Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Weston, Agnes Elizabeth
WESTON, AGNES ELIZABETH (1840–1918), organizer of ‘Sailors' Rests’, the elder daughter of Charles Henry Weston, by his wife, Sarah Agnes, daughter of Robert Bayly, was born in London 26 March 1840. Her father was a barrister who retired from practice in 1845 and settled with his family just outside Bath. Agnes was his eldest surviving child. She received, at private schools in Bath, the usual education of daughters of professional men of that time; at her second school she was prepared for confirmation by the Rev. (Canon) James Fleming [q.v.], at that time curate of St. Stephen, Lansdown, Bath, whose teaching tended, like the influence of her parents, towards evangelical Christianity, and made a deep and lasting impression on her mind. For the next twelve years she divided her time between a serious study of the organ and various philanthropic activities in the neighbourhood of her home. She became an effective speaker at temperance meetings, and developed some skill as a writer of tracts. Towards the end of this period she started a coffee bar in Bath for men of the 2nd Somerset Militia, with some of whom she kept in touch by correspondence after they left the town.
This correspondence opened the way to Miss Weston's main work in life. One of her soldier friends, on his way to India, showed her parting letter to the steward on his troopship, who wished that he had such a friend ‘to help him in the Christian life.’ His wish was reported to Miss Weston. She wrote to him and to others whose names he gave her, and succeeded at once in establishing a genuine personal relationship with her unknown correspondents. Only three years after her first letter to a sailor (which was dated 1868), she began the issue of a printed monthly letter for distribution to ships' companies, the circulation of which rose before her death to over 60,000 copies.
At the beginning of 1873 many of Miss Weston's sailor correspondents were paid off at Devonport, and she went to the port to see them. There she stayed with the family of Miss Sophia Gertrude Wintz, who became her lifelong friend and partner. During this year she took up active work in Devonport on behalf of the Royal Naval Temperance Society, and was successful in obtaining permission to visit men-of-war and address their crews. Her popularity among the men grew steadily, and in 1874 a deputation from H.M.S. Dryad requested her to open a temperance house for bluejackets near the dockyard gates. After some hesitation she and Miss Wintz decided to undertake the enterprise. Meetings were organized all over the county, funds were raised, and a house in Fore Street, Devonport, was adapted as a restaurant and hostel. It was opened as the first ‘Sailors' Rest’ in May 1876.
The institution was an immediate success. Its organization was admirable, and it was carried on in a spirit of hearty kindliness. Deeply as Miss Weston had at heart her temperance crusade and the propagation of her religious views, she made no attempt to force them on the men who used her house. Lectures, religious services, and the pledge book were there for those who wanted them. Others who wanted only a ‘cabin’ for the night and a meal were equally welcome. The result was that from the first the accommodation was barely equal to the demand.
After a few years a similar establishment was started by Miss Weston and Miss Wintz at Portsmouth. For a time they carried on ‘Sailors' Rests’ at Portland and Sheerness also, but they found that the task of managing four such establishments was too exacting, and decided to concentrate their energies on the expansion and development of those at Devonport and Portsmouth. It was Miss Weston's policy to make the institutions self-supporting so far as the provision of food and shelter was concerned, but the cost of building was met from public subscriptions. Sufficient support was forthcoming to enable her to extend her premises till 900 men could be housed at Devonport and 700 at Portsmouth. Greatly to her satisfaction, several public houses were demolished in the process of extension.
At an early stage the two partners secured the property for its original purpose by conveying it to trustees, themselves acting as managing directors. Miss Weston was a woman of strong physique, good humour, and robust courage, and forty years of devotion to this arduous work did not abate her zeal. She was known to the seamen as ‘Mother’ Weston, a name she earned by her solicitude for their welfare, and the mixture of indulgence and admonition in her bearing towards them. Free ‘promotion’ classes and a seamen's savings bank were among her many enterprises for their benefit. She was a good friend also to their families, and on several occasions came to the help of the dependants of those who were lost by disaster at sea, administering privately funds subscribed for their support till official pensions were awarded.
The work of the ‘Sailors' Rests’ gradually attracted public notice. Queen Victoria endowed a cabin at Devonport in 1895, and gave permission for the word ‘Royal’ to be prefixed to the name of the institution. Miss Weston received the honorary LL.D. degree of Glasgow in 1901, and was created D.B.E. in 1918. She died at Devonport 23 October 1918, and was buried there with full naval honours.
A portrait of Miss Weston was presented to the corporation of Portsmouth for the town hall by the wives of sailors in 1925.
[The Times, 24 and 28 October 1918; Agnes Weston, My Life among the Blue Jackets, 1909; Nineteenth Century, December 1916.]