her surprising — and exciting — international travels before she became embroiled in the suffrage struggle.

During her time as a militant Mary was arrested nine times. Prepared to die for the cause, she adopted the hunger strike each time she was imprisoned, and was forcibly fed countless times. Her hunger strike medal boasted more bars than that of any other suffragette — something of which she remained proud for the rest of her life.

Her most infamous deed was to use a cheap meat cleaver to inflict several gashes into Velasquez’s Rokeby Venus, a world-famous and priceless painting. In a lesser-known and yet equally sensational attack, she burned down a historic mansion near Hampton Court.

During the First World War she continued to work for the vote, allying herself with both Sylvia Pankhurst’s ELFS and the United Suffragists.

Having joined the Labour Party she twice stood for Parliament, without success, and in the early thirties aligned herself with Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. She retired from public life in 1935 and moved to a sleepy village, where she raised an adopted son and penned Laugh a Defiance, a memoir of her suffrage days.

The work is essential reading for suffrage scholars and those keen to explore the lives of the individual personalities within the militant movement.

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