Emily Frost Phipps

Emily Phipps (7 November 1865 – 3 May 1943) was a headmistress, a feminist, a barrister and an important figure in the National Union of Women Teachers.

Emily Frost Phipps, the oldest of five children, was born on 7 November 1865 at 9 South Hill Buildings, Stoke Damerel, Devonport, England. Her father, Henry John Phipps was a coppersmith at Devonport Dockyard; her mother, Mary Ann, was formerly Frost, hence Emily’s middle name. She became a teacher, initially as a pupil-teacher in an elementary school, then following training in Homerton College, Cambridge, became head teacher of the infants’ school attached to the college. Probably returning to Devonport for the time being, she continued to teach, latterly in a higher grade school, while studying for an external London University degree. After obtaining a first-class degree in 1895, she successfully applied for the headship of Swansea Municipal Secondary Girls School, which she quickly transformed from a poorly performing school into one of the most successful in Wales.

A committed feminist, she, together with fellow west country woman and lifelong friend Clara Neal, joined the Women's Freedom League in 1908 following an anti-suffrage meeting in Swansea, and set up a local branch. The meeting had been attended by Lloyd George who claimed that women were being paid to disrupt the meeting, and that they should be forcibly removed. Emily Phipps (and Clara Neal) were so disgusted with this injustice that they immediately became militant suffragettes.

Like many other members of the Women’s Freedom League Emily Phipps and Clara Neal, together with two training college lecturers and a business woman, staged a boycott on the night of the 1911 Census, staying overnight in a sea cave on the nearby Gower Peninsula. At the NUWT dinner called to celebrate full female suffrage she explained the reason for the action: "Many women had determined that since they could not be citizens for the purposes of voting, they would not be citizens for the purpose of helping the government to compile statistics: they would not be included in the Census Returns."

Emily Phipps was an active member of the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT), which was formed as part of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) in 1906, following on from the Equal Pay League. (The NUWT became an independent organisation in 1920, and remained in operation until 1961). Emily was elected President for three successive years from 1915–17 and was the first editor of the NUWT journal, Woman Teacher, from 1919–30, which she ensured was forthright and political in tone unlike those journals aimed at women teachers which included columns on fashion, cookery and similar domestic issues. She was tasked with writing the History of the NUWT (published in 1928).

...
Wikipedia