Hope Squire

Squire was born in Southport to engineer and poet John Barret Squire and his wife.[3] She married composer Frank Merrick in 1911.[6]

Squire studied piano with Henry Gadsby, Tobias Matthay, and Ernst von Dohnanyi. She taught piano and presented recitals at London’s Steinway Hall and other venues.[7] Together, she and Merrick gave recitals for two pianos. They would sometimes play new compositions without telling the audience the composer’s name. At one of these recitals in 1915, they performed a duet version of Claude Debussy’s La Mer.[8]

Merrick was an active member of the Manchester Men's League for Women's Suffrage. Squire sewed a banner for the group in 1914.[4]

Merrick was imprisoned from May 1917 to April 1919 for opposing England’s involvement in World War I and becoming a conscientious objector. While he was in prison, Squire taught his pupils at the Royal Manchester College of Music, in addition to her own private pupils.[4]

Squire was active in several organizations: the Independent Labour Party (ILP), the No Conscription Fellowship (NCF), the United Suffragists, the Women’s Freedom League (WFL), and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). She socialized and worked with Margaret Ashton, Annie Brickhill, Lila and Fenner Brockway, Dame Clara Butt, Lillian Forester, Amy Herford, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, Crewe Lewis, Annot Robinson, Oscar and Thekla Rothschild, Phillis and J. Allen Skinner, Annie Somers, and May Unwin.[3][4]

Hope Squire and Frank Merrick’s papers are archived at the University of Bristol Archives.[3] Squire’s music was published by Boosey & Co., Elkin & Co., Marriott, and Stainer & Bell.[5]

Her compositions include:

• List of peace activists