Settlement work in Liverpool then London, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, edited Common Cause, Church League for Women’s Suffrage, preacher, pacifist, later campaigned for ordination of women.
Agnes Maude Royden CH, later known as Maude Royden-Shaw, was an English preacher (probably the first Anglican woman preacher), suffragist and campaigner for the ordination of women.
Born Liverpool to a wealthy shipowner. Lame from birth. 1931 first woman to become a Doctor of Divinity in Britain. She joined the Peace Pledge Union but later renounced pacifism, believing Nazism to be a greater evil than war.
c.1900, shortly after university, she worked as assistant to Rev. Hudson Shaw in the country parish of South Luffenham, Rutland. She remained lifelong friends with him and his wife, Effie. On 2 October 1944, shortly after Effie's death Royden and Hudson Shaw were married. He was then aged 85 and died within 2 months. Royden died at home in Hampstead.
(Illinois State University’s Historic Student Newspaper) carried an article which is worth reproducing in its entirety: "THE LIFE OF MAUDE ROYDEN is a Long life of service. Miss Maude Royden, who will lecture at the university on March 1 has had a most interesting career. She is the daughter of the late Sir Thomas Royden, Conservative member of Parliament, Lord Mayor of Liverpool and chairman of the board of the Cunard Steamship company. Until her graduation with high honors from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford university, she lived the usual life of ease and luxury led by the daughters of the British aristocracy. She went from Oxford to the slums of Liverpool as a member of the university settlement. After one year of settlement work, she gave four years of service to the villagers of South Luffenham. She visited the women in their homes, gave literature lessons to the girls and /trained them to act Shakespearean plays. Through the influence of Rev. W. Hudson Shaw, who recognized her fine scholarship, her most lovely voice, her perfect delivery, unusual teaching capacity and enthusiasm, she was appointed the first woman lecturer under the Oxford university extension scheme. From first to last during the four years she worked on the Oxford scheme she had unbroken and extraordinary success. As soon as the suffrage movement in England reached a critical stage, she devoted herself to the cause of the enfranchisement of women. She wrote pamphlets, addressed large meetings, lobbied in the House of Commons and was editor of the “Common Cause” the chief organ of the Constitutional Suffragists. She contributed in large measure to the victory which was finally won. During, the war, Dr. Newton, pastor of the City Temple in London invited her to become his assistant pastor. She herself is a member of the Church of England which does not recognize the ministry of women, and it took great moral courage for Miss Royden to accept this position in the large Nonconformist church. Her power as a preacher soon manifested itself and for two years she spoke every Sunday evening, to immense audiences. She resigned from the City Temple and applied to the Bishop of London for the use of an empty church in his diocese. Because she was a woman, the bishop declined. The London Congregational Union came to her assistance' and offered her the Guildhouse in Eccleston Square for her New Fellowship Services. The Westminster Gazette says that “the Guildhouse is so crowded every Sunday that it is' getting to be a question of ‘Standing Room Only.’ ”
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