Ethel Snowden
She tended to be a controversial public speaker, who would fill with enthusiasm for a project and pursue it to the disregard of anything that stood in her way; it was said of her that "tact or discretion were foreign to her nature".
Harrogate, a spa town not dependent on the milling industry, was regarded as a higher class area and it was rare for someone of Ethel's background to be a socialist.
[1] They had a quiet wedding with few guests at the registry office in Otley on 13 March 1905, with Philip Snowden explaining that they had learned that their socialist friends in the West Riding were planning a 'Socialist demonstration' at what they were hoping would be a family celebration.
She was interviewed for the woman's page of the Blackburn Weekly Telegraph where her husband was Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, telling the paper that "Our great motto .. is liberty, equality of opportunity and fraternity.
]In 1914 Ethel Snowden was speaking at 200 public meetings a year on the subject, and temporarily resigned from the Independent Labour Party in order that her political allegiance did not cause problems with her campaigning on the issue.
This position made her a very prominent figure within the left-wing movements and led to a great deal of foreign travel, including to Bern and Vienna (to try to re-establish the Socialist International), Palestine, Georgia and twice to the United States.
She had told a reporter for the Evening Standard on her return that "I oppose Bolshevism because it is not Socialism, it is not democracy and it is not Christianity", and likened working conditions to slavery.
[27] The couple put together all their earnings and savings in 1923 to buy a country house of ten rooms, Eden Lodge, set in an acre of land at Tilford in Surrey.
[29] They sold their London home at Golders Green and took a flat near Parliament in St Ermine's Court, but Ethel was angry when her husband was not allocated the living quarters at 11 Downing Street on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924.
[32] After the fall of the Labour government, Ethel Snowden toured Canada and criticised Ramsay MacDonald's leadership in public speeches which were widely reported back in Britain and assumed to be the views of her husband.
Snowden was given the credit[34] for the fact that no alcoholic drinks could be found in the newly built Broadcasting House, and she appeared to confirm her responsibility for this state of affairs.
[35] When the Labour government was formed in 1929, the Snowdens finally moved to 11 Downing Street, where they found that the cost of employing eight servants and official entertaining required dipping into their savings.
[36] She seems to have persuaded her husband to give an Exchequer grant to support the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and became a director of the new company formed to manage it.
[38] He confirmed his decision to stand down in August, shortly before the collapse of the Labour Government,[39] and was not a candidate in the general election although playing an active part in the campaign.
Ethel's five-year appointment at the BBC expired at the end of 1931 and was renewed for only one year,[41] but after Philip Snowden resigned from office over the principle of free trade that was their only regular income.
[45] Viscountess Snowden moved to a flat in Dolphin Square, disliking visiting Eden Lodge which was used by an evacuated Government office during the Second World War.
She attempted unsuccessfully to get reappointed as a BBC governor and in 1937 visited the Nuremberg Rally, writing for the Sunday Chronicle to criticise other British people present for refusing to give the salute and to say that she found Hitler "a simple man of great personal integrity" of whom "I would not hesitate to accept his word".
In August 1943 she denounced the BBC for poor moral standards in regard to drinking, swearing, and marital fidelity; she was nevertheless invited to appear as a panellist on The Brains Trust.
[48] Snowden suffered a severe stroke in 1947 which left her disabled and permanently resident in the Warleigh Nursing Home in Wimbledon, although her mind remained active.
