It is probably fair to say that Edmund and Elizabeth Bramwell were an aspirational couple. Edmund was a fitter and turner in the Great Western Railway Works, a skilled occupation in which he had served a lengthy apprenticeship. Elizabeth had worked as a school mistress, a career she could no longer pursue after her marriage, a situation that didn’t alter within the teaching profession until 1944.
Edmund Bramwell and Elizabeth Burroughs married at Christ Church, Swindon on December 23, 1854. They both came from a railway family. Edmund’s father Joseph was a mechanic as was Elizabeth’s father Richard.
The couple made their home in Reading Street where their four daughters were born; Frances in 1856, Mary in 1859, Clara in 1866 and Maud in 1870.
Frances and Mary trained as draper’s assistants. By 1881 Mary had left Swindon and in subsequent years worked in large stores in Bath and Birmingham. Clara and Maud became teachers. Clara began her teaching career working as a 14 year old pupil teacher. By 1891 she was headmistress at one of Swindon’s local board schools. Her sister Maud also worked as an Assistant School Mistress.
Swindon Suffragette Edith New was some ten years younger than the two teaching Bramwell sisters. In 1891 she was also beginning her teaching career as a 14 year old pupil teacher in Swindon. By 1908 she had left Swindon and teaching and had joined the women’s suffrage movement as a paid organiser for the Women’s Social and Political Union. Edith fought in the Votes for Women campaign, serving several terms of imprisonment and going on hunger strike. She eventually returned to teaching and devoted her life to fighting for women’s rights within that profession.
Edith New
Perhaps the sisters followed the news of Edith’s involvement in the suffrage campaign, which featured in the Swindon Advertiser on several occasion. Perhaps they had known her when they were all setting out on their teaching careers.
Draper’s Assistant Frances married in 1885, ending any career progression she might have had. She briefly moved away to Portsmouth where her husband was a fitter in the dockyard and where her son Edmund was born, before returning to Swindon by 1890.
Maud married in 1896 and Clara married in 1901 and in so doing sacrificed their teaching careers. Clara’s status as Headmistress was not even mentioned on her marriage certificate.
Elizabeth Bramwell died in 1907 and was buried in grave plot D87 with her brother Samuel Burroughs, a boilermaker, who had died five years previously. Her husband Edmund died in 1910 and was buried with her. Mary, the daughter who spent a lifetime working in the drapery business, eventually returned to Swindon. She was buried in the family grave on January 18, 1911.
Frances died in 1915 and is buried with her husband in grave plot B3327.
Clara died in 1909 and is buried alone in grave plot E8626B
Maud died in Swansea in 1957.
After a life time teaching in London, Edith New retired to Polperro in Cornwall where she died in 1951.
Radnor Street Cemetery 