Mary Neal

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Mary Neal

Mary Neal
Born Clara Sophia Neal
(1860-06-05)5 June 1860
Edgbaston, Birmingham, England
Died 22 June 1944(1944-06-22) (aged 84)
Nationality British
Occupation Social worker
Known for Folk dance collection

Mary Neal CBE (5 June 1860 – 22 June 1944), born Clara Sophia Neal, was an English social worker and collector of English folk dances.

Clara Sophia Neal was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham to a prosperous family. Her father was David Neal, a button manufacturer.[1] In 1888 she began voluntary social work with the West London Methodist Mission of Hugh Price Hughes, helping the poor of Soho, Fitzrovia and Marylebone in London, taking the name "Sister Mary". She set up and ran a "Club for Working Girls" at the mission's Cleveland Hall, and also wrote for the Mission Magazine.[2] According to Emmeline Pethick, who worked with her in the Girl's Club, she had "a strong sense of humour and a profound aversion from unreality; she had also a sharp tongue."[3] She said of the Girls' Club,

No words can express the passionate longing which I have to bring some of the beautiful things of life within easy reach of the girls who earn their living by the sweat of their brow... If these Clubs are up to the ideal which we have in view, they will be living schools for working women, who will be instrumental in the near future, in altering the conditions of the class they represent.[2]

The Girls' Club was a great success, but in the fall of 1895 Mary and Emmeline left the mission to set up their own Espérance Club for girls. They wanted to escape from the mission's institutional constraints and to experiment with dance and drama.[4] The Espérance Club was started in Cumberland Market. They also started the Maison Espérance tailoring establishment to provide employment.[5]

In 1905 Mary Neal met Cecil Sharp at the Hampstead Conservatoire.[6] They began to collaborate during a revival of English folk music, in which Mary Neal felt that the working girls of London would be able to reclaim their heritage.[7] The girls of the Espérance Club became in demand as teachers of folk music in London and further afield.[8] They also put on several public performances in London.[9] She and Lily Montagu, who sponsored a club for Jewish working girls, bought a large house in the country, in Littlehampton. They made it a holiday home for girls. Mary Neal also went to the United States between 1910 and early 1912 to promote folk dancing.[3]

Mary Neal became a socialist, following Kier Hardy and Edward Carpenter. In 1899 she attended the London International Congress of Women. In 1906 Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence went to a meeting in the Chelsea home of Sylvia Pankhurst where the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was established. She joined the WSPU, and later the United Suffragists.[3]

Mary Neal was a leading member of the Kibbo Kift youth organization.[10] Mary Neal was a justice of the peace in West Sussex in 1934, dealing with child delinquency. She also became a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform.[3] Her services to the English Folk Song and Dance movement led to her being appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1937.[10]

Bibliography

References

Citations

  1. Judge 1989, p. 546.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Judge 1989, p. 547.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Crawford 2013, p. 443.
  4. Judge 1989, p. 548.
  5. Boyes 2010, p. 72.
  6. Judge 1989, p. 549.
  7. Judge 1989, p. 550.
  8. Judge 1989, p. 551.
  9. Judge 1989, p. 552.
  10. 10.0 10.1 Who Were the Kibbo Kift?.

Sources

External links

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