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Sime Seruya

Sime Seruya
Born1876
Lisbon, Portugal
Died1955
Organization(s)Women's Social and Political Union, Women's Freedom League, Actresses' Franchise League, Fabian Society
Political partyIndependent Labour Party

Sime Seruya (1876–1955) was a Portuguese actress, suffragist and socialist who campaigned in Britain.

Biography

Seruya was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1876.[1] She worked as an actress in Portugal before arriving in London in 1906.[1] She lived in West Lewisham.[2]

Seruya joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1907 and donated £100 to the cause.[3] Also in 1907, she was arrested and sentenced to 14 days in prison for taking part in a women's suffrage deputation outside the House of Commons.[4] By Autumn, she was among the seventy members of the WSPU who left to form the Women's Freedom League (WFL).[1] In 1909, she also joined the Women's Tax Resistance League (WTRL).[3]

Actresses Franchise League Badge

In 1908, Seruya founded the Actresses' Franchise League,[5] with Gertrude Elliott, Winifred Mayo and Adeline Bourne.[6] The League represented actresses of both militant and non-militant suffrage tendencies.[7] Seruya organised the WFL contribution to A Pageant of Great Women in 1910 with fellow actress Edith Craig.[2]

In 1910, Seruya began selling feminist books and suffrage collectables (including postcards that she had published[8]) out of one of Edith Craig and her partner Christabel Marshall's rooms at 31 Bedford Street, London, founding the "International Suffrage Shop."[9] She published an advertisement in the Votes for Women newspaper about the opening of the shop.[10] In March 1911 the shop moved to larger premises on Adam Street in the Strand.[11] That year, Seruya also fought successfully against a conviction for selling Votes for Women on the steps of the Lyceum Theatre.[2]

Seruya was also a socialist and a member of the Independent Labour Party[6] and the Fabian Society.[12] In 1908, she was the honorary treasurer of the Penal Reform League[13] and in 1910 she attended the 8th International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.[1]

In the interwar period, she was a member of the Film and Photo League[14] and was involved in the workers film movement with other left wing activists such as Ivor Montagu, Eva Reckitt, Ernie Trory and others.[15][16] She was also active in the Women's Committee for the Relief of the Miners' Wives and Children,[17] after the 1926 United Kingdom general strike and subsequent miners' lockout.

She had a son, Ivan Seruya,[14] who was a member of the Friends of the Soviet Union and the Young Communist League as a student at Regent Street Polytechnic.[18] She died in 1955.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Simpkins, John (January 2020) [September 1997]. "Sime Seruya". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
  2. ^ a b c "Suffrage Actors & Performers, Directors and Designers Biographies". The Suffragettes | How the Vote was Won. 20 June 2010. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
  3. ^ a b "Miss Sime Seruya". Database - Women's Suffrage Resources. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
  4. ^ Paxton, Naomi (11 April 2018). Stage rights!: The Actresses’ Franchise League, activism and politics 1908–58. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-1481-5.
  5. ^ Dotterer, Ronald L.; Bowers, Susan (1992). Politics, Gender, and the Arts: Women, the Arts, and Society. Susquehanna University Press. pp. 77–78. ISBN 978-0-945636-30-4.
  6. ^ a b Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. pp. 4, 627. ISBN 978-1-135-43402-1.
  7. ^ Doughan, David; Gordon, Peter (3 June 2014). Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825-1960. Routledge. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-136-89770-2.
  8. ^ Florey, Kenneth (29 April 2016). American Woman Suffrage Postcards: A Study and Catalog. McFarland. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-4766-2078-7.
  9. ^ Hester, Diarmuid (6 February 2024). Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Histories. Simon and Schuster. p. 1889. ISBN 978-1-63936-556-2.
  10. ^ Florey, Kenneth (6 June 2013). Women's Suffrage Memorabilia: An Illustrated Historical Study. McFarland. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-4766-0150-2.
  11. ^ Crawford, Elizabeth. "Sime Seruya". Woman and her Sphere. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
  12. ^ Annual Report. Fabian Society. 1954. p. 14.
  13. ^ The Reformers' Year Book: Formerly the Labor Annual. 1908. p. 208.
  14. ^ a b Hogenkamp, Bert (1986). Deadly Parallels: Film and the Left in Britain, 1929-1939. Lawrence and Wishart. pp. 129, 223. ISBN 978-0-85315-655-0.
  15. ^ Routledge Library Editions: The Labour Movement. Taylor & Francis. 28 July 2021. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-429-78498-9.
  16. ^ Macpherson, Don; Willemen, Paul (1980). Traditions of Independence: British Cinema in the Thirties. BFI Pub. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-85170-093-9.
  17. ^ Phillips, Marion (1927). Women and the Miners' Lockout: The Story of the Women's Committee for the Relief of the Miners' Wives and Children. Labour Publishing Company. p. 83.
  18. ^ Smith, James (26 September 2013), Beasley, Rebecca; Bullock, Philip Ross (eds.), "Soviet Films and British Intelligence in the 1930s: The Case of Kino Films and MI5", Russia in Britain, 1880-1940: From Melodrama to Modernism, Oxford University Press, p. 0, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199660865.003.0014, ISBN 978-0-19-966086-5, retrieved 18 February 2025
Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sime_Seruya