The Kenney family grew up in Saddleworth, outside Oldham, in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In 1905, three of the sisters met Christabel Pankhurst, a turning point which changed the rest of their lives. Annie Kenney became one of the leaders of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), Jessie was an organiser at the heart of the organisation, and Nell campaigned outside the capital. Caroline and Jane used their connections within the suffrage movement as the springboard for careers in innovative education on both sides of the Atlantic. While working-class women are increasingly acknowledged in histories of the WSPU, this study is the first to make them the primary focus, and, in doing so, it opens up a new conversation around sex, class, and politics, and how these categories interacted in this period. This is a study of the possibilities for, and experiences of, working-class women in the militant suffrage movement. It identifies why these women became politically active, their experiences as activists, and the benefits they gained from their political work. It stresses the need to see working-class women as significant actors and autonomous agents in the suffrage campaign. It shows why and how some women became politicised, why they prioritised the vote above all else, and how this campaign came to dominate their lives. It also places the suffrage campaign within the broader trajectory of their lives to stress how far the personal and political were intertwined for these women. Although this is a book about 'working-class suffragettes', Lyndsey Jenkins also reveals what it says about women as workers and teachers, religious believers and political thinkers, and friends and colleagues, as well as suffragettes. Above all, it is a study of sisterhood.

Sisters and Sisterhood: The Kenney Family, Class, and Suffrage, 1890-1965 (Oxford Historical Monographs)

History

Jenkins, Lyndsey

Europe

Oxford University Press

Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr

Lady Constance Lytton, daughter of a Viceroy of India, seemed the most unlikely of suffragettes. Witnessing the trial of Emmeline and Christobel Pankhurst, she was converted to the cause of women's suffrage. Constance changed her life, rejected her aristocratic background, and acquired a purpose. As an activist Lytton disguised her identity to avoid privileged treatment and when arrested, and subsequently jailed, went on hunger strike, being force-fed eight times. Constance Lytton became both an inspiration and a martyr.
Lyndsey Jenkins is a political speechwriter who has written for some of the United Kingdom's most influential politicians.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Biteback Publishing

'Does full justice to the remarkable achievements of an unlikely martyr' Mail on Sunday 'A fascinating study of a handful of the potential motivations behind violent political acts through the balanced examination of a remarkable woman' All About History Lady Constance Lytton (1869-1923) was the most unlikely of suffragettes. One of the elite, she was the daughter of a Viceroy of India and a lady in waiting to the Queen. She grew up in the family home of Knebworth and in embassies around the world. For forty years, she did nothing but devote herself to her family, denying herself the love of her life and possible careers as a musician or a reviewer. Then came a chance encounter with a suffragette. Constance was intrigued; witnessing Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst on trial convinced her of the urgent necessity of votes for women and she went to prison for the cause as gleefully as any child going on a school trip. But, once jailed, Constance soon found that her name and her connections singled her out for unwelcome special treatment. By now, 1909, the suffragettes were hunger striking and the government had retaliated with force-feeding. The stories that began to leak out of bungled operations, of dirty tubes, of screams halfheard through brick walls, of straitjackets and handcuffs outraged the suffragettes. Constance decided on her most radical step yet: to go to prison in disguise. Taking the name Jane Warton, she cut her hair, put on glasses and ugly clothes and got herself arrested in Liverpool. Once in prison, she was force-fed eight times before her identity was discovered and she was released. Her case became a cause cÉlÈbre, with debate raging in The Times and questions being asked in the House of Commons. Lady Constance Lytton became an inspiration and, in the end, a martyr. In this extraordinary new biography, Lyndsey Jenkins reveals for the first time the fascinating story of the woman who abandoned a life of privilege to fight for women s rights.

Silvertail Books

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Books by Jenkins, Lyndsey