Page "CTC (cycling)" Paragraph 22

In 1898 CTC became embroiled in a court case to defend a member denied what she thought adequate service at a hotel carrying the club's badge.

Florence Wallace Pomeroy, Lady Harberton ( 1843 – 1911 ) of Cromwell Road, Kensington — wife of James Pomeroy, 6th Viscount Harberton and president of the Western Rational Dress Society — cycled on the morning of 27 October 1898 to have lunch at the Hautboy Hotel in Ockham, Surrey.

Her campaigning for society to accept that women could wear " rational " dress on a bicycle and not ankle-length dresses led her to wear a jacket and a pair of long and baggy trousers which came together just above the ankle.

She walked into the coffee room and asked to be served.

The landlady, a Mrs Martha Sprague, showed her instead into the bar parlour.

CTC went into action, mounting a prosecution for " refusing food to a traveller ".

The landlady was acquitted and CTC lost the unusually large amount of money it had allotted to the case, which had been considered at the root of cyclists ' rights and the values of CTC.