Mr Edwy Godwin Clayton
Gender: Male
Marital Status: Married
Born: 1858
Died: 1936
Place of birth: Lambeth, Surrey, England
Occupation: Chemist
Main Suffrage Society: MPU
Other Societies: MLWS; US
Arrest Record: Yes
Recorded Entries: 1
Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999)
Database linked sources: https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3228/men-in-the-suffrage-movement
Family information: Edwy's wife Clara and daughter Hilda were both active members of the WSPU and the CLWS.
Additional Information: Edwy was a member of the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement (MPU), a sort of men's 'wing' of the WSPU. He was also a member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage (MLWS) and later joined the United Suffragists (US). Edwy was sentenced to 21 months in prison when papers belonging to him were seized in a 1913 police raid of a flat used by suffragette sisters Annie and Jessie Kenney. The papers included lists he'd compiled of suitable places for attack (including government offices and cotton mills) and evidence to suggest that he had used his skills as a chemist to experiment with explosive-making. Edwy (imprisoned with others, including Annie Kenney) went on hunger strike and was temporarily released under the 'Cat and Mouse Act' to recover, but managed to avoid recapture. However, he was forced to pay all the prosecution costs of his trial, which decimated his chemist business, and he never recovered financially.