The Grayswood Branch of the Women's Institute was established in August 1920; a time of great change with the Suffragette Movement just having secured the right of women to vote and the country still feeling the impact of the Great War.
The first minute book's entry was on 29th June 1920 and the impact of those lost in the War was still deeply felt; evidenced by the first inside front cover of the first minute book which includes an excerpt from a war poem written by Cyril Argentine Alington .
Photograph courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum
The Trust
They trusted God un-slumbering and unsleeping
He sees and sorrows for a world at war
His ancient covenant securely keeping
And these had seen His promise from afar
That though the pain, the sorrow, and the sinning
That righteous Judge the issue should decide
Who ruleth over all from the beginning
And in that faith they died.
They trusted England scarce the prayer was spoken
Ere they beheld what they had hundred for,
A mighty country with its ranks unbroken,
A city built in unity once more:
Freedom’s best champion, girt for yet another
And mightier enterprise for Right defied,
A land whose children live to serve their Mother
And in that faith they died.
And "us they trusted : we the task inherit,
The unfinished task for which their lives were spent;
But leaving us a portion of their spirit
They gave their witness and they died content.
Full well they knew they could not build without us
That better country, faint and far descried,
God’s own true England : but they did not doubt us
And in that faith they died."
CAA
It took a few months to get all the arrangements in place to officially start the Branch; venue, committee members, programme of events etc.
On 11th August 1920 the inaugural meeting was held
The first committee included:
Lady Atkinson-Willes - President
Miss Anne Spread - Vice President
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Mrs Barnes
Mrs Glennie
Mrs Heines
Mrs Pennycate
Mrs J Smithers
Mrs Tuke
Miss Wait
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