Claude Hinscliff

Reverend Claude Hinscliff (1875–1964) was a British suffragist.^[1][2] He was a leading person in the Church League for Women's Suffrage.

Hinscliff studied for his licentiate in theology at Durham University. He matriculated in 1893 and was awarded a scholarship after performing well in the admissions exam.^[3] As a student he coxed for the university boat club.^[4] A member of Hatfield Hall, he graduated in 1896.^[5] As reported in 15 June 1897 edition of The Times, he was ordained a deacon in the Diocese of Norwich and attached to Parham and Hacheston in Suffolk.^[6] In December 1899 he was ordained a priest at St George in the Meadows, Nottingham.^[7] By 1905 he was Vicar of Bobbing in Kent.^[8]

Hinscliff is most notable for his involvement in the British suffrage movement. He founded the Anglican Church League for Women's Suffrage in 1909, and was its secretary for a long time.^[1][9] He and fellow member Charles Baumgarten (and, according to the Church Times, the Archdeacon of Lewisham, Charles Escreet^[10]), conducted the funeral service of Emily Davison in St. George's, Bloomsbury, where Baumgarten was vicar.^[11]

By 1913 he had become very uncomfortable with the militancy of suffragettes, which included arson attacks on churches, and as a result the Church League began to distance itself from the WSPU.^[12] He resigned his position as honorary organiser in 1914 on doctor's orders, having been diagnosed with myocarditis in 1911.^[13] He then worked in Europe. In 1920 he served on the staff of the Serbian Relief Fund and by March of the following year was established as British Chaplain in Belgrade.^[14] He soon moved on to Romania, where he served as the British Chaplain in Bucharest from 1921-1924.^[15]

His name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.^[16][17][18]