With the celebrations this year to mark 100 years of votes for women, we need to recognise the hard work and sacrifices the suffragettes made in order to achieve universal suffrage.
Annie Kenney, from Springhead, was the only senior member of the suffrage movement who came from a working class background and knew what it was like to work in the mills. She worked closely with the Pankhursts and they trusted her and, because she was an inspirational speaker, they sent her to rally the millworkers in Lancashire and Yorkshire. She also went to prison some 13 times for her beliefs and was subjected to force feeding and the notorious “Cat and Mouse” Act whereby, when the women were ill from being on hunger strike they were released from prison but as soon as they recovered they were arrested again.
However, it was to be another 10 years before the women with whom she had worked in the mills got the vote when universal suffrage was achieved in 1928.