None given

51

Married

12 Nicoll Road, Willesden

WSPU

Evades

Eleanor Penn Gaskell (c.1860-1937) was honorary secretary of the Willesden branch of the London Society for Women's Suffrage affiliated with the law-abiding National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). However, from 1908, she began subscribing to the Women’s Social and Political union (WSPU) and was arrested in 1908 for causing a disruption in Piccadilly Circus when distributing leaflets. In January 1910, a shop and office for the Northwest London branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was opened at 215 High Road Kilburn and managed by Eleanor. In 1911, when the government ordered all households to comply with the census, like numerous supporters of votes for women belonging to the WSPU she decided as an act of civil disobedience not to participate. Eleanor and her husband provided a 'hide out' at their home in 12 Nicoll Road, Willesden, for suffrage supporters who wished to illegally avoid completing the government census survey by staying away from their own homes on census night when officials came to collect. How many stayed there is unclear. George Gaskell, Eleanor's husband, was the only named person on the census for their address in Willesden, and he wrote on the census form (see image): “A number of women suffragists spent the night of 2nd April (census night) in my house. As members of a disenfranchised sex, they object to giving any particulars concerning themselves for the purpose of enumeration under a census act in the framing of which their sex has had no voice. They base their objection upon the principle that government should rest upon the consent of the governed, and as I myself uphold this democratic principle I do not feel justified in filling up any particulars concerning them against their will.” The Penn-Gaskell house was also where (see) Emily Wilding Davison was nursed back to health in June 1912 after hunger striking, being forcibly fed, and injuring herself in Holloway. Eleanor continued campaigning with the WSPU until 1915 when it dropped campaigning for the vote for ‘other purposes outside the scope of the Union’ and failed to publish its accounts. Eleanor then became a member of the breakaway Suffragettes of the WSPU. Sources: Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928 (London: Routledge, 1999); www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/1891/mrs-eleanor-charlotte-penn-gaskell; Dick Weindling at www.kilburnandwillesdenhistory.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-suffragettes-in-kilburn.html. Contributed by Alison Harman, Local history researcher and volunteer at Brent Museum and Archives.