Not given

46

Married

490 Barking Road, London

WSPU

Evades

Lucy Minnie Baldock was a working-class suffrage campaigner and member of the WSPU. Her activism was closely connected to the concerns of working-class women in East London. She was born Minnie Rogers into a poor family in Bow, East London. She worked in the hard conditions of a factory from a young age to support herself. In the 1880s, Minnie met and married Harry Baldock and they had two sons. They joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and supported the struggle for women’s suffrage. She became an activist for working-class causes and organised working women like herself to campaign. In 1903 she organised a meeting to protest the low wages that West Ham Council proposed to pay women working in its tramway department. In 1905, she stood as a candidate for election to the West Ham Board of Guardians. In 1906, Minnie was chairwoman of the Unemployed Women of Southwest Ham (UWSWH) group and organised for WSPU member Annie Kenney speak to them. As a result, the UWSWH voted to become the Canning Town branch of the WSPU – the very first branch in London. Her increasing involvement in militant suffrage campaigning led to her arrest on 23 October 1906 for disorderly conduct in Old Palace Yard at Westminster during the opening of Parliament. After refusing to be bound over, she was sentenced to two months imprisonment. By 1907, the WSPU was increasingly attempting to attract wealthier middle-class supporters, while Baldock was used to articulate the demand of respectable working-class women for the vote. She became an active speaker for the movement and during the January 1910 general election spoke at campaign meetings across London. She once used a megaphone to repeatedly shout out about votes for women in Parliament Square. Minnie’s imprisonments put a financial strain on her family, and wealthier women sent money to her husband to help. Harry was very supportive of Minnie, saying at a WSPU meeting in Hyde Park that ‘I am proud to be the husband of such a woman… and I glory in her courage.’ Baldock continued working for the WSPU into 1911 and was among the suffragettes who boycotted the 1911 census survey while living at 490 Barking Road. Her main period of WSPU activism came to an end in July 1911 when she became seriously ill with cancer and underwent an operation at the New Hospital for Women. Her involvement did not end immediately however, as she was still receiving requests to speak at suffrage meetings in mid-1912. She continued to be a supporter of and advocate for women’s rights until her death in 1954. Sources: E. Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide (London); Spartacus Educational; The Women's Library at LSE. Contributed by Elizabeth Von Valtenberg, undergraduate history researcher, University of Warwick.