Madeline Agar (1875-1967)
Madeline Agar ran a horticultural business, Holly Bush Nursery, in Chesham Bois. Originally from London, she published books on garden design based on her travels and the gardens she had designed abroad including a garden in Cairo. She included a model of this in the Mid Bucks Suffrage Society’s exhibition of July 1914. She was probably converted to the suffrage cause when working for Frances Dove as a teacher at Wycombe Abbey.
During the war, the Mid Bucks Suffragists followed Millicent Fawcett’s instruction and stopped actively campaigning for the vote. Instead they put their administrative and fundraising skills to use for the war effort principally funding hospital beds and medical supplies. Many of our local suffragists had hospital beds and even whole wards named after them. The Common Cause of 21 September 1917 lists Catherine and Renée Courtauld as both donating £100 (over £8,000 today) to the Scottish Women’s Hospital Service.