Suffragette

31

Single

9 Whatley Rd, Clifton, Bristol BS8 2PS

WSPU

Resists

Annie Kenney was born to Ann Wood and Horatio Kenney in Lancashire in 1879. Three of her sisters, Jessie, Jane and Nell, were also involved in the suffrage movement. She began part-time work in a mill at 10 years old, meaning the image of her as a suffragette mill girl was often used in campaign propaganda to appeal to working class women. After the sudden death of her mother in 1905, she was invited with her sisters to the spring meeting of the Oldham Trades Council, which was focused on the suffrage movement led by Christabel Pankhurst and Teresa Billington. After attending, Annie promised to set up a meeting with other factory women in Oldham and Leeds. On the 13th of October 1905, Annie was arrested with Christabel Pankhurst at a Liberal party meeting held by Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey in Manchester. Annie had asked if the Liberals would make Women’s suffrage a government measure, and the pair were removed from the meeting forcibly without getting a reply. Annie was charged with obstruction, and the two refused to pay the fine. instead, being imprisoned due to the publicity it could create. Annie was imprisoned for 3 days before being released. This was one of the first arrests for militancy under the suffrage movement. Her actions led to her being invited to travel to London with Teresa Billington and to pose her question to Sir Edward Grey again. The money for her was raised by raffling a picture of Sylvia Pankhurst and a social gathering of the Manchester Labour Party. She asked Sir Edward Grey again, and when he didn’t reply she interrupted his speech, leading to her being evicted from Albert Hall. Annie helped set up the first WSPU meeting in London, approaching Keir Hardie, W.T. Stead and Isabella Ford to rent out Caxton Hall. Despite her working-class background, Annie was effective at winning over wealthy women to the cause, both Lady Carlisle and Clara Modran were won over by her appeal. The future treasurer Emeline Pethick-Lawrence was also won over by Kenney. On the 9th of March 1906, Annie marched, with Irene Fenwick Miller, Flora Drummond and a group of other suffragettes to 10 Downing Street. They demanded to see the Prime Minister and clung to the railings and door knocker, although the police were called, the Prime Minister didn’t press charges. Annie was arrested a second time in June 1906 after leading a deputation alongside Adelaide Knight and Minnie Baldock outside Henry Asquith’s house. She was imprisoned for 6 weeks, and upon her release, she did a lecture around Yorkshire and Lancashire. After the success of the first women’s parliament in February 1907, she went back to Lancashire with fellow suffragette Adela Pankhurst to mobilise female textile workers. Many of these women travelled to London for the second women's parliament in March, and 75 of them were arrested outside parliament. Annie was made WSPU Organiser in 1907, being paid £2 a week. On her arrival, she was helped by Bristol suffragettes Anna Maria and Mary Priestman (see map) among others. She spoke at the first WSPU meeting in Bath hosted by Mary Blathwayt, with whom she was close friends and stayed with on many occasions. Mary Blathwayt and Christabel Pankhurst were both heavily influenced by Kenney. Annie resisted the 1911 census while living in Bristol, citing her occupation as a suffragette and refusing to provide any more information. She claimed to have housed a large group of resistors, but the evidence makes this uncertain. After the window-smashing campaign in 1912 that led to Christabel fleeing to France due to warrants being out for the WSPU leaders, Kenney became the surrogate leader, regularly travelling to France each weekend. This continued until she was arrested in April 1913 for inciting a riot. She was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment but was released under the Cat and Mouse Act due to her hunger strike. This led to a recurring pattern of re-arrests, hunger strikes and releases. In August 1913, her frail state after a hunger strike was used by the WSPU as she was brought to meetings on stretchers. After this event, she evaded until she tried to seek sanctuary with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who refused. After this and until the outbreak of war, she evaded the police before leaving for America to help suffrage campaigns in Dakota, Montana and Nevada. Throughout the war, she supported multiple Pankhurst campaigns before resigning in 1918 from helping the Pankhursts after Christabel's failed election campaign. She married John Taylor in 1920, whom she met on the Isle of Arran. They had a son, Warwick Kenney Taylor, in 1921, and Annie resigned from the suffrage movement to live a quiet domestic life dedicated to caring for her son. She died in 1952, aged 73. In 2018, a statue of Kenney was erected in Oldham to honour her pivotal role in the movement. Sources: Liddington, Jill, Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship and the Battle for the Census Manchester, 2014); Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 18661928 (London, 1999); News, BBC. 2018. ‘Annie Kenney: Statue to Mark “Overlooked” Suffragette’, BBC News <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-45918651> [accessed 9 June 2025]; Coughlan, Sean. 2018. ‘Imprisoned Suffragette Letter Discovered’, BBC News <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45576262> [accessed 9 June 2025]. Contributed by Becca Aspden, URSS student researcher, History Dept., Warwick University.