Maud Joachim
Maud Amalia Fanny Joachim was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, one of the groups of suffragettes that fought for women to get the right to vote in the United Kingdom. She was jailed several times for her protests. Joachim was one of the first suffragettes to go on hunger strike when imprisoned, a protest at not being recognised as political prisoners.
Early life and education
Maud Amelia Fanny Joachim was born to Ellen Margaret and Henry Joachim in Paddington, London, on 1 August 1869. She had three sisters, Gertrude was older than her and Dorothy and Nina were younger. Her father, a wool merchant had been born in Hungary and became a naturalized British subject in 1856, and received a certificate of naturalization in February 1874 following the Naturalization Act 1870. Her paternal uncle was the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim. Etheldred Browning and Frank Henry Browning were her maternal cousinsJoachim was educated at Girton College between 1890 and 1893, studying moral science.
Suffragette activism
Joachim was militant and a member of the hard line Women's Social and Political Union which was led by Emmeline Pankhurst, becoming involved in 1907. She enjoyed the camaraderie and reflected that she was now with people with the same purpose.Imprisonments
- In February 1908 Joachim when groups of suffragettes were delivered to the front door of the House of Commons transported in pantechnicon vans, this event was called the "Pantechnicon Raid", the group was arrested, and she was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment.
- In June she was arrested again after an attempt to visit the Prime Minister, along with Mrs Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick- Lawrence, Jessie Stephenson and Florence Haig. Maud Joachim was thwarted and a crowd rushed the police. Joachim was sentenced to three months in Holloway Prison.
- In 1909 she was in Scotland working in Aberdeen. That November she joined a protest that disturbed a talk by Winston Churchill at his constituency in Dundee. She was arrested along with Helen Archdale, Catherine Corbett and Adela Pankhurst and sentenced to ten days in Dundee Prison. During their sentence the five women went on hunger strike.
Residency at Eagle House
Joachim was invited to Eagle House in 1910. A plaque was made and her photograph was recorded by Colonel Linley Blathwayt.Eagle House near Bath in Somerset had become an important refuge for suffragettes who had been released from prison after hunger strikes. Mary Blathwayt's parents planted trees there between April 1909 and July 1911 to commemorate the achievements of suffragettes including Emmeline Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Charlotte Despard, Millicent Fawcett and Lady Lytton. Joachim planted a Thujopsis Dolabrata conifer on 17 June 1910. The trees were known as "Annie's Arboreatum" after Annie Kenney. There was also a "Pankhurst Pond" within the grounds. Joachim was back in London when the 1911 census was enumerated and refused to provide any information to the census enumerator as part of the suffragette boycott.
Alongside a number of other WSPU members, in 1913 Joachim moved away from the organisation and radical action as violent protest escalated to arson. She moved her energies towards the socialist East London Federation of Suffragettes, which offered practical support to working-class women alongside campaigning for the vote.
Later life
Joachim ran an unemployment bureau and managed a toy factory for the East London Federation of Suffragettes during the First World War. She later worked with Sylvia Pankhurst on her anti-fascist Ethiopian campaign.In the 1939 Register, Joachim was listed as living on private means in Somerset Terrace in St Pancras London and later moved to Mouse Cottage, Steyning, where she lived until her death on 16 February 1947.