Programme of EventsMembershipPublicationsEditorial BoardOfficers | Library | Medieval Graffiti Survey |
Hampshire Field Club & Archaeological Society |
Registered Charity number 243773 | HomepageArchaeologyHistoric Buildings Hampshire Papers LandscapeLocal History |
![]() |
Celebrating Hampshire HistoriansInnes, Kathleen Elizabeth (née Royds)15 January 1883 – 27 March 1967‘… to friends and acquaintances… she seemed a quiet, unassuming woman with intelligence and compassion who rarely spoke of her activities on the international stage, but threw herself into village life, becoming the unofficial village historian and president of several local organisations. To international colleagues, she was an efficient organizer, tireless worker for rights and freedoms of peoples worldwide and an articulate spokeswoman of the international peace movement’ (Kathryn Harvey (1995)). Kathleen Royds was born in Reading. Her father, William, was a physician and friend of Dr Joseph Stevens, formerly of St Mary Bourne, who moved to Reading in 1879. Sixteen years later the Royds family moved to the village, where they lived in Stevens’ former house when Dr Royds took up the medical practice. Following an impressive school career, Kathleen Royds enrolled at Cambridge and gained the Teacher’s Training Diploma. She began teaching, but also set her sights on a University degree (Cambridge did not award them to women at the time). Her studies at London University included an extension course under the tutelage of W H Hudson. With his encouragement she published Coleridge and his poetry and Mrs Browning and her poetry. In later years she dedicated The Bible as literature (1930) ‘to WHH, in grateful memory’. During World War I, Royds went to Salonica with a unit of the Scottish Women’s Hospital and later worked with refugees, accompanying them on their exile to Corsica. Her well-documented wartime experiences led her into politics and pacifism and before the conflict ended, she had become secretary of the British Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In 1922 she married George Innes, continuing in her work for the WILPF and publishing and broadcasting widely for the peace and suffrage movements. It was in the mid 1920s that she became a Quaker. In 1938 Kathleen and George Innes retired to St Mary Bourne where they joined in the life of the village, while at the same time continuing their interest in world affairs. Kathleen’s love of the village and its surrounds prompted her to collect material, with the help of other women, for St Mary Bourne Records: Notes on Events 1896-1946. This ‘experiment’ in recording village history was intended as an example to encourage others to follow suit. Her book, Life in a Hampshire Village, appeared at the end of the war and her Village Records, written annually, were deposited with the county archivist. SourcesDriven by War into Politics! : A Feminist Biography of Kathleen Innes, PhD thesis by Kathryn Harvey, Dept of English, University of Alberta (1995). PortraitKathleen Innes when she lived in St Mary Bourne Contribution to county’s historyHistorical study of villages in the Bourne valley. Notes on various Hampshire figures. Relevant published works
Critical CommentsOther CommentsContributorDave Allen, October 2021; revised Dave Allen & Erica Tinsley, January 2023 Key WordsLocal history, feminism, pacifism Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.
Back to Historians I-L from Innes, Kathleen to Luce, Sir Richard | |
Contact Any questions about the web site? Then email Webmaster |
||