42 Facts About Ethel Smyth

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement.

Ethel Smyth's compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas.

Ethel Smyth was the first female composer granted a damehood.

Ethel Smyth was born in Sidcup, Kent, which is in the London Borough of Bexley, on 22 April 1858, the fourth of eight children.

Ethel Smyth's father, John Hall Smyth, who was a major general in the Royal Artillery, was very much opposed to her making a career in music.

Ethel Smyth lived at Frimhurst, near Frimley Green for many years, before moving to Hook Heath on the outskirts of Woking.

Ethel Smyth was the aunt of Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Eastwood.

Ethel Smyth was a stellar pianist at a very young age and was able to compose her first hymn by the age of 10.

Ethel Smyth decided to study music at the age of 12.

Ethel Smyth first studied with Alexander Ewing when she was 17.

Ethel Smyth introduced her to the music of Wagner and Berlioz.

Ethel Smyth left after a year disillusioned with the low standard of teaching, and continued her music studies privately with Heinrich von Herzogenberg.

Ethel Smyth's best known work, she composed it to a French libretto by Henry Brewster.

On 28 May 1928, the nascent BBC broadcast two concerts of Ethel Smyth's music, marking her "musical jubilee", The first comprised chamber music, the second, conducted by Ethel Smyth herself, choral works.

Ethel Smyth's composing and conducting career came to a premature end before the 1920s as she started to develop hearing loss, which eventually led to her becoming completely deaf.

Ethel Smyth was alternately praised and panned for writing music that was considered too masculine for a "lady composer", as critics called her.

Ethel Smyth's music was seldom evaluated as simply the work of a composer among composers, but as that of a "woman composer".

Dr Ethel Smyth knows her Mozart and her Sullivan: she has learned how to write conversations in music.

In 1910, Ethel Smyth joined the Women's Social and Political Union, which agitated for women's suffrage, giving up music for two years to devote herself to the cause.

Ethel Smyth argued in her memoirs that the disadvantages that women face in music stem from the lack of a political vote or voice.

Ethel Smyth developed a very close relationship with the charismatic leader of the WSPU, Emmeline Pankhurst, and accompanied her on many occasions.

Ethel Smyth is credited with teaching Emmeline Pankhurst how to throw stones in 1912.

Ethel Smyth was one of the 109 members who responded to Pankhurst's call, asking to be sent to attack the home of Colonial Secretary Lewis Harcourt, who had remarked that if his wife's beauty and wisdom was present in all women, they would have already won the vote.

Ethel Smyth stood half the bail for Helen Craggs, who had been caught on the way to carry out the arson of the leading politician's home.

Ethel Smyth revealed that the prison was infested with cockroaches, even in the hospital ward.

Ethel Smyth was released early, due to a medical assessment that she was mentally unstable and hysterical.

Ethel Smyth continued to correspond with Pankhurst, and heard of her getting lost trying to find the safe house provided for her to avoid re-arrest in Scotland.

Ethel Smyth strongly disagreed with the support Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel gave to the war effort in 1914, but she did train as a radiographer in Paris.

Ethel Smyth had several passionate affairs, most of them with women.

Ethel Smyth was at one time in love with the married suffragette Pankhurst.

Ethel Smyth met Willie Wilde, the brother of Oscar Wilde, during a trip to Ireland.

In recognition of her work as a composer and writer, Ethel Smyth was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1922, becoming the first female composer to be awarded a damehood.

Ethel Smyth received honorary doctorates in music from the universities of Durham and Oxford.

Ethel Smyth died in Woking in 1944 at the age of 86.

Ethel Smyth was a passionate golfer and a member of the ladies' section of Woking Golf Club, near where she lived.

Ethel Smyth "gleefully acknowledged" the portrait, according to Prunella Scales.

Ethel Smyth was later a model for the fictional Dame Hilda Tablet in the 1950s radio plays of Henry Reed.

Ethel Smyth was portrayed by Maureen Pryor in the 1974 BBC television film Shoulder to Shoulder.

In 2021, Ethel Smyth posthumously received a Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Solo based on the recording of The Prison by conductor James Blachly and soloists Sarah Brailey and Dashon Burton, members of Experiential Orchestra.

In March 2022, in recognition of International Women's Day, a larger-than-size statue by Christine Charlesworth of Ethel Smyth conducting was unveiled in Duke's Court Plaza, Woking, by the Mayor of Woking, Cllr Liam Lyons, with invited guests who included members of Ethel Smyth's family as well as academics and councillors.

Ethel Smyth stands, wearing her usual tweed skirt, enthusiastically conducting passers-by with her over-sized baton, as presented to her at the Royal Albert Hall by Emeline Pankhurst.

Ethel Smyth's jacket is half open, her arms are beating out the time and her eyes are full of concentration as she battles with her hearing loss, which went completely in her 50's.