Biographies

Mary Gawthorpe

Mary Gawthorpe, the daughter of a leather worker in Leeds, was born in 1881. Annie Gawthorpe had done well at school but her family was extremely poor so from the age of ten had to work in the local textile mill. Annie Gawthorpe had wanted to be a teacher and she was determined to make sure her daughter finished her education. At the age of thirteen Mary became a pupil teacher in the local Church of England school. Annie wanted her daughter to go to college but family finances meant that this was not possible. Instead, Mary worked during the day and studied in the evening and at weekends. Mary qualified as a schoolteacher just before her twenty-first birthday.

In 1901 Mary became friendly with Tom Garrs, a compositor on the Yorkshire Post. Tom was an active member of the Independent Labour Party and Mary began going to meetings with him. Mary Gawthorpe became converted to socialism and she soon developed a reputation as an extremely good public speaker. Mary also became a leading figure in the Leeds branch of the National Union of Teachers.

Mary Gawthorpe was a strong supporter of women's rights and with the help of her friend, Isabella Ford, formed a Leeds branch of the Nation Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Mary was also active in the Women's Labour League. However, Mary gradually became disillusioned with the Labour Party's failure to organise men to help win the vote for women. In February 1906, Mary met Christabel Pankhurst after she spoke at a meeting in Leeds. Christabel told Mary that: "The further one goes the plainer one sees that men (even Labour men) think more of their own interests than of ours."

Mary joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in October 1905 after reading about the arrest and imprisonment of Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney in Manchester. Tom Garrs disagreed with the militant activities of the WSPU and as a result of this disagreement, the couple parted. In 1906 Mary gave up her job as a teacher and became the full-time organiser of the WSPU in Leeds. Mary Gawthorpe became one of the WSPU's main speakers at rallies and demonstrations. In 1908 she was one of the speakers at a rally at Hyde Park that attracted a crowd of over 250,000. She also organised another successful rally at Heaton Park in Manchester that drew over 150,000 people.

In 1909 Mary Gawthorpe heckled a speech given by Winston Churchill. Mary was badly beaten by stewards at the meeting and suffered severe internal injuries. Mary was also imprisoned several times while working for the WSPU. Hunger strikes and force-feeding badly damaged her health and in 1912 she had to abandon her active involvement in the movement.

For a while Mary worked as co-editor of the feminist journal, The Freewoman. The journal caused a storm when it advocated free love and encouraged women not to get married. The Freewoman also wrote sympathetically about homosexuality and suggested communal childcare and co-operative housekeeping. Mary's health continued to deteriorate and by May 1912, her health was so bad she was unable to continue working as co-editor of The Freewoman.

Mary Gawthorpe's health gradually recovered and in 1916 she emigrated to the United States. She soon became active in the New York Woman Suffrage Party. After American women won the vote, Mary became involved in the trade union movement and eventually became a full-time official of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union. Mary Gawthorpe died in 1971.

Biographical Links

Christabel Pankhurst
Isabella Ford
Constance Lytton

Source Database

10.5
16.8
18.4

Internet Links

Library of Congress: North American Suffrage Collection
http://lcweb2.loc/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html

Further Reading

Mary Gawthorpe, Uphill to Holloway, Traversity Press (1962)
Sandra Holton, Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women's Suffrage Movement, Routledge, (1996)

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