Harriet Emma Mahood (1860–1940), known as Hattie or Harriett, was the first female deacon in the Baptist Church, a British constitutional women's suffrage campaigner and a strong supporter of the Temperance Movement. A Blue Plaque has been installed in her home town, and her work is also commemorated on a suffrage statue in Liverpool.
Life
Harriet Emma Mahood née McDougall was born in Liverpool on 23 November 1860. Her father was a Temperance Hotelkeeper, and she came a Temperance activist.
At the age of 21, she married the hotel's manager, William Mahood. Instead of continuing in the hotel business, they started a floristry and fruit business, first in the Liverpool area and later in London. They had three sons.
By 1894 Mahood was back in Liverpool where she was involved with the Mission of Love which provided accommodation and food for the homeless.
An article by Mahood appeared in 1901 in The Forum periodical. Its title was “The Liberal Party: a menace to English democracy”. This was one of a number of articles that she contributed to The Forum and Nineteenth century and after; another was “The Modesty of Englishwomen”. This article was also favourably reviewed in The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser of 3 April 1901, which stated that: “Mrs Mahood has some searching criticism of modern ideals” and she is quoted as condemning “an extreme want of reserve, self-respect and dignity….of the girls of today.”
Mahood was a member of the congregation of the Baptist Pembroke Chapel, Liverpool under 'outspoken' pastor Reverend Charles F. Aked and through a report made to the chapel by Emily Hobhouse, she heard of the conditions prevailing in the Concentration Camps that the British had set up for Boer men, women and children in South Africa.
Mahood subsequently wrote to the Daily News saying "During the early stages of the war fever I was hopeful that the spectacle of Englishmen going to war with the Boers in order to obtain the franchise for the Uttlanders of the Transvaal would have been too much for the sense of humour of women, the ‘Uttlander of society’ at home."
The connections between temperance and contemporary societal issues were the subject of a discussion opened by Mahood at the spring conference of the Cheshire County Union of the British Women’s Temperance Association in 1907.
The following year, she was one of the speakers in favour of the Licensing Bill going through Parliament. For example, in the Parr Hall, Warrington, where a crowd of hundreds attended, Mahood was reported as supporting this Bill because its provisions ‘meant a drastic step in temperance reform’ and ‘the evils of drink had long been a curse in the land'. She also addressed this topic at the local Clarion Club in the Clarion Café in Kensington (Liverpool).
At the Wirral Women’s Suffrage Society, Mahood moved the vote of thanks to Mrs Allen Bright and speaker Mrs Abadam at its meeting in New Brighton in April 1908, when the society there affiliated to the NUWSS and was declared as constitutional and non-party. Mahood spoke outside St George’s Hall Liverpool in June and, alongside Ada Broughton, in Seacombe in July 1908.
"Suffragist protest in court" is the title of a newspaper article from the same year, which covers a court case in which Mahood was one of sixteen local women who were formally applying for the right to a Parliamentary vote. They were represented by Mr. W. Swancott Morgan, with arguments to show that women were entitled to the vote. Mr Morgan presented historical evidence in favour of this argument, but the case was ultimately rejected.
Mahood was appointed the first female Deacon in the Baptist Church in England in 1910. The news item reporting this appointment also notes her membership of the Pembroke Chapel, and describes her as an "ardent advocate of women's suffrage".