Maud Arncliffe Sennett

Alice Maud Arncliffe-Sennett also known with the stage name of Mary Kingsley (born Alice Maud Mary Sparagnapane; 4 February 1862 – 15 September 1936) was an English actress and suffragist and a suffragette, arrested four times for her activism.

Early life

Arncliffe-Sennett was born as Alice Maud Mary Sparagnapane in London to a family who owned a Christmas cracker and confectionery business. Her mother was Amelia Williams and her father was Gaudente Sparagnapane. Arncliffe-Sennett became an actress taking the name Mary Kingsley, and her performance as Lady Macbeth was given high praise in the press, and her performance as Joan of Arc at the Shakespeare Commemoration of 1889, led to a portrait of her in character being painted and hung in the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Maud married in 1898 and she and her husband, Henry Robert Arncliffe-Sennett, took over the family business. Henry was also an actor, in supporting roles to Beerbohm Tree and others. which helped organise the 'mud march' of February 1907, and her company provided 7,000 red and white rosettes. Arncliffe-Sennett joined a number of other suffrage societies and she served on the executive committees of the Women's Freedom League, the Actresses' Franchise League (AFL) and the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)'s branch in Hampstead.

Arncliffe-Sennett hosted events for the cause and wrote to the press that her opinion and desire not to condemn militancy in the campaign for women's right to vote must be published as prominently as a letter about one debate from suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett.

Her sister, Florence Gertrude de Fonblanque decided it was a good idea to mount a march from Edinburgh to London. Only six women set off but as they travelled from Scotland to London they gathered others and a large interest from the media. Arncliffe-Sennett assisted the march by organising a reception for her sisters and the other marchers when they arrived.

In 1910, Sennet led a deputation to Downing Street to address Asquith and Lloyd-George, after the death of Emily Davison. She had attended her funeral on behalf of the Actresses Franchise League and decided to take the same train as Emily's coffin. As she went north she met Orr and they realised that the public sympathy would lead to many men with some influence joining a suffrage organisation. She was at the centre of the organisation and she called the members "her bairns" and she intended to use their influence to petition the Prime Minister. A verse was written by artist John Wilson McLaren

However the Prime Minister refused to see them. The organisation continued until 1919.

Arncliffe-Sennett died from tuberculosis, in Midhurst, Sussex, in 1936.

Her husband arranged for her autobiography 'The Child ' to be published posthumously in 1938. He married again. When her sister, Florence, died in 1949 she had carved on her gravestone, as requested "Originator and leader of the women's suffrage march from Edinburgh to London 1912".

Works Manifesto on Venereal Disease (1916) The Child (1938)