Group Work in the English Language Curriculum

Temperance lives and landscape: Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, Lady Henry Somerset, and late nineteenth-century Ledbury

“…27 Seated 'under a grand old elm, her mind disturbed by doubt, she seemed to hear a voice saying, "My child, act as if I were, and thou shalt know I am!"'. 28 She made the decision to move to Eastnor in 1883, the same year in which Lady Elizabeth Biddulph took the pledge at Ledbury.…”

“…29 However, this 'paradise : : : was not free from the "trail of the serpent"'; for it was 'cider district'. 30 According to the local MP Charles Radcliffe Cookethe 'Member for Cider' -Eastnor even had its own cider and cooking apple, Izard's Kernel. 31 On the face of it, this was not an obvious place for temperance; but as the epigraph from Lady Henry makes clear it became an urgent priority to demonstrate the evil amidst the beauty.…”

“…76 Jennie Chappell describes the speech as her 'first essay at public speaking, and her earliest effort at temperance work'. 77 To conquer her shyness, she practiced by 'stationing her maid in the gallery of the castle, to raise a handkerchief whenever her tones were too low to be heard'. 78 She trained her voice at Eastnor, and then within five years was BWTA President.…”

“…Lady Henry delivered thirty-six speeches in fourteen days in support of the Liberals, whose radical Newcastle programme committed to local option legislation. 114 This prominence of female suffrage within temperance led Somerset to clash with Biddulph at the next BWTA annual meeting. Lady Henry Somerset presented a resolution that the BWTA should actively campaign for women's suffrage through a dedicated department.…”