Rosamund Massy

Rosamund Nora Massy (1870–1947)^[1] was an English suffragette and a "fierce woman". She was one of three women who organised the Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial, and was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal.

Rosamund Massy
detail from 1913 WSPU postcard by Rita Martin
Born	1870
Died	1947
Nationality	British

Family

Rosamund Massy was born in 1870, the daughter of Sir Casey Knywett and Lady Knyvett. Her mother was also a prominent suffragette.^[2] She married a colonel in the Dragoon Guards and her husband was supportive of her activism.^[2] They had one daughter.^[1]

Activism

She joined the Women's Suffrage movement around 1908 and had become a paid organiser of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) by the following year.^[1]

In 1909. Massy helped Edith Rigby gate-crash a meeting featuring Winston Churchill in Preston and threw a stone through the window of the post office. It was wrapped in paper containing the statement: 'Message to Mr Winston Churchill: This stone through your post office window is to remind you of your broken promises to the Suffragists of Manchester and Dundee.’^[3] She was arrested and pleaded guilty to causing £2 damage.^[3] She was imprisoned for the first time and went on an hunger-strike. After a week her mother paid the fine and she was released. She was arrested another three times and imprisoned again in 1910 for one month, after she had joined the Black Friday event.^[2]

In 1913, together with her mother, she enquired with Sir William Byrne at the Home Office about the condition of Emmeline Pankhurst who was imprisoned in Holloway Prison. The impression of Sir Byrne was that Lady Knyvett was a dear old lady and Massy a fierce woman. Lady Knyvett had given money to the WSPU while Massy warned of what she thought might happen if Pankhurst died in prison.^[2] Massy later supported Pankhurst in her election campaigns.^[4]

Pankhurst's funeral and memorials

Emmeline Pankhurst died on 14 June 1928, Massy was one of her pallbearers, alongside other former suffragettes Georgiana Brackenbury, Marie Brackenbury, Marion Wallace Dunlop, Harriet Kerr, Mildred Mansel, Kitty Marshall, Marie Naylor, Ada Wright and Barbara Wylie.^[5][6]

Kitty Marshall, Margaret, Lady Rhondda and Massy decided to arrange and fundraise for Pankhurst's memorials, with Massy serving as the fund's secretary.^{[7][page needed]} They raised money for her gravestone in Brompton Cemetery and a statue of her outside the House of Commons (which she had frequently been stopped from entering).^[8] They also raised money to buy the painting that had been made by fellow suffragette Georgina Brackenbury^[9] so that it could be given to the National Portrait Gallery.

Massy's prison badge and Hunger Strike Medal were placed in a casket in the plinth of Emmeline Pankhurst's statue in the Victoria Tower Gardens.^[2] It was unveiled by Stanley Baldwin in 1930.

References

1. "Mrs Rosamond Nora Massy". Database - Women's Suffrage Resources. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
2. Crawford, Elizabeth (2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. p. 548. ISBN 1135434026. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
3. Atkinson, Diane (2019). Rise Up, Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-4088-4405-2.
4. Cowman, Krista (15 July 2007). Women of the Right Spirit: Paid Organisers of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), 1904-18. Manchester University Press. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-7190-7002-0.
5. Purvis, June (2 September 2003). Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-134-34191-7.
6. Pugh, Martin (2008). The Pankhursts: The History of One Radical Family. Vintage. p. 408. ISBN 978-0-09-952043-6.
7. John, Angela V. (21 March 2014). Turning the Tide: The Life of Lady Rhondda. Parthian Books. ISBN 978-1-909844-12-4.
8. Carolyn Christensen Nelson (25 June 2004). Literature of the Women's Suffrage Campaign in England. Broadview Press. pp. 145–. ISBN 978-1-55111-511-5.
9. O'Sullivan, Margaret (17 September 2015). Brackenbury, Georgina Agnes (1865–1949), portrait painter and suffrage campaigner. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/56221.

External links

• Postcard of a group of suffragettes in Hyde Park on Women's Sunday (21st June 1908), including Massy via The London Museum
• Postcard featuring image of Massy c.1909 via Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection