Hall Highlights: Maud Sellers
The Merchant Adventurers’ Hall has accumulated many treasures over the centuries: art, artefacts, architecture and the stories of those who have passed through it’s walls. This blog series seeks to shine a spotlight on the Hall’s incredible collections and individuals from its past. This post written by Museum Director, Lauren Marshall is on Dr Maud Sellers.
There is one woman who we, I owe a debt of gratitude to as I am certain the archives, the Hall and its collections would not be in its current condition without her, so I want to introduce her properly through the words of travel writer H.V Morton in his book, “The Call of England” when he visited the Hall in 1928:
“When you go up the steps and pay sixpence for a ticket, a white-haired woman will come from an inner room and conduct you round the building. Before she has spoken three words you know that she is no ordinary curator. Then what is she? She is a puzzle. Is she, you wonder a gentlewoman in reduced circumstances? You notice that when she refers to the Merchant Adventurers of York she says ‘we’, not ‘they’ – always ‘we’ and with considerable pride as though she were a Merchant Adventurer! As a matter of fact she is! She is the only woman Merchant Adventurer in the world, and the only woman who is a full liveried member of a city company. Her name is Miss Maud Sellers, Doctor of Letters, known in York as ‘Dr Maud’.”
When you start exploring the archives, it is fair to say that Dr Maud is everywhere! She will jump out at you from books, letters, folios and collections of documents. I should say that she doesn’t just jump, she leaps out at you and shakes you round the shoulders! So much of what we know about the Company, its Hall and the archives is down to Dr Maud, and the story of women and the Merchant Adventurers cannot be told without her, and neither would she have let us!
She was born in Middlesbrough in 1861, the daughter of a tallow chandler and one of ten or more children. Between 1889 and 1892 she studied at Newnham College, Cambridge emerging successfully with the historical tripos, class II. It is well known during this time that Oxford and Cambridge did not confer degrees on women, so in 1907 Maud travelled to Ireland and Trinity College Dublin awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Literature. She was one of over 700 women that between 1904 and 1907 travelled to Dublin by Steamboat to be honoured in this way. The geneticist, Julia Bell, MP and Suffragist Eleanor Rathbone and Mathematician, Philippa Garrett Fawcett were just some of the other ‘Steamboat Ladies’.
The above universities encouraged their women scholars to go and become secondary school teachers throughout the British Empire to spread the word on the importance of education to girls. Maud went out to teach in Australia in 1898 at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Queensland, an unhappy experience as she was obviously a strong and authoritative personality and not necessarily that easy to get on with! She returned to England and applied herself to economic history. She discovered at the offices of Mr Wilkinson, Solicitor and Secretary of the York Merchant Adventurers Company, the paper on the Eastland Company and the rich seam of the Merchants’ archive in the Hall, to which she devoted many years of study. Her first visit to the Hall in 1895 would start the beginning of a life devoted to sharing the stories of the York Merchant Adventurers and their ancient Hall.
Her scholarly work was variously published by the prestigious Royal Historical, Camden and Surtees Societies. Maud quickly became deeply involved in the restoration of the Hall (which, by the early 20th century, was ailing not just in the number of members but in the state of the building), particularly in securing funds and in the reorganisation of the archives.I read a biography written by one of our past archivists which explained how she got things done: “The force of her enthusiasm and personality inspired successive Governors to make liberal donations towards the restoration of the Hall.”
In the book, Call of England she talks about the repairs to a set of old scales: “When I was in London, I went to this firm and complained about the scales. They were most apologetic and promised to put them right at once. “When did you buy them?” I was asked? “In 1790,” I said. They were just slightly taken aback, but, oh yes, they adjusted them…” As an aside I should add that we have the receipt for the purchase of the two scales in our archives.
Dr Maud was admitted to honorary membership of the Company in 1913, the first woman Merchant Adventurer for over 400 years and was appointed Honorary Curator in 1918, (and Honorary Archivist to the city of York in 1923 for similar work on the medieval records). She was responsible for the restoration of the Undercroft clearing away several modern walls and returning it to its original state and she also played a pivotal role in the creation of a Rest Garden in 1925 which is still enjoyed by residents and visitors alike.
She died in 1939 and in one obituary she was described as “no dry as dust authority. A little of the rarest bloom of a don was always upon her, but a child heard her gladly”. Her guided tours were a delight to the visitor of whatever age or learning.
We are delighted that in a very short while a permanent display on Dr Maud Sellers will open and will finally showcase her achievements to a wider audience.