Partner Dora Marsden
Queer Places:
128 Portland St, Manchester M1 4RL
Grace
Jardine (1888 - August 29, 1973) was a member of the Women's
Social and Political Union (WSPU). In October 1909 she met
Dora Marsden in
Burnley. Marsden was the organiser of the WSPU in North-West Lancashire
and in 1910 the two women set up home in
Southport.
Jardine and Marsden resigned from the WSPU on 27th January 1911. The two women now joined the Women's Freedom League (WFL), an organisation formed by Teresa Billington-Greig, Elizabeth How-Martyn, Margaret Nevinson and Charlotte Despard. Like the WSPU, the WFL was a militant organisation that was willing the break the law. As a result, over 100 of their members were sent to prison after being arrested on demonstrations or refusing to pay taxes. However, members of the WFL was a completely non-violent organisation and opposed the WSPU campaign of vandalism against private and commercial property.
In March 1911 Jardine and Marsden went to work for the Women's Freedom League newspaper, The Vote. The two women attempted to persuade the WFL to finance a new feminist journal. When this proposal was refused, they left the newspaper. Jardine, Marsden and Mary Gawthorpe now established own journal. Charles Granville, agreed to become the publisher. On 23rd November, 1911, they published the first edition of The Freewoman. The journal caused a storm when it advocated free love and encouraged women not to get married. The journal also included articles that suggested communal childcare and co-operative housekeeping.
Harriet Shaw Weaver put up £200 to fund the The New Freewoman and this gave her a controlling interest in the venture. Dora Marsden was editor, Rebecca West assistant editor and Grace Jardine (sub-editor and editorial secretary). The women were all employed on a salary of £1 a week. Later, Ezra Pound, became the journal's literary editor.
At a director's meeting on 25th November 1913, it was decided to change the name of the The New Freewoman to The Egoist: An Individualist Review. Bessie Heyes complained to Harriet Shaw Weaver about the change of name. "Don't you yourself think that the paper is not accomplishing what we intend to do? I had such hopes of The New Freewoman and it seems utterly changed."
In June 1914 Grace Jardine left the The Egoist and went to work for the publishers Hodder and Stoughton. Later she ran a bookshop in Manchester. According to Les Garner, the author of A Brave and Beautiful Spirit (1990), Grace sold four copies of Dora Marsden's The Definition of the Godhead in 1928, including one to Rona Robinson.
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