Dame Agnes Weston | |
|---|---|
 "Aggie" Weston | |
| Born | (1840-03-26)26 March 1840 London, England |
| Died | 23 October 1918(1918-10-23) (aged 78) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Philanthropist, temperance activist, writer |
| Awards | GBE |
| Signature | |
.png) | |
Dame Agnes Elizabeth Weston,GBE (26 March 1840 – 23 October 1918) was an Englishphilanthropist noted for her work with theRoyal Navy. For over twenty years, she lived and worked among the sailors of the Royal Navy. The result of her powerful influence is evidenced in the widespread reform which took place in the habits of hundreds of men to whom her name was atalisman for good. In her day, one man in six in the navy was a total abstainer. Weston's work included her monthly letters to sailors,Ashore and Afloat, which she edited, and the "Sailors' Rests", which she established inPortsmouth.[1] She was the first woman given a full ceremonial Royal Navy funeral.
Weston was born on 26 March 1840 inLondon, the daughter of a barrister. In 1851 she, her mother and siblings were living inWeston, Bath.[2] She was influenced from her teenage years onward by the ReverendJames Fleming,[3] curate of St Stephen,Lansdown, in the parish ofWalcot, Bath (1855–1859), an advocate fortotal abstinence, lack of ritual in religious expression, and living one's faith through good works.
In 1868, she took up hospital visiting and parish work inBath, and through beginning a correspondence with a seaman who asked her to write to him, developed into the devoted friend of sailors, superintendent of the Royal Naval Temperance Society, and co-founder (withSophia Wintz) of three Royal Sailors' Rests (two inPlymouth and one inPortsmouth), or clubs for sailors, by the start of theFirst World War. She published a monthly magazine,Ashore and Afloat, and establishedtemperance societies on naval ships by personal visits to each ship (such asHMSTopaze) at a time when every ship had agrog pot and sailors were issued a dailyrum ration. She published her memoirsMy Life Among the Bluejackets in 1909.[4]
Weston served as Superintendent of Work among Sailors for theWoman's Christian Temperance Union, and was the President of the Plymouth Branch of theBritish Women's Temperance Association.[1]
In June 1918, her work for the Royal Navy was publicly recognised when she was appointedDame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).[5] She received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Glasgow University. On her death at age 78 inDevonport she became the first woman given a full ceremonial Royal Navy funeral.[4]
Charles Causley's first collection of poems,Farewell, Aggie Weston[4] (1951) contained his "Song of the Dying Gunner A.A.1":
Farewell, Aggie Weston, the Barracks atGuz,
Hang my tiddley suit on the door
I'm sewn up neat in a canvas sheet
And I shan't be home no more.
A portrait of her is included in the mural of heroic women byWalter P. Starmer unveiled in 1921 inSt Jude's Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.[6]
In 2011, a tinnedChristmas pudding was discovered at the back of a kitchen cupboard inPoole, Dorset. Donated to the museum atPortsmouth Historic Dockyard, it was a "Peek, Frean & Co's Teetotal Plum Pudding" from 1900. It was one of a thousand puddings sent to British sailors during theBoer War on behalf of Weston.[7]
In March 2020, it was announced that Aggie Weston had come top of a public poll from a list of well-known Plymouth women to decide the recipient of the city's nextblue plaque.[8] The plaque was unveiled on International Women's Day 2021, at the entrance to Endurance Court, Oceansgate inDevonport, opposite the site of the original Royal Sailors Rests buildings before their destruction in 1941 during the Plymouth Blitz.[9]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "Weston, Agnes".Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain:Chapin, Clara Christiana Morgan (1895).Thumb Nail Sketches of White Ribbon Women (Public domain ed.). Woman's temperance publishing association. p. 17.| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
