Bessie Hatton

Portrait of Bessie Hatton by Herbert Rose Barraud, 1909.

Bessie Lyle Hatton (dates unknown) was an English actress, playwright, journalist, and feminist, and took part in the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.

Life

She was the youngest daughter of novelist and journalist Joseph Hatton and Louisa Johnson, the daughter of a stud groom.[1] She was educated at a convent school in Ardennes and at Bedford College, London.

Hatton authored several popular works of fiction, including The Village of Youth and Other Fairytales (1895)[2] and her play Before Sunrise.[3] This play was staged at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 December 1909 for the Women's Freedom League.[4]

In June 1908 she and fellow actress and writer Cicely Mary Hamilton founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League.This organisation was set up "to obtain the Parliamentary Franchise for women on the same terms as it is, or may be, granted to men. Its methods are the methods proper to writers – the use of the pen."[5]

References

  1. ↑ Sanders, Andrew. Hatton, Joseph Paul Christopher (1841–1907), novelist and journalist | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33758.
  2. ↑ Elizabeth, Crawford (2001). The women's suffrage movement : a reference guide, 1866-1928. London: Routledge. pp. 278–9. ISBN 9780415239264. OCLC 44914288.
  3. ↑ Bessie Hatton (1909). Before Sunrise. Privately printed.
  4. ↑ Votes for women and other plays. Croft, Susan, 1958-, St. John, Christopher (Christopher Marie), Robins, Elizabeth, 1862-1952., Nightingale, Helen M., Chapin, Alice., Hamilton, Cicely, 1872-1952. Twickenham: Aurora Metro Press. 2009. p. 221. ISBN 9781906582012. OCLC 268792352.
  5. ↑ Robins, Elizabeth (1913). Way Stations. Hodder and Stoughton. p. 106. OCLC 654476659. Retrieved 8 March 2018.

Anna Andes analyses 'Before Sunrise' in her essay 'Burgeoning New Women of Suffrage Drama: Envisioning an Autonomous Self' http://www.thelatchkey.org/Latchkey6/essay/Andes.htm in The Latchkey: Journal of New Women Studies

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