Ethel Tawse Jollie


Ethel Maud Tawse Jollie was a writer and political activist in Southern Rhodesia who was the first female parliamentarian in the British overseas empire.

Career

Cookson was born Ethel Maude Cookson in Castle Church, Stafford, the daughter of Samuel Cookson, a doctor. She studied art under Anthony Ludovici at the Slade School of Fine Art where she met her first husband, explorer Archibald Ross Colquhoun. They married at St. Paul′s church, Stafford, on 8 March 1900, and she accompanied her husband on tours across Asia, the Pacific and Africa, before settling in Southern Rhodesia. After Colquhoun's death on 18 December 1914, she replaced him as editor of United Empire magazine. She later remarried a Rhodesian farmer called John Tawse Jollie.
Tawse Jollie was one of the front figures in the campaign for Rhodesian self-rule, founding the Responsible Government Association in 1917. She was a leading member of the National Service League, the Imperial Maritime League, the British Women's Emigration Society, the Women's Unionist Association, and the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Council. Ethel Tawse Jollie was an avowed anti-suffragist and anti-feminist. She died in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, on 21 September 1950.

Works