Born: 1853 (circa), Ireland
Died: 12 February 1937
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Harriet Philippa Jocelyn Newton
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Bagwell, Harriet (Philippa Jocelyn) (c.1853–1937), philanthropist and promoter of local industry, was born in Dunleckney Manor, Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow, eldest child of Phillip Jocelyn Newton (1818–95), DL, JP, and high sheriff, and his wife Emily (d. 1886), daughter of Sir David Toler Osborne. In January 1873 she married Richard Bagwell, barrister and historian; they had one son and three daughters. The early years of the marriage were spent in nearby Innislonagh; in 1884 they settled on the family estate at Marlfield, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. It was here that she became active in several charitable concerns. Possibly drawing on previous efforts made by her mother-in-law Frances Bagwell (née Prittie), who established a local school for Swiss embroidery, she founded (1885) her own embroidery cottage industry at Marlfield, which provided work for women in their own homes. She supplied both the raw materials and the designs (adaptations of Indian and Egyptian artwork) while organising the workers’ payment and sales of their produce. Marlfield Embroideries proved highly successful, and added greatly to the wealth of the local community. Its work was represented at several exhibitions, most notably the RDS’s Irish stand at the Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester (1887) and the Lancaster Arts and Craft Exhibition (1897). Her elder sister Mrs Anne Vesey (d. 1927), heiress to the Newton family home, founded the Dunleckney Cottage Embroidery in 1889, run along similar principles to the Marlfield venture.
Throughout her years at Marlfield she established a society that provided penny meals for the local poor, a registry office for servants, and (assisted by her daughters) a cookery school for national school girls (c.1900). She also played an active role in improving health care in the district. She founded the Clonmel Cottage Hospital (1895), was closely involved in promoting the District Nursing Association, and went on to become an executive committee member of the Women’s National Health Association of Ireland. Widowed in 1918, she left Marlfield in 1920, after which she lived for some time at Dangan, Carrickmines, Co. Dublin. In old age she compiled an informal history of the Bagwell family for private circulation, which includes detailed accounts of the burning of Marlfield by republicans in 1923. She died on 12 February 1937 at Birdhill, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, home of her youngest daughter, the painter Lilla Perry.