The Ladies Imperial Club
The papers of the late Notary Vincenzo Maria Pellegrini (1911-1997) are now to be found at the National Archives in Rabat. Among these papers, there is a rare document with the reference code PDE_0029016-03-021. It is a printed menu inserted into an elegant deckle-edged thick board, and tied together with a white and red ribbon, which bears the title “Complimentary Luncheon given by the Members of the Ladies Imperial Club to The Hon. Mrs H. de Trafford held at the Imperial Ladies Club on Tuesday 9 April 1929”. The luncheon was possibly held to welcome Lady Cecilia Victoria de Trafford after arriving from London where she had lived since her marriage in 1927.
Cecilia Victoria Strickland (1897-1950), the second daughter of Sir Gerald Strickland, married Captain Hubert Edmond de Trafford (1893-1974) at the Brompton Oratory in London on October 18, 1927. Cardinal Bourne, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated the ceremony. One of her wedding presents was a large silver tray given to her by the
Imperial Ladies Club at Malta. Another interesting wedding present was a silver model of a Gozo boat with the inscription “A souvenir by the people of Gozo to the noble Cecilia Strickland as a token of her swimming from Gozo to Malta”. It is worth mentioning, however, that when she and her friend had arrived in Gozo near Mġarr Harbour, they were told that they could not land as they were indecently dressed.
The inside page-spread consists of a list of the names of the guests participating in the dinner on the left-hand side, and, on the right-hand side, the menu that was to be served. The six-course meal consisted of hors d’oeuvre for starters, a main course with a choice of either fish, lamb or capon, and finishing with trifle, savoury fromage, dessert and coffee. The fish that is listed as dental, would be dentici, or snapper.
The InvITees
Worthy of note are the names of the invitees as they give an indication of the class of ladies who formed part of this society, and that they were pro-British and pro-Empire. As expected, their political leanings were more towards the Constitutional Party of Lord Gerald Strickland. Heading the list of guests were Lady Strickland, the Countess of Harrowby, and the Hon. Mabel Strickland.
The LadIes ImperIaL CLub
The Ladies Imperial Club was inaugurated on January 6, 1927, by Lady Margaret Hulton Strickland, the second wife of Lord Gerald Strickland. During the inauguration, she presented the spacious new premises to be used as the club. The opening ceremony was attended by Count Sir Gerald Strickland and Lady Congreve, wife of Sir Walter Congreve, Governor of Malta. The premises were blessed by Mgr Paolo Gauci, assisted by the Rev. G. Camilleri. Before declaring the premises open, Lady Strickland thanked Lady Congreve for her presence and augured all the best for the future of the club as a means “to facilitate social intercourse between the ladies of the King’s dominion”. In her speech, she promised that the club would become a real live force for the good of the island and that all the British who came to Malta would find in the club the same genuine friendship and hospitality that she had found when she had come to Malta three months earlier. The club’s motto was “Each for all and all for each”, and the location and the amenities offered were an ideal place “as an everyday meeting place to exchange ideas and discuss mutual interests”. It even boasted of a telephone. A committee had been formed and a statute had been prepared. Unfortunately, to date, neither the names of all committee members nor statute have been traced.
According to a report in The Daily Malta Chronicle of January 8, 1927, the Ladies Imperial Club was “well-founded with a programme that will lead from strength to strength. Lady Strickland is loved in Malta not because she is a lady of high birth and station but because she is a woman, has a woman’s tenderness, a woman’s love and a woman’s far-sighted knowledge of how to soothe the cuts and bruises this world suffers in its daily round.” The club was based on English ladies’ clubs that catered for strong, independent women who were interested in intellectual, social and political affairs. the the
beTTer eduCaTed Than men
It is interesting to note that on the next page of the same newspaper, under the heading ‘Ladies in politics’, a correspondent, signing ‘Constitutional’, writes that the opening of the club marked a great step forward in the political life of Malta. Under self-government, women pay taxes and “they are on average, better educated than men, they have more time to think and they often do all the useful thinking of the family, they are practical, and they seek and follow truly with less prejudice”. As to the future: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”; “boys will be what their mothers make them”. He then proceeds to heavily criticise the Mizzian party, accusing them of wanting to keep the people in ignorance and “fomenting prejudice against England and hostility towards Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, sport, social intercourse and familiar hospitality”. He mocked the fact that notwithstanding the disparaging remarks written in their newspaper, the “Mizzian ladies were conspicuous at the opening of the new Mizzian club in Strada Forni: having failed to stop ladies’ clubs by vituperation, the English haters are driven to inferior imitations”.