Clara Neal

Clara Edith Neal (1870 – 31 December 1936) was an English teacher and suffragette.^[1]

Life

Neal was born in Devon in 1870.^[1] Her parents were James Neal and Mahala Elizabeth Neal née Vercoe.

She trained as a teacher and worked in Swansea. She was employed as the head of Terrace Road School in Mount Pleasant from 1901 to 1921,^[2] then worked as head of Glanmor Girls School from 1922. She was a member of the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) and in 1929 she was elected as a teacher representative to the Board of Governors of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (UCSWM).^[3]

A committed suffragette, Neal, together with fellow west country woman and lifelong friend Emily Phipps, joined the Women's Freedom League in 1908,^[4] following an anti-suffrage meeting in Swansea attended by the Welsh Liberal Party politician Lloyd George.^[5] With Phipps she cofounded a local branch in 1909. When women were allowed to vote for the first time in elections in 1918, Neal closed her school for the afternoon so that the school staff could all vote.^[2]

After retiring from teaching, Neal moved to London and shared a house with Emily Phipps and another former teacher Adelaide Jones. She died in 1936.

Legacy

A blue plaque was erected in 2018 in her honour in Swansea, located at Terrace Road School where she was headteacher for two decades.^[1]^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Blue plaque for Clara Neal". Women's Archive Wales. 4 January 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c Macgregor, Lee (18 December 2018). "Plaque pays tribute to campaigner". South Wales Evening Post. Retrieved 6 October 2024 – via PressReader.
^ Jenkins, Beth (7 November 2022). Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939: Nationhood, Networks and Community. Springer Nature. p. 194. ISBN 978-3-031-07941-2.
^ Wallace, Ryland (15 May 2018). The Women's Suffrage Movement in Wales, 1866-1928. University of Wales Press. pp. 1919–1920. ISBN 978-1-78683-329-7.
^ Brown, Tina (30 September 2019). A History of Women's Lives in Eastbourne. Pen and Sword. p. 1923. ISBN 978-1-5267-1621-7.

[:1-1] "Blue plaque for Clara Neal". Women's Archive Wales. 4 January 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2024.

[:0-2] Macgregor, Lee (18 December 2018). "Plaque pays tribute to campaigner". South Wales Evening Post. Retrieved 6 October 2024 – via PressReader.

[3] Jenkins, Beth (7 November 2022). Graduate Women and Work in Wales, 1880–1939: Nationhood, Networks and Community. Springer Nature. p. 194. ISBN 978-3-031-07941-2.

[4] Wallace, Ryland (15 May 2018). The Women's Suffrage Movement in Wales, 1866-1928. University of Wales Press. pp. 1919–1920. ISBN 978-1-78683-329-7.

[5] Brown, Tina (30 September 2019). A History of Women's Lives in Eastbourne. Pen and Sword. p. 1923. ISBN 978-1-5267-1621-7.

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