Chesham Suffragettes trail - Visit Chesham and villages

On the trail of the Chesham Suffragettes

In 1918 women first won the vote. This trail is one of six Buckinghamshire trails published in 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary and relatively unknown history of the women’s suffrage movement in the county.

Celebrating not only the guts and imagination of the women (and men) who campaigned for this, but also our right to vote and to political protest. Written by Colin Cartwright and produced with the help of Andrew Clark of ‘Chesham Walkers are Welcome’, the trail aims to engage a wide audience, from the occasional walker to the passionate hiker; from the local or family historian to the interested ordinary citizen.

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Route description: 3.3 miles with one steep climb

Starting point: Chesham Station

Head out of Chesham Station and left downhill, along the left-hand pavement of Station Road. Right into High Street at the bottom, staying on the pedestrianised part. Before reaching the war memorial turn left and stand outside Broadway Baptist Church (1).

Continue in the same direction out of town, crossing the car park, the pedestrian crossing over St Mary’s Way dual carriageway and follow the path up the hill to the park toilets. Turn left to follow the main avenue (Rue des Houilles) through the park.

At the end, before going through the gate is the start of an unguided extension to the
trail, heading up the hill towards Chartridge Conference Centre (closed down – since approx 2020/1) (2).

Through the iron gate, follow the path with St Mary’s to the right and the Rectory to the left, through another gate into Church Street. Cross the road and turn right. Turn left at the Queens Head pub into Wey Lane. Past the allotments, cross the road into the New Footpath beside Thomas Harding School. At the end of this path, cross Amy Lane and turn right, following the left-hand pavement to reach the roundabout (3).

Turn left and immediately left through a break in the wall to follow the Chess Valley Walk through Water Meades Garden until you reach Germain Street. Right and across the pedestrian crossing over Red Lion Street into the Market Square (4).

Follow the High Street, passing the George and Dragon pub on the left (5). Continue along High Street, past Station Road, until the bottom of White Hill. Over the pedestrian crossing and turn right up hill along the left hand pavement all the way to the top by White Hill House (6).

Keep following this road on this side to opposite Chesham Grammar School (7).
Continue and go left at the mini-roundabout, down Eskdale Avenue. Some way down, on the right of the road, as road sweeps to the left is no. 72 (8).

At the bottom of Eskdale Avenue go over Broad Street using the crossing on the left and turn right to arrive at the entrance to Chesham Cemetery. Follow the main path along the bottom to see two particular graves (9) Mrs Annie Brooksbank is the 4th grave on the left between the path and the boundary wall. Mrs Louisa Matilda Page’s gravestone is 40 paces further, on the right, second row, next to a cross with a dove on it. Continue along this main path, turning left out of the other gates into Bellingdon Road. Follow this to the end, taking the subway under St Mary’s Way and then back to the Broadway and Chesham Undergound station.

Published here 2024 (with some amendments due to building changes) with permission.

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Historic sites of the Suffragettes in Chesham

1. Chesham Broadway

A party of suffragettes held the first open-air meeting here in Chesham, in August 1909. Their local contact was Chesham suffragette, Mrs Emily Brandon (see map & route no. 8). Several women’s suffrage meetings were held here, in Chesham Co-operative’s Equity Hall.

The Equity Hall was behind the left-hand semi-circular window on the first floor of Broadway Court, opposite the church.

At a meeting at the Corn Exchange (see no.4) in 1913, the minister of Broadway Baptist Church, Rev JH Brooksbank, declared that he had long been in favour of giving votes for women.

2. Chartridge Conference Centre

(Sadly currently closed and not in use). This building was formerly Chartridge Lodge, country home of the Franklin family. Mrs Franklin was on the local Board of Education and joined the Jewish League for Women’s Suffrage in 1912. Her son, Hugh, became a supporter of suffragette militancy, was imprisoned three times, and force-fed repeatedly. He gained national newspaper coverage when he fled from re-imprisonment to the Continent in 1913.

3. Site of Amy Mill House

Home of the Chesham WSPU Branch Secretary, Miss KA Williams. She wrote a letter to the Town Council in 1913, urging them to support a suffrage meeting at the Corn Exchange, campaigning against White Slave Traffic (prostitution).

4. Market Square

Site of the Corn Exchange/old Town Hall. The Corn Exchange fell into disrepair after World War II, and was demolished in 1965.

5. Liberty’s original shop

This is next to the George & Dragon pub, in the direction of the Broadway.

Arthur Lasenby Liberty was elected Vice-President of the Amersham and District branch of the National League Opposing Women’s Suffrage in January 1913.

6. White Hill House

Home of Lady Susan Trueman. She was a prominent local ‘anti-suffragist’ and was President of the Amersham branch of the NLOWS.

7. ‘Lyndhurst’

Home of Mrs Louisa Page, member of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage and the Women’s Co-operative Guild.

8. ‘Bankside’ no. 72 Eskdale Avenue

Home of Mrs Emily Brandon, driving force behind the founding of the Chesham WSPU branch. She took part in a suffragette demonstration in London in November 1911. She was arrested for obstruction and imprisoned for a week, rather than pay the five shillings fine.

9. Chesham Cemetery

The grave of Mrs Annie Brooksbank, President of Chesham’s Baptist Women’s League, which she said aimed for, ‘the enfranchisement of Baptist women’ (see no.1). Also the grave of Mrs Louisa Matilda Page (see no.7).