Born 3^rd November  29 Fortess Terrace, Kentish Town and

Baptised 1^st December at St. John the Baptist Church, Kentish Town, Middlesex

1871 Census Resident at 23 Burghley Road, Kentish Town, Middlesex

October 3^rd Attended the Ealing Training College

July 31^st Awarded Certificate of Teaching with Hons.  Started her teaching career at the Ealing College

10^th February Death of Thomas Matthew Hare, Mary’s father, of 9 Bartholomew Road, Tufnell Park, Holloway

Presumably with the help of funds from her late father Mary in January - Set up a School for the Deaf at Cecil House, Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood in Surrey.

June 30^th Received College of Teachers of the Deaf and Dumb Certificate 

School moved to 77 Central Hill, Upper Norwood in Surrey.

1891 Census Resident at 77 Central Hill, Upper Norwood, Surrey. Also at the address are her mother, sister, teacher and pupils

1894 - School moved to 17 St. Michael’s Place, Brighton

School was transferred to 19 Goldsmid Road, Brighton

School enlarged by addition of 20 Goldsmid Road, Brighton

In 1907 Mary Hare became a member of the Women’s Freedom League which is better known as the Suffragettes.

This is an extract from the book “The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A reference guide 1866-1928” by Elizabeth Crawford. (Note: the book gives her birth as c1860 she was born in 1865)

HARE, MARY ADELAIDE (c1860-1945). Born in London, in 1883 she opened a small school for deaf and dumb children. Her view was that such children did not need protection in “asylums” but rather an education. By 1906 she had moved to Brighton and established there a co-education Private Oral School for Deaf Children. In March 1910 she was elected vice-chairman of the National Association of the Teachers of the Deaf and by 1916 her school, now called Dene Hallow Oral School for the Deaf, was regarded as one of the best schools for deaf children in the country. By her will she created a trust in order that the school, now established at Newbury as the Mary Hare Grammar School for the Deaf, should continue along the lines she had instituted.

She had been a member of the Brighton Women’s Liberal Association and in 1906 subscribed to the WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION, took part in the February 1907  “Mud Match” organized by the NATIONAL UNION OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE SOCIETY. Later that year signed the Declaration organized by the Brighton branch of the WOMEN’S FRANCHISE DECLARATION COMMITTEE, in 1908 chaired WSPU meetings in Brighton and in March went to London in order to attend the breakfast given to celebrate the release of suffrage prisoners. In 1909 Una and Joan DUGDALE rented her house in order to carry on WSPU holiday campaign in Brighton. Mary Hare left the WSPU and by 1913 was Honorary Secretary of the Brighton branch of the WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE and a member of the CHURCH LEAGUE FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE. During the First World War she was active in running the Brighton branch of the WOMEN POLICE VOLUNEERS. She was also President of the Brighton branch of the WOMEN’S CO-OPERATIVE GUILD, a theosophist founder of the Brighton Lodge of the Universal Co Freemasonry, a vegetarian and a member of the International Women’s Franchise Club

School was transferred to 8 San Remo, Hove, Sussex

1911 census - Headline from a Brighton and Hove paper (Source: Brighton History Centre)

Suffragettes and Census Resistance 

“The suffragettes have now definitely decided to take leave of their Census”, so commented satirical magazine Punch in 1911. On the night of 2 April it’s estimated that thousands - or even tens of thousands - of women (and male supporters) resisted being counted in protest at the government’s refusal to grant them a vote.

In a campaign organised by the Women’s Freedom League and inspired by Gandhi’s ideas on passive resistance, women across the UK returned forms ‘spoilt’ by slogans such as ‘I don’t count so I won’t be counted’. Others evaded census enumerators by hiding out away from home: one group roller-skated all night (at Aldwych Rink, London), some hid in caves (Wales) and, infamously, Emily Wilding Davison spent the night in a broom cupboard in the Houses of Parliament.

In Brighton, ‘open houses’ were set up where resisters could spend the night away from home. The Gazette reports that one house in Hove was so full that only a third of women could sleep at one time, with the rest coming and going throughout the night to confuse snooping enumerators attempting a head-count. In another Brighton home they avoided questions by returning the incomplete form in a basket lowered from a top floor window.

One Hove suffragette, Mary Hare, spoilt her census form with the words “Women don’t count therefore they will not be counted!” The form carries a note from the enumerator, stating that he’d re-visited the house incognito, quizzed the housekeeper and gained a rough estimate of the number and ages of inhabitants. 

18^th March

November 11^th School was transferred Dene Hollow, Burgess Hill

1945 November 5^th Mary Hare died at the age of 80

1945 November 8^th Funeral at Downs Crematorium in Brighton 

Her ashes were then scattered outside her Drawing Room around the cedar tree at Dene Hollow School

The Mary Hare Grammar School was opened in 1946. This was shortly after Mary’s death. Mary knew before she died of the granting of Grammar School status. Details of the school from 1946 onwards are described in the book ‘Through the Eyes Not Ears’ by Anthony J. Boyce and Elaine Lavery 2005.  It is currently out of print