Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau
{{Short description|British suffragette}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Elise Eugenie Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau
| other_names = Matilda Wolff
| birth_date = 1843
| birth_place = Dresden, Germany
| death_date = 1926
| death_place = Putney, London, England
| burial_place = Putney Vale Cemetery, London, England
| organization = Women's Social and Political Union
| known_for = Suffragette activism, vegetarianism and woman's chess.
| relatives = Grandfather Dr. E Schwabe, private chaplain to the Duchess of Kent
| honours = Elsie Wolfe Van Sandau - Hunger Strike Medal for Valour
}}
Elise Eugenie Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau (died in 1926, aged 83) was a British suffragette. She was imprisoned three times, for smashing windows and went on hunger strike. She was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour'. She was also a musician and a founder of London's women's chess club and an active vegetarian. Research by the British Library suggests that she used different spellings of her name, including Elsie when arrested as a suffragette.
Life and suffrage activism
Elise Eugenie Mathilde Wolff was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1843. She was the granddaughter of Dr. E. Schwabe, private chaplain to the Duchess of Kent.{{Cite web |title=Medal awarded to suffragette 'prepared to die' for rights |url=https://hansonsauctioneers.co.uk/blog/2019/05/medal-awarded-to-suffragette-prepared-to-die-for-womens-rights-discovered-after-more-than-100-years |access-date=2019-12-07 |website=Hansons Aauctioneers}} She was a pianist, a music teacher and became a founder member of the London Ladies Chess Club,{{Cite web|url=https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/the-ladies-chess-club|title=The Ladies' Chess Club: The First Year|last=C (batgirl)|first=S. B.|website=Chess.com|date=16 June 2013 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-08}} and became a leader in vegetarian groups.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4gjKAAAAMAAJ&q=Wolff+Van+Sandau |title=The Animal's Defender and Zoophilist |date=1914 |publisher=National Anti-Vivisection Society |volume=34-35 |language=en}} Research by the British Library suggests that she used different spellings of her name, including Elsie when arrested as a suffragette.
File:A policeman tries to seize a banner from a suffragette on Black Friday.jpg
Wolff Van Sandau joined the militant Women's Social and Political Union protesting on women's right to vote. She was among the three hundred women brutally attacked by police and men in the crowd for about six hours, on what is known as 'Black Friday' on 18 November 1910,{{Cite book|title=Sites of protest|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield International |editor=Price, Stuart |editor2=Sanz Sabido, Ruth|year=2016|isbn=978-1-78348-765-3|location=London|oclc=921868220}} when the women's deputation approached the House of Commons but were prevented from entering. Over 100 women were arrested, including Miss Wolff de Sandau, as noted in the following day's Times newspaper{{Cite news|url=http://www.heretical.com/suffrage/1910tms1.html|title=Suffragette Raiders Disorderly Scenes and Arrests at Westminster|date=10 November 1910|work=The Times|access-date=9 December 2019}} but all women were eventually released, without charge.{{Cite book|title=The women's suffrage movement in Britain, 1866-1928|author=Van Wingerden, Sophia A. |date=1999|publisher=Macmillan Press|isbn=0-312-21853-2|location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire|oclc=40269538}}
Wolff Van Sandau joined two hundred women, organised on 1st and 4 March 1912, to carry out what was a second wave of window smashing protests in Covent Garden, London. This took place at the same time as the Parliament was debating a Conciliation Bill (for some women to get the right to vote, which was not passed).{{Cite web|url=https://sussexpast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Priest-House-suffragette-handkerchief.pdf|title=Priest House Suffragette Handkerchief|website=Sussex Past|access-date=7 December 2019|archive-date=13 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513063659/https://sussexpast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Priest-House-suffragette-handkerchief.pdf|url-status=dead}} In the same month, she was arrested with Katie Mills for smashing the windows of the Howick Place Post Office, as postal services were seen by suffragettes as a 'symbol of oppressive male government'.{{Cite web|url=https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/suffragette-cities-walk-london-manchester-feminism/61569|title=Suffragette cities: walk a mile (or four) in the suffragettes' shoes|last=Team|first=Stylist|date=2015-09-22|website=Stylist|language=en|access-date=2019-12-08}}
Hunger strike
File:Poster showing a suffragette being force-fed, 1910.jpg
Wolff Van Sandau was sent to prison and immediately went on hunger strike.{{Cite news |date=30 May 2019 |title=Suffragette's hunger strike medal found after 100 years |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-48459860 |access-date=8 December 2019 |work=BBC News, Derby}} Suffragettes on hunger strike were frequently force-fed and objected to this 'treatment' as well as being treated as criminals not as 'political' prisoners.{{Cite book |last=Atkinson |first=Diane |title=Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes |date=2018-04-17 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4088-4404-5 |location=London |oclc=1016848621}} A roll-call of those being released, excluding Patricia Woodlock, who got a longer sentence was created (probably for the WSPU welcome event).{{Cite web|url=http://www.elizabethfreeman.org/PDF/london/rollcall_big.pdf|title=ROLL CALL OF PRISONERS|website=Elizabeth Freeman|access-date=8 December 2019}} In recognition of her suffering in prison, the WSPU awarded her a Hunger Strike Medal
The presentation box was inscribed:
ELSIE WOLFF VAN SANDAU – BY THE WOMEN'S SOCIAL & POLITICAL UNION IN RECOGNITION OF A GALLANT ACTION, WHEREBY THROUGH ENDURANCE TO THE LAST EXTREMITY OF HUNGER AND HARDSHIP, A GREAT PRINCIPLE OF POLITICAL JUSTICE WAS VINDICATED.The National Archive record lists suffragette prisoners who were officially pardoned when the WSPU discontinued militancy at the start of World War One.{{Cite book|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024|title=SUFFRAGETTES: Amnesty of August 1914: index of people arrested, 1906-1914.|date=1914–1935}} Elsie and Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau are listed separately with a total of three arrests.{{Cite web|url=https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/2415/elsie-wolff-van-sandau|title=Miss Elsie Wolff Van Sandau|website=Suffrage Resources|access-date=19 May 2024}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/2583/miss-matilda-wolff-van-sandau|title=Miss Matilda Wolff Van Sandau|website=Suffrage Resources|access-date=19 May 2024}}
First women's chess club
In 1895, Wolff Van Sandau had set up one of the first women's chess clubs,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IIhJAAAAYAAJ&q=Wolff+Van+Sandau|title=The British Chess Magazine|date=1895|publisher=Trubner & Company|language=en}} being elected as the first vice-president of the London Ladies' Chess Club, which initially had to compete against men's clubs. She hosted chess committee meetings at her home 49 Elgin Crescent. She also advertised her music teaching and performances and availability for a more formal school engagement in the chess club magazine.
Women leading in vegetarian societies
In 1897, Wolff Van Sandau, a confirmed vegetarian, was among those who performed to an audience of 700, at the 4th International Vegetarian Congress of the International Vegetarian Union in London.{{Cite web|url=https://ivu.org/congress/1897/report4.html|title=International Congress 1897|website=ivu.org|access-date=2019-12-08}} Later in her life, she was chosen to be the honorary secretary of Brighton and Hove Vegetarian Society.
In 1926, Wolff Van Sandau was lodging in Putney. She died in a local nursing home on 29 August 1926 aged 83 and was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery as Matilda Wolff.{{cite web |title=Solving a suffragette mystery – who was Miss Wolff van Sandau? |url=https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2020/06/solving-a-suffragette-mystery-who-was-miss-wolff-van-sandau.html |access-date=25 October 2021 |website=British Library |publisher= |language=en}}
Hunger Strike Medal auctioned
Wolff Van Sandau's Hunger Strike medal came to light in a drawer in a home in East Sheen, London a hundred years later, and it was auctioned in Derbyshire in June 2019. It was sold privately for £12,500 and the valuer at Hansons Auctioneers, Helen Smith, said of her actions:
Her decision to go on hunger strike shows she was willing to die for her cause. Would today’s generation of women have been so selfless? We’re very proud to sell this medal, which is worthy of a museum or an important suffragette collection.
The auctioneer Isabel Murtough remarked:
I hope this find reminds people of the sacrifices Miss Wolff Van Sandau and her fellow suffragettes made a century ago to help women gain rights many of us now take for granted.
References
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Category:English vegetarianism activists
Category:English chess players
Category:English female chess players
Category:Hunger Strike Medal recipients