Annie Kenney, WSPU Bristol, 1907 – 11 - Bristol and the Suffragettes (Totterdown)

by the St Luke's Heritage Group for Futures Past

Bristol and the Suffragettes (Totterdown)

Much of the action here seems to have taken place away from south Bristol. Certainly, there was plenty of drama in and around Clifton - sports pavilions and the WSPU HQ being burnt to the ground. But, apart from one minor skirmish at the YMCA, there seems to be nothing of real note down this way. What is more the case, is anti-rhetoric by vocal and local politicians such as Charles Rose Perrett.

However, Bristol had the extraordinary Annie Kenney, albeit for 4 years. She was the beating heart of the movement. Sent here to establish the Bristol branch of the WSPU in 1907, as 3 of the 4 local MPs were Liberal and were to be pressurized.

She was from a ‘blue collar’ background and, unlike most of the drivers of the WSPU, was not University educated or ‘middle class’. She worked in Lancashire cotton mills from the age of 10 (she lost one of her fingers as a child ‘piecer’) and rose to become central to the movement and was instrumental in negotiating the 1918 voting reform bill. She endured incredible hardships in prison and went on hunger strikes, (for which, her husband later attributed a shortening of her life).

Annie Kenney, WSPU Bristol, 1907 – 11

Arrest of Annie Kenney

Asquith’s Prisoners Welcome

Annie Kenney at a reception in the Queens Hotel Bristol,

March 1909.

Held in honour of Ellen Pitman and Mary Allen (centre right of Kenney, holding their bouquets), just released from Holloway prison after serving one month. They were two of the

five women who met Winston Churchill at Temple Meads with fellow protester, Theresa Garnett who, allegedly, horsewhipped Churchill.