Maud Palmer, Countess of Selborne

Beatrix Maud Palmer, Countess of Selborne (11 April 1858 – 27 April 1950) was a British political and women's rights activist.

The Right Honourable

The Countess of Selborne
President of the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association
In office
1910–1913
Preceded byLouisa Knightley
Succeeded byCountess of Fingall
President of the National Council of Women of Great Britain & Ireland
In office
1920–1921
Preceded byMaria Ogilvie Gordon
Succeeded byFrances Balfour
Personal details
Born
Beatrix Maud Gascoyne-Cecil

11 April 1858
Marylebone, London, England
Died27 April 1950(1950-04-27) (aged 92)
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1883; died 1942)
ChildrenMabel Grey, Countess Grey
Roundell Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne
Hon. Robert Palmer
Hon. Lewis Palmer
ParentsRobert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Georgina Alderson
OccupationActivist

Early life

Born in Marylebone as Beatrix Maud Gascoyne-Cecil, she was the eldest child of future Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, and his wife, the former Georgina Alderson.

Maud was not formally educated, but acquired an interest in conservatism and political affairs through her family and the local Primrose League.[1]

Politics

At the 1885 UK general election, William was elected as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament, and while Maud remained a staunch Conservative Party supporter, she gradually won William to her views, as he first joined the Liberal Unionist Party split, then later became associated with the far right of the Conservative Party.[1]

From 1905, William held various senior posts in South Africa, and Maud moved with him, associating herself with various local charities. They returned to the UK in 1910, and she became president of the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association. In this role, she toured the country, speaking in support of women's suffrage. While she initially only supported votes for wealthy single women, she later also supported the enfranchisement of married women, arguing that most married women were conservative. She stood down in 1913, and once World War I started, focused instead on promoting patriotism.[1]

After the end of the war, the countess was less active, but became a Justice of the Peace in Hampshire,[1] and served as president of the National Council of Women of Great Britain & Ireland in 1920/21.[2]

Marriage and family

In 1883, Maud married William Palmer, Viscount Wolmer. They had three sons and one daughter.[3]

  • Lady Mabel Laura Georgiana Palmer (6 October 1884 – 15 July); married Charles Grey, 5th Earl Grey, and had two daughters.
  • Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne (15 April 1887 – 3 September 1971); married, firstly, Hon. Grace Ridley in 1910; had issue. Married, secondly, Valerie Irene Josephine Margaret de Thomka de Thomkahaza in 1966; no issue.
  • Hon. Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer (26 September 1888 – 21 January 1916)
  • Hon. William Jocelyn Lewis Palmer (15 September 1894 – 6 June 1971); married Hon. Dorothy Cicely Sybil Loder in 1922 and had two children.

Their eldest son, Roundell, eventually succeeded his father in the earldom as the 3rd Earl of Selborne. Their second son, the Hon. Robert Palmer, was a Captain in the Hampshire Regiment and was killed on active service in 1916.[4] Their daughter, Lady Mabel Laura Georgiana Palmer, became Countess Grey as the wife of Charles Grey, 5th Earl Grey.

William succeeded as Earl of Selborne in 1895, and Maud therefore became Countess of Selborne.

Legacy

Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.[5][6][7]

gollark: If you install Linux on there, you won't buy the games.
gollark: Presumably PS3s are sold somewhat below cost to make back money on the games.
gollark: As far as I know much of that was like a modern general-purpose GPU, but without some of the stuff that made those very good, like their buckets of memory bandwidth.
gollark: It isn't just formatting. For stupid historical reasons, there are two units, GiB (gibibytes, 2^30 bytes) and GB (gigabytes, 10^9 bytes) which software and people will happily mix up all the time.
gollark: Also poor controls relative to using computers with keyboards and such.

References
  1. "Palmer, (Beatrix) Maud, Countess of Selborne". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/50054. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Glick, Daphne (1995). The National Council of Women of Great Britain: the first one hundred years, 1895-1994. London: National Council of Women of Great Britain. p. 248.
  3. "Person Page - William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne". www.thepeerage.com. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  4. The Lady Laura Ridding (1921), The Life of Robert Palmer 1888–1916, London: Hodder and Stoughton
  5. "Historic statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett unveiled in Parliament Square". Gov.uk. 24 April 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  6. Topping, Alexandra (24 April 2018). "First statue of a woman in Parliament Square unveiled". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  7. "Millicent Fawcett statue unveiling: the women and men whose names will be on the plinth". iNews. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
Party political offices
Preceded by
Louisa Knightley		 President of the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association
1910–1913		 Succeeded by
Countess of Fingall
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by
Maria Ogilvie Gordon		 President of the National Council of Women of Great Britain & Ireland
1920–1921		 Succeeded by
Frances Balfour
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