Cicely Mary Hamilton
Description
Cicely Mary Hammill was born in Paddington, London, the first of four children of Denzil Hammill, captain of the 75th Regiment of the British Army, and his wife, Maude Mary Florence Hammill. In 1881 her father was sent to Egypt with the British Army, and she and her brothers and sister are boarded with another family. In 1885 her father retired from the army and returned to England, and she is reunited with him at her aunts' house in Bournemouth. She is sent to a boarding school in Malvern, Worcestershire. In 1891, she taught school while still a student herself. In 1893 she changed her name to Cicely Mary Hamilton and moved to London to act. She finds jobs mainly with touring companies. In 1903, frustrated at the lack of roles in London, she gave up acting to become a writer. To support herself and her younger sister, she writes sensational romances and thrillers for pulp magazines along with the plays she is more interested in writing. In 1908, she became politically active, joining the Women's Freedom League. Her first full-length play, Diana of the Dobson's, is run and also published. That same year she cofounded with Bessie Hatton the Women Writers' Suffrage League. During World War I she worked in the organisation of nursing care, and then joined the army as an auxiliary. Later she formed a repertory company to entertain the troops. After the war, she worked as a freelance journalist, particularly on birth control, and as a playwright for the Birmingham Repertory Company. In 1938 she was given a Civil List pension. She continued to write until her death in 1952.
Books
How the Vote Was Won
'How the Vote Was Won' is set in the living room of Horace and Ethel Cole in Brixton, London, on the day of a general women's strike called by Suffragettes because the Government has said that women do not need votes as they are all looked after by men. All the women who have previously supported themselves agree to leave their jobs and homes and instead insist on support from their nearest male relative. As Horace's female relatives arrive at his house one after the other, he comes to realise something must be done and rushes to Parliament, to demand 'Votes for Women' as soon as possible. The play was first performed at the Royalty Theatre, London, in April 1909.
William, an Englishman
This book is one of the best books about WWI that is not about the actual fighting soldiers or families on the home front. Focused a man and a woman, one a socialist, the other a suffragette, who are forced from their comforts and "normal" lives because of the war, but in a way that is not so common. They go to their honeymoon in cottage in the remote hills of the Belgian Ardennes, when "suddenly" the war breaks out. They encounter German military routines with a detached humor, only to be pushed into the heart of the brutality of war a mere day later. The book has a sense of immediacy and shows a realistic and grim view of the WWI.
Theodore savage
Theodore Savage opens with the title character, an office worker enjoying a comfortable life, anticipating his wedding. There are rumors of impending war; the people are excited, sure of their cause. When the war finally begins, Savage is called away to manage food distribution. But disaster soon follows as total war is unleashed on the country. As he adapts to a hard new life of man against man, fighting for ever-more-scarce resources, Savage wonders if he’ll ever return to his old life again. Cicely Hamilton wrote Theodore Savage shortly after the First World War, mindful of the terrifying destruction wrought with its poison gas and mechanized weaponry. She asserts that mankind is destined to become a slave to the things it creates, and advancement of knowledge will be its downfall. One reviewer found the story lacking in detail and credibility, and thought it too far-fetched that the whole world would collapse to a primitive state with no one to carry on the torch of knowledge. Another reviewer questioned the assertion that disaster follows inevitably from scientific knowledge in a never-ending cycle. But from an artistic point of view, the novel was regarded as imaginative and clever, despite its subject matter, which was rather dreary for a world still recovering from the Great War.
Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays
This is an anthology of eight exciting pieces written for and by members of the Actresses Franchise League from 1909-13. Immediately playable, they offer strong, varied roles for female casts, while also providing invaluable source material to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines.
Marriage as a trade
Hamilton critiques the housekeeping role marriage forces upon women and exposes the myths of marital love.
Diana of Dobson's
"Very successful when first performed in London in 1908, Diana of Dobson's introduces its audience to the overworked and underpaid female assistants at Dobson's Drapery Emporium, whose only alternative to their dead-end jobs is the unlikely prospect of marriage. Although Cicely Hamilton calls the play "a romantic comedy," like George Bernard Shaw she also criticizes a social structure in which so-called self-made men profit from the cheap labour of others, and men with good educations, but insufficient inherited money, look for wealthy wives rather than for work." "This Broadview edition also includes excerpts from Hamilton's autobiography Life Errant (1935) and Marriage as a Trade (1909), her witty polemic on "the woman question"; historical documents illustrating employment options for women and women's work in the theatre; and reviews of the original production of the play."--Jacket.