Huddersfield Suffrage Walks

Walking with suffrage in Huddersfield Huddersfield Station, St George’s Square By Jill Liddington WALK A 2 The Market Cross, Market hough smaller than Leeds Place or Bradford, Huddersfield Huddersfield is perhaps Yorkshire’s most Town Centre Among those heading for T Huddersfield in 1906 was Emmeline remarkable centre for suffrage history. With two hotly-fought Pankhurst. In her Manchester home Huddersfield Station, St three years previously she had formed a local by-elections in 1906-7, 1 George’s Square small, new suffrage group, the Women’s Huddersfield suffragettes were Social and Political Union (WSPU). regularly in the national news. Our walk begins at the station’s The WSPU had recently captured Alongside, an older-established impressive forecourt, its monumental newspaper headlines – interrupting suffragist organisation (which façade little changed since it was politicians by shouting their ‘Votes completed in 1850. Its magnificence for Women’ demands. This suffragette differed from the suffragettes reminds travellers of Huddersfield’s militancy, directed particularly at in using only constitutional prosperity among West Riding’s the Liberal Government, resulted in tactics) showed remarkable textile centres. By the early 1900s, the severe prison sentences. In October creativity and a talent for town centre was packed with great international networking. stone-built commercial offices and warehouses. In mills on the outskirts Now, a century later, we can walk long wool fibres were spun into yarn their streets, pace their neighbourhoods, which was then woven by women into visit their houses. Our first walk (A), a worsted and woollen cloth – often short circular route, takes us to the tweeds to be sewn into ready-made suffragettes’ campaigning locations suits and coats in nearby Leeds. in Huddersfield town centre itself. Huddersfield was a strongly The second walk (B) is a longer linear Liberal town, returning a Liberal MP, route, leading us out of the town and Sir James Woodhouse, in the January up into the industrialised Colne Valley, 1906 General Election when a new following the canal as it climbs through Liberal Government swept into power. the countryside into the Pennines. Every politician travelling up from Westminster, every visiting speaker arriving at this railway station, crossed its forecourt to reach the town centre. 22 HerStoria magazine Autumn 2009 Market Cross, www.herstoria.com Market Square 1906, after a demonstration in the book, kept in the family sideboard for House of Commons lobby, a dozen decades, was only deposited very suffragettes—including Oldham mill recently by the granddaughter of Edith worker Annie Kenney—had been Key. Edith was branch secretary (see sent to prison for two months. Bradford Road, below) and a highly In November, Sir James Woodhouse efficient business woman. Edith’s MP was appointed as a Railway minute book opens with a meeting held Commissioner. A by-election was called, on Tuesday 14 May 1907, and includes and all eyes turned to Huddersfield. her annual report 1907-8. Suffragettes spotted a golden opportunity for political propaganda. Huddersfield Town Hall Emmeline Pankhurst was among the first to arrive; she spoke that Their aim was to found a WSPU night from the town’s ancient market branch in this key Yorkshire town. cross (still there, even if the Market Emmeline proclaimed: ‘Women Place streetscape has altered). As this went to prison… and will continue was a Government that locked up to go to prison until the Liberal women merely for demanding the party is compelled to carry the vote, she stated angrily, the WSPU principle it professes, and to would oppose all Liberal candidates. enfranchise women of this country.’ Other suffragettes also arrived, Adela proposed the women’s chalking the pavements and bill-posting citizenship resolution, and Annie the town. The Government panicked Kenney urged ‘young women of the – and sprang the early release of the town to… join the movement’—all imprisoned suffragettes. This was a to applause. At the end of the propaganda gift for the WSPU. Annie meeting no fewer than fifty local Kenney and others freed from Holloway women put their names forward. jumped straight on a train, sped north The Huddersfield WSPU branch was and exploded into the by-election. formed and soon emerged as one A crowd of 4,000 gathered of the most energetic in the country. outside Huddersfield station to So who were the local members? greet the released suffragettes, to the delight of the popular press and 4 Huddersfield Library and news photographers. Yet polling Archives Edith Key’s annual report 1907‑8, day with its all-male electorate still Huddersfield WSPU branch. West resulted in yet another Liberal victory. Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS) However, suffragettes, buoyed up by Clarion Club rooms, 27 their by-election experience, gained 5 new local recruits in the town. Albion Street Edith Key’s WSPU minute book Walking: A few minutes carefully lists where the branch held its along pedestrianised New Street meetings, including open-air venues brings us to the Town Hall. such as the Market Cross and St George’s Square. One of the favourite meeting 3 Huddersfield Town Hall places was just above the Town Hall on Albion Street. Sadly, this street was The late-Victorian town hall might Just below the Town Hall, Huddersfield completely rebuilt in the late-1960s. lack the spacious grandeur of the earlier Library (opened in 1937) houses key Number 27 was the site of the station façade, but its interior certainly evidence about Votes for Women Clarion Club rooms, named after the impresses. In December 1906 Emmeline campaigners. The excellent Local Studies Clarion, a popular labour movement Pankhurst returned to the town and Library includes street directories and paper, reminding how close the addressed a meeting in its large hall. local newspapers, plus the links were between the early WSPU She was accompanied by the full WSPU autobiography of Colne Valley suffragist and labour politics. In her minute panoply, including Annie Kenney Florence Lockwood (see Walk B). In an book, Edith Key also kept a list of and Emmeline’s youngest daughter, adjoining room, Kirklees Archives holds WSPU members and their addresses twenty-one year old Adela Pankhurst. not only Florence Lockwood’s so we know a great deal about the manuscript diaries 1914-8, but also an early WSPU suffragettes and can extremely rare minute book which has visit their neighbourhoods. We will rather miraculously survived and which go and look at the house of two key records the early years of Huddersfield branch members, pausing on the WSPU branch.This handwritten minute HerStoria magazine Autumn 2009 23 Huddersfield’s older buildings often feature attractive and enigmatic decorations such as this one old Dora Thewlis. Her mother Eliza weaver in a local mill and earning nearly Thewlis was a key member of the £1 a week. Her mother Eliza had joined WSPU branch, and a ten-minute walk the WSPU branch and Dora followed her. takes us to their family house. Then, in March 1907, the WSPU invited women to march on Parliament. Walking: at the foot of Ten Huddersfield women decided to go, Northumberland St cross the dual including Dora. But in the scrimmage, carriageway and turn left along a handful of local suffragettes were this main road (which becomes arrested, including Dora, the youngest. Northgate). Pass under the viaduct She was remanded in Holloway and into Bradford Rd, then branch right the magistrate wrote to her mother into Alder Street, towards an open and father, both of whom remained space with a small playground. unrepentant. But Dora found her photograph on the front page of the Hebble Street and Alder Daily Mirror, and herself dubbed ‘Baby 7 Street area suffragette’. She was sent home in the care of an elderly wardress. Dora’s At last, we have left behind all the notoriety did not end there; the image way to look at another WSPU venue. town-centre rebuilding and entered of her arrest was turned into a picture a neighbourhood that Edwardian postcard—albeit inaccurately labelled— Walking: this is a five-minute walk – suffragettes would recognise. It was in by a firm seeing popular interest in over Kirkgate, alongside the churchyard, stone-terraced streets like these that suffragettes as a marketing opportunity. to the foot of Northumberland Street. most Huddersfield WSPU members lived. The branch sprang from such Huddersfield Friendly and tightly-knit textile communities, here 6 Trades Club, sandwiched between trams going Northumberland Street up busy Bradford Road, the noisy railway viaduct and beyond it the canal dotted with woollen mills. Among such a ‘nest of suffragettes’, women could pop round to see a neighbour or could discuss a political emergency in the open space between the rows of houses. Hawthorn Terrace is further down Alder Street, third terrace from the end. 8 29 Hawthorne Terrace This Victorian building might now be designated ‘Creative Lofts’, but its stone inscription proclaims it as ‘Mechanics Institution’ and by the turn-of-the- century it was the Friendly and Trades Club. The WSPU branch meetings were occasionally held here, and the issue of affiliation to the Club was discussed by members. But questions of party Dora Thewlis postcard (Shamrock). political allegiance proved vexatious. The WSPU in Huddersfield might have Walking: from Hawthorne Terrace, strong labour movement links, but walk down Calton Street back to the suffragettes valued highly their junction with Bradford Road, and the row independence. Hawthorne Terrace still provides family of nine shops built in the 1880s. Second An even trickier issue erupted in spring accommodation, just as it did a century shop on the left (now a Caribbean café) 1907. WSPU marches to Parliament led to ago. In one of the central houses lived was the home of Edith Key, WSPU branch mass arrests, including those of a number the Thewlises, a family who had secretary.

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