Eva and Esther met in Italy in 1896 where they were both staying at Macdonald's Guest House in Bordigera. The chemistry was instantaneous. They walked and talked together for days in the hills and by the sea - and when it was time to go home Eva had decided to leave Ireland and join Esther in a new life in Manchester. She did and they stayed together for thirty years. They came from very different backgrounds

Eva Gore-Booth was the second of five children* born to Sir Henry Gore-Booth of Lissadell in County Sligo, a wealthy landowner. On her mother's side the children were related to a large and impressive slice of Anglo-Irish nobility; they wereg dazzlingly attractive, well-bred,sporting, and generous to the Irish tenants. On leaving Lissadell she began work with the University Settlement called Ancoats Hall in the Manchester slums, as well as with The Women's Trade Union Council. Eva taught, organised, listened; made friends and began to formulate her own brand of mystical philosophy which would express itself in her poetry. She was considered beautiful, graceful and a fearless public speaker.

Above: Lissadel. Home of the Gore-Booths Right: 83 Heald Place in Manchesder, home of the Ropers.

Esther Roper was the daughter of a Minister, a working woman, who had been one of the first women to graduate and gain her BA at Owens College in Manchester. Asthmatic and short sighted she was a skilled organiser, administrator and fund-raiser - at her best behind the scenes rather than in front. She worked for the women's department of Manchester University and as the Secretary of the North of England Suffrage Society; she was a committee member of The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies - its leader the veteran Millicent Mrs Henry Fawcett - as well as Secretary for the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage.

Both Eva and Esther were committed to the improvement of the lives of Working Class women - they were also Pacifists ! In 1901 they met Christabel Pankhurst whom they encouraged to study Law at the University (Christabel polished off an easy First.) But in 1904 the friendship suffered a classic Pankhurst blank-out after the birth of the Women's Social and Political Union with its deliberate avoidance of Working Class involvement, use of violence, and later re-birth into "recruiting officers for Lloyd-George !"

During the War both Esther and Eva became involved with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and its ill fated attempt at Conference in Holland in 1915: eventually they carried out welfare work on behalf of the wives and children of imprisoned Conscientious Objectors.

In 1921 they moved to 14 Frognal Gardens in Hampstead, and Eva took up the study of Greek in order to make her own translation of the Gospels.Together they started the magazine "Urania" - the Muse from Heaven.** Into its pages they poured their beliefs about Life, Love - and Sex.

In their writings both Eva and Esther show that they believed human beings to be more than animals, that both man and women were able to rise above the sexual drive and that they themselves had both put aside sexuality as irrelevant.

They left no record of their private lives. There is no reason to believe that they ever practiced other than they preached. They are buried together in the Churchyard of St. John's Church, Hampstead. (right:Their gravestone which can be seen in St. John's Churchyard in Hampstead, across the road.)

*Eva was devoted to her elder sister Constance Gore-Booth. As Constance Markievicz she became deeply involved in Irish politics and took an active part in the Easter Uprising. She was the first elected woman MP but did not take up her seat as a political protest.

**Milton Paradise Lost Book VII.

Read more:

"Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper: A Biography" by Gifford Lewis pub. Pandora 1988. Sadly not in print but can be found on Rare Book websites.

Constance Markievicz: Irish Revolutionary by Anne Haverty pub. Pandora 1988.

Regret Photographers unknown. Thanks to Gifford Lewis..