Swindon in the Past Lane

Edith travelled the country in her role as an organiser in the Women’s Social and Political Union and in February 1909 she was on the campaign trail at a by-election in the Scottish border town of Hawick. The by-election was called following the resignation of the Rt Hon Thomas Shaw who had held the Border Burghs seat since 1892, beating his Liberal Unionist opponent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, at the 1906 General Election. On Friday, February 26, 1909 the Hawick News reported the presence of the campaigning women in Hawick as a ‘novelty.’ The newspaper was slightly less patronising in its description of Edith ‘a lady of attractive personality, an eloquent speaker, and has the knack of keeping herself on the best of terms with her audiences.’ As was the usual practice the women had set up a temporary campaign headquarters in a shop in the High Street from which they sold their political literature, encouraging voters to vote against the Liberal cand...

In July 2015 the first publicity material was released for a new film called Suffragette. The fight for female enfranchisement had ended in 1928 when the final restrictions were removed and all women over the age of 21 received the vote; yet this is the first time the story has been told on the cinema screen. Early publicity included a trailer  and posters of the lead characters - Meryl Streep, who plays a cameo role as Emmeline Pankhurst; Carey Mulligan as Maud, a ficitional character central to the story line and Helena Bonham Carter as Edith New. Regular readers of this blog and the local history magazine Swindon Heritage will know that Edith New was born in Swindon. She grew up in Old Town and taught at Queenstown Infants' School. In 1901 she moved to London to teach at Calvert Road School in the tough dockland area of East Greenwich. Emmeline Pankhurst with her daughter Christabel formed the Women's Social and Political Union at their Manchester home in 1903. The cha...