NUWSS organizer & Lecturer

43

Married

59 St Mary's Street, Nelson, Lancashire, BB9 7AY

NUWSS

Complies

Selina Cooper (1864-1946) at the age of 11 became a half-timer in a Lancashire cotton mill, working full-time from her thirteenth birthday. In 1896 she married Robert Cooper, a cotton weaver. Their son, John Ruskin, died as a baby; their daughter Mary was born in 1900; and the family moved into 59 St Mary’s Street, Nelson ~ where all three lived for the rest of their lives.

Nelson was a hotbed of socialism, and the Coopers were drawn into the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Selina gained public speaking experience through the Women’s Cooperative Guild, and soon was collecting women cotton workers’ signatures on a suffrage petition ~ and in 1901 she accompanied the 29,359-signature petition down to Westminster. Selina was elected a Poor Law Guardian; in 1903 helped launch the Lancashire Women Textile Workers’ Representation Committee; and in 1906 organized the Nelson Suffrage Society which met in the Coopers’ small front room.

By 1911, Selina Cooper had been employed as a NUWSS organizer for five years; an excellent public speaker, she travelled round the country, supporting pro-suffrage candidates ~ like young Bertrand Russell. In June 1911, she organized the local suffragist group, now called the Clitheroe Women’s Suffrage Society, on a special train down to London for the Coronation Procession (see image, taken on Nelson Station). Then, given the betrayal by Asquith’s Liberal Government, the NUWSS made an election alliance with the Labour Party; and from 1912, Selina Cooper was heavily in demand as a speaker, travelling the country to support Labour candidates at by-elections.

From 1914, Selina Cooper, like others in the ILP, opposed the war and supported conscientious objectors. In 1924 she was appointed a JP; and in 1934 she joined a small deputation to Nazi Germany to visit four women prisoners. Selina Cooper died aged 81, and many years later, her house at 59 St Mary’s Street was commemorated with a blue plaque.

For more see, Liddington & Norris, One Hand Tied Behind Us, 1978 & 2000. Liddington, The Life & Times of a Respectable Rebel, 1984. The Selina Cooper papers are deposited with the Lancashire Record Office, Preston.