Edith: Socialist, Suffragette and Mother of the "Bride"

Edith Lanchester (Wikipedia)

Edith Lanchester, the mother of Bride of Frankenstein actress Elsa, would probably forever remain in her daughter’s famous shadow had it not been for the events that unfolded in October 1895. For Edith was abducted and incarcerated in a lunatic asylum by her own family, simply for being ‘too educated’.

But although this incident is what found Edith lasting fame and notoriety, she had always been a trailblazing rebel. I'm going to dedicate this months Herstory to the incredible woman that was Edith ‘Biddy’ Lanchester.

Born in 1871 in Hove into a bourgeois family (her father was an esteemed architect) Edith was set up for a good start in life, and was duly educated first to become a teacher, then as a clerk-secretary in the City.

She became a member of the SDF (Socialist Democratic Federation) in 1895 and in 1897 secretary to Eleanor Marx, daughter of the eponymous Karl.

Eleanor Marx (Wikipedia)

In the SDF, Edith met James Sullivan and decided to co-habit with him in Battersea. Not only was it a great scandal in those times to live with a man one was not married to (it amounted to little more than prostitution in society’s eyes), James Sullivan was a working class Irish labourer, and Edith was of a higher social status.

In response, Edith’s horrified father employed a mental health ‘expert’ called Dr Blandford, and along with Edith’s 3 brothers, marched down to where Edith was residing ‘in sin’ and declared her insane on the grounds that she was committing ‘social suicide’ (!) Dr Blandford said:

“If she had said that she contemplated suicide a certificate might have been signed without question... I was equally justified in signing one when she expressed her determination to commit this social suicide.”

Edith refused to even marry Sullivan, as she viewed marriage as patriarchal and oppressive. She refused to ‘obey’ her husband. In her words:

“I object on principle to becoming the chattel of any man” 

Clearly, she was ahead of her time. This was the final straw for the men around her. The doctor proclaimed:

“…She is a monomaniac on the subject of marriage, and I believe her brain had been turned by Socialist meetings and writings, and that she was quite unfit to take care of herself.”

George Fielding Blandford, Wikipedia

Edith’s landlady tried to defend Edith, and she was assaulted by one of her brothers. Edith was then bound by her wrists and restrained by her brothers. She was shoved into a van and taken to The Priory lunatic asylum in Roehampton, where her cause of insanity was recorded as ‘over-education’.

This sort of diagnosis was not uncommon in Victorian era asylums. The very fabric of the British class system was only maintained by women of ‘good breeding’ being controlled, i.e., married off to a suitable husband, and saddled down with heirs that would ensure wealth and privilege were kept to the proper lineages.

The radical political ideas of the late Victorian period, particularly socialism and marxism, were alarming to the privileged upper classes because they challenged the rigid class system which underpinned their existence. And women daring to educate themselves on anything that might dissuade them from their proper place as the ideal ‘angel of the house’  - well, that was akin to witchcraft of times past!

But by the turn of the century, attitudes were changing and the thought of locking up an educated, middle class woman just because she had fallen in love with a poorer man was like something out of fairytale tragedy, and Edith’s case provoked outrage in the newspapers. She had been effectively abducted, and the violence of her ‘kidnapping’ and committal was shocking even back then.

The SDF set up a committee to ensure her release and bring a case against Doctor Blandford, and also staged a protest outside the asylum walls, singing the Red Flag. Edith had the support of many high profile commentators of the time. One of these was the infamous Marquess of Queensbury (yes, the same one that had Oscar Wilde locked up) The Marquess (who seems to have totally misconstrued the situation) offered Edith £100 if she would go ahead with the wedding to James Sullivan. She refused, after all - the point was NOT marrying him, despite loving him!

The Priory as it looks today. (Wikipedia)

Some of those who gave their opinion in the papers on the case provide interesting insights into how women were viewed back then, particularly women who did not conform to victorian feminine ideals:

“[she had] closely cropped hair and never the sign of a curl in it, a golf cap on her head, and a kind of pilot jacket, in the pockets of which she always stuck her hands as she walked, very tall and slim, rather round shouldered, and with a remarkable masculine gait, she looks more like an overgrown boy in petticoats than a young girl. Her eyes are the most remarkable feature of an interesting face, and their singular brilliance always struck me as something weird and uncanny.”

Masculine, with ‘weird, uncanny’ eyes… very disturbing for a patriarchal society!

Edith only spent four days locked up in the asylum but they were horrific. She was subjected to mental, physical and sexual abuse, but following this she was examined and found to be sane. She was released, and still her Father justified his decision to have her locked up. From her Father’s standpoint, (and assuming he loved his daughter) there would also have been the intention to do what was in Edith’s ‘best interests’. Women were seen as protected by marriage and the security that it provided. There would have been (legitimate) fear on behalf of her parents and family that Edith's choices would condemn her to poverty and the workhouse.

Her father was not alone in his convictions. Many misogynistic members of the SDF, not to mention Keir Hardy, the independent Labour leader, did not support Edith. Her opposition to marriage and apparent support for sexual immorality was seen as damaging to their particular causes and narratives. Edith standing up for women was a distraction from the socialist (and often quite misogynist) agendas.

Unsurprisingly, Edith reunited with James Sullivan upon her release, set up home with him and never spoke to or saw her father again. She never married Sullivan, in rebellion against Edwardian patriarchal marriage norms, but they stayed together until his death in 1945 and had two children together.

Elsa and Waldo, Edith and James' children (Wikipedia)

Their's was an unconventional and bohemian household by the standards of the day. Their son Waldo became one of England’s greatest puppeteers, and their daughter Elsa is widely recognisable as one of the leading actresses of her day. Elsa inherited her parents' radicalism, she was a lifelong atheist and free-thinker who staged radical and alternative cabaret and comedy before she embarked on a Hollywood career.

She even seemed to be describing her own parents ideology when she delivered this uncanny line as Mary Shelley in Bride of Frankenstein (the 1935 film that made her famous):

"We are all three infidels, scoffers at all marriage ties, believing only in living freely and fully”.

Sadly this line was cut from the final edit, but I’m sure mum would’ve approved of it! Elsa, like her mum, ended up in quite an unconventional marriage to actor Charles Laughton who was, by her later admission, gay. She had had a couple of pregnancy terminations by the time she married him and they had no children together.

Elsa Lanchester in her iconic role

Edith was a political powerhouse and rebel up until her death in 1966. She supported her son Waldo when he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in WW1, and she continued to attend political meetings throughout her life, eventually abandoning socialism for communism, because she felt the socialists were ‘practically tories’ by the end.

Feminist. Socialist. Suffragette. Communist. Edith did things her way and she suffered, but ultimately, won for it.   We have much to thank women like Edith for.

If you’d like to hear more incredible herstories of women trailblazers, come on a Herstorical Tour!