Former home of suffragist Charlotte Price White, Bangor

button-theme-womenLink to Welsh translationFormer home of suffragist Charlotte Price White, 50 Upper Garth Road, Bangor

Suffragist Charlotte White Price (1873-1932) once lived here, when the house was named Rockleigh. In 2021 a Purple Plaque for Remarkable Women in Wales was unveiled here in her honour.

Portrait of Charlotte Price WhiteShe was born to Mr and Mrs James Bell of Briggart, near Dumfries, and married engineer Price Ffoulkes White, of Bangor Electrical Company.

She was one of the early female science students at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, graduating in the 1890s. She was a school teacher in London before returning to Bangor to marry in 1902. It’s thought that she lived at Rockleigh for the rest of her life.

She became the secretary and driving force of the Bangor branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, which campaigned for women to be allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections. She was one of only two women from the area who made the whole journey to London of the Suffrage Pilgrimage of 1913.

She was an original member of the first British branch of the Women’s Institute, established at Llanfairpwll in 1915.

Her war work in the First World War included being secretary of the committee that raised £1,200 in North Wales for equipping and financing a Welsh Hospital Unit for service with the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Serbia. Later she acted as honorary secretary providing for the maintenance and education of a Serbian boy refugee, placed under the university college’s care by the Serbian Relief Committee.

In 1926 she became one of the first women elected to Caernarvonshire County Council. That year she also played a prominent part, alongside Mary Silyn Roberts and Mary Gladys Thoday, in the Peace Pilgrimage from Penygroes to a demonstration in Hyde Park, London.

She and her husband had a daughter Margaret and a son David Archibald, who was Conservative MP for Caernarvon Boroughs 1945-1950.

When she died suddenly in 1932, her family's wish for a private funeral was over-ridden because of a sense of shock and her public prominence. Flags flew at half-mast. The English Presbyterian Chapel was packed and there were nearly 100 floral tributes.

With thanks to Annie Williams and Shan Robinson, of Women’s Archive Wales. Sources include: ‘Votes for Women: The North Wales Suffragists’ Campaign’ by Barbara Lawson-Reay; and ‘The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales’ by Ryland Wallace.

Postcode: LL57 2SS    View Location Map

Women’s Archive Wales website - download the Bangor Women’s Heritage Walk leaflet