Annie Kenney, the daughter of Nelson Horatio Kenney and Anne Wood, was born at Shelderslow, Springhead a Saddleworth village in the West Riding of Yorkshire. in 1879. Annie's mother had eleven children and worked with her husband in the Oldham textile industry. When Annie reached the age of ten she began work in a local cotton mill. Soon afterwards a whirling bobbin tore off one of her fingers.
Although Annie received very little education she did develop a strong interest in literature. Annie was especially impressed by authors such as Robert Blatchford (Merrie England) and Edward Carpenter (England's Ideal). After being inspired by an article she read in Robert Blatchford's radical journal, The Clarion, Annie joined the local branch of the Independent Labour Party.
At an Independent Labour Party meeting in 1905, Annie Kenney heard Christabel Pankhurst speak on the subject of women's rights. Annie was extremely impressed with the content of the speech and the two women soon became close friends. Annie decided to join the recently formed Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
The WSPU was often accused of being an organisation that existed to serve the middle and upper classes. As Annie Kenney was one of the organizations few working class members, when the WSPU decided to open a branch in the East End of London, she was asked to leave the mill and become a full-time worker for the organisation. Annie joined Sylvia Pankhurst in London and they gradually began to persuade working-class women to join the WSPU.
On 13th October 1905, Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst attended a meeting in London to hear Sir Edward Grey, a minister in the British government. When Grey was talking, the two women constantly shouted out, "Will the Liberal Government give votes to women?" When the women refused to stop shouting, the police were called to evict them from the meeting. Pankhurst and Kenney refused to leave and during the struggle, a policeman claimed the two women kicked and spat at him. Pankhurst and Kenney were arrested and charged with assault.
Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst were found guilty of assault and fined five shillings each. When the women refused to pay the fine they were sent to prison. The case shocked the nation. For the first time in Britain women had used violence in an attempt to win the vote.
Kenney was to go to prison several times during the next nine years. When Christabel Pankhurst fled to Paris to avoid arrest in 1912, Annie was put in charge of the WSPU in London. Every week Annie travelled to Paris to receive Christabel's latest orders.
In 1913 Annie Kenney was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and like other suffragettes she went on hunger and thirst strike. Released under the provisions of the Cat and Mouse Act, she went into hiding until she was caught once again and returned to prison.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 ended Kenney's militant campaign for the vote. For the next four years she helped organize an Anti-Bolshevist campaign against strikes.
After the war Kenney lost interest in politics and for the rest of her life she devoted her energies to Theosophy. Annie Kenney died in 1953.
Forum Debates
Votes for Women
Women and Football
Men's League for Women's Suffrage
Women's History
(1) Annie Kenney was born in Lancashire in 1879. In her autobiography, Memories of a Militant, she describes her close relationship with her mother.
My mother was a wonderful woman. Her theory was: See the best in anyone and the worse will gradually fall away. Be kind to others, tolerant and sympathetic. We were never allowed in her hearing to say either unkind things about others or to abuse others in any way. She was ever ready to lend a patient ear to other people's troubles, while at the same time showing a remarkable fortitude in her own.
Our home-life was happy. Our one trouble was that we had to retire much earlier than the other children of the village… I can still see our home with its bright, roaring rosy fire, and all the children, including myself, sitting on the window-sill watching the lights of the cotton factory, a few miles away, gradually going out. Those lights were our signal to retire… On Sunday evenings mother read us stories. They all seemed to be about London life among the poor.
(2) Annie Kenney wrote about her school experiences in her autobiography, Memories of a Militant.
I went to the village school when I was five. When I was ten years of age a change came into my life. My mother announced to me that I was to work in a factory. I was to join the army of half-timers; to work in the factory half the day and attend school the other half. I received the news with mixed feelings. I was glad to escape the hated school lessons, which were a burden to me, but I had a fear of the new life. When I arrived at the factory I was met by a group of girls… who stared at me. Every new girl was critically examined by the older girls. Your clogs were examined; thick or thin made a difference; your petticoat, your pinafore, the quality, the colour, stamped you accordingly in the eyes of these girl students of ten and thirteen.
(3) Annie Kenney joined the WSPU after hearing Christabel Pankhurst and Teresa Billington speak on Women's Suffrage in Manchester in 1905.
The Oldham Trades Council invited Christabel Pankhurst and Teresa Billington to speak on Women's Suffrage. I had never heard of 'Votes for Women'. Politics did not interest me in the least. Miss Pankhurst was more hesitating, more nervous than Miss Billington. She impressed me, though. She was more impersonal and full of zeal. Miss Billington used a sledge-hammer of logic and cold reason… When the meeting was over I drifted towards Miss Pankhurst. Before I knew what I done I had promised to organize a meeting for Miss Pankhurst among factory-women of Oldham.
(4) In 1906 Annie Kenney joined Sylvia Pankhurst in London to help organize the WSPU in the area. Sylvia Pankhurst later wrote about this in her book The Suffragette Movement.
Annie Kenney had come with instructions to rouse London. It was easy for me to decide that we should follow all the popular movements by holding a meeting in Trafalgar Square… I went at once to Keir Hardie for advice. He told us to engage the Caxton Hall for our meeting, and promised to induce a friend to pay for the hall and the handbills to advertise it. The press began to hover around the house; the Daily Mail had already christened us the 'Suffragettes'.
(5) After joining the WSPU Annie Kenney moved to London to work as a full-time organizer. On one occasion she was asked to represent the WSPU at a meeting with Arthur Balfour, the leader of the Conservative Party.
Lady Balfour took me to see Arthur Balfour privately. When we arrived he asked me to tell him what I thought he could do for us. I had a long talk with him… There he sat in age armchair, his long spidery legs stretched out… He constantly sniffed at a small bottle. I wondered what it contained and thought the conversation might be upsetting him… It was time to go and he had not committed himself any more than I expected he would.
(6) Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1905. In her book My Part in a Changing World she described some of the leading personalities in the WSPU at that time.
Annie Kenney seemed to have a whole-hearted faith in the goodness of everybody that she met… Her strength lay in complete surrender of mind and soul to a single idea and to the incarnation of that idea in a single person. She was Christabel's devotee in a sense that was mystical; I mean she neither gave nor looked to receive any expression of personal tenderness: her devotion took the form of unquestioning faith and absolute obedience.
(7) The Manchester Evening Chronicle described what happened at the Liberal Party meeting at the Free Town Hall on 20th October 1905.
Miss Christabel Pankhurst and Miss Annie Kenney were ejected and later arrested for obstruction outside the building. At the police court Miss Pankhurst was fined half a guinea for assaulting the police officers by hitting them in the mouth and spitting in their faces, and five shillings for obstruction, or in default seven days. Miss Kenney was fined five shillings, or three days. Rather than pay the fine the ladies elected to undergo the imprisonment.
Miss Kenney was released on Monday morning. Miss Pankhurst period expired this morning. By seven o'clock about two hundred people had collected outside the gates of Strangeways Gaol. When Miss Christabel appeared she was hailed with a great cheer and instantly surrounded by a host of male and female admirers. The first to greet and embrace the prisoner was her mother, Miss Pankhurst. Miss Pankhurst fell into the arms of her mother, and the two wept for joy after having been parted for a whole week. As soon as she could break away from her admirers Miss Pankhurst called out, "I will go in again for the same cause. Don't forget the vote for women."
(8) In her book Memories of a Militant, Annie Kenney explained the use of the hunger strike.
In 1909 Wallace Dunlop went to prison and defied the long sentences that were being given by adopting the hunger-strike. 'Release or Death' was her motto. From that day, July 5th, 1909, the hunger-strike was the greatest weapon we possessed against the Government… before long all Suffragette prisoners were on hunger-strike, so the threat to pass long sentences on us had failed. Sentences grew shorter.
(9) Annie Kenney experienced the Cat and Mouse Act for the first time in April 1912. She explained what happened in her autobiography, Memories of a Militant.
I had as my visitors the matron, the Governor, the doctor, the clergyman, and the visiting magistrate. They all asked me to eat and drink, but nothing would tempt me. The matron, the doctor and I became good friends. The doctor was ever so kind and did his best to persuade me to have fruit, but fruit was no use to me. "I must be out in three days, doctor, or I'll die on your hands!" And the good doctor did not want a death. In three days the gates were opened… Mrs. Brackenbury lent us her house at 2 Camden Hill Square. We called it 'Mouse Castle'. All the mice went there from prison and were nursed back to health and prepared for further danger work… When I recovered I was re-arrested.
(10) Annie Kenney agreed to support the WSPU policy on the First World War. She explained her views in memories of a militant.
Orders came from Christabel Pankhurst in Paris: "The Militants, when the prisoners are released, will fight for their country as they have fought for the Vote." Mrs. Pankhurst, who was in Paris with Christabel, returned and started a recruiting campaign among the men in the country. This autocratic move was not understood or appreciated by many of our members. They were quite prepared to receive instructions about the Vote, but they were not going to be told what they were to do in a world war.
(11) In her book Memories of a Militant, Annie Kenney described the proposals to give women the vote.
In 1917 the question of granting the vote to women was discussed in Parliament. It was admitted by friend and foe that British women had played and were playing a unique part in the war… There was great rejoicing among all sections of women. What a relief to think that once peace was declared abroad peace on a modest scale would be declared at home. The agitation was at last drawing to a close…On February 6th, 1918, Royal assent was given to the "Representation of the People Act." Women were voters. And so my Suffrage pilgrimage was ended… I left the Movement, financially, as I joined it, penniless. Though I had no money I had reaped a rich harvest of joy, laughter, romance, companionship, and experience that no money can buy.
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