Swindon in the Past Lane

Today marks the anniversary of Emmeline Pankhurst's birthday, although the date is still up for debate. Emmeline always celebrated her birthday on July 14 aligning her arrival with that other revolutionary happening, Bastille Day. It is more generally accepted that she was born in Manchester on July 15, 1858, the second of Robert and Jane Goulden's ten children. Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline's involvement in socialist politics began in the 1890s when she joined the fledgling Independent Labour Park with her husband Richard Pankhurst. Her conviction that the only way women could improve their situation, still very much one of subordination to men across every stratum of society, was to campaign for the parliament vote. In 1903 the widowed Emmeline and her daughter Christabel founded the Women's Social and Political Union in Manchester and three years later moved their organisation down to headquarters in London. Mrs Pankhurst under police escort On May 19...

About forty people joined the Swindon Suffragette team on a guided walk around Old Town today visiting the places significant to Edith New, the Swindon born suffragette, who was the first to to chain herself to railings and to break windows at 10 Downing Street as a means of protest in the Votes for Women campaign. Following her release from Holloway prison in August 1908, Edith returned to Swindon to recuperate from her ordeal.  She stayed with her mother at 29 Lethbridge Road where a reporter from the Swindon Advertiser visited her and the following account was published in the newspaper. Swindon Advertiser Monday, September 7, 1908. Votes For Women Miss Edith New in Swindon The Active Suffragist interviewed Swindon to be visited Miss Edith New, whose name has been so prominently before the public in connection with the votes for women campaign, and who is a native of Swindon, has been taking a well earned rest in the railway town during the past fe...

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...

In 1906 the suffragette campaign entered its most violent phase. Over 500 women had been imprisoned by 1909 and right up there among the militant activists was a Swindon schoolteacher. Edith Bessie New was born 17th March, 1877 at 24 North Street, Swindon, the fourth of Frederic and Isabelle New's five children. Frederic worked as a railway clerk at the GWR Works and Isabelle was a music teacher. An assistant mistress at Queenstown Infant School from 1899-1901, Edith subsequently left her Swindon home to teach in the deprived areas of Deptford and Lewisham. It was after hearing the charismatic Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a meeting in Trafalgar Square that Edith joined the Women's Social and Political Union. In February 1907 a deputation of suffragettes marched on the House of Commons in protest at the omission of votes for women from the King's speech. What had begun as a peaceful demonstration ended in a violent confrontation with police. Edith was among those arr...

Debt collecting might not be an obvious career choice for genteel ladies but by 1915 the old social order was on the way out as women took to the streets demanding equality and the vote. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst established the Women’s Social and Political Union at her home in Nelson Street, Manchester and at Oxford House, 57 Victoria Road, Swindon three sisters established their own financial business. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales set up in 1880, discussed admitting females in 1895.  However it would be 1919 before the first woman became a member. Rosa, Mabel and Florence Clarke were three of William Clarke’s four daughters. At the time of the 1881 census the family lived at 17 Wellington Street.  William worked as an Iron Turner in the GWR Works, but he was an ambitious, intelligent and determined young man. Ten years later William had moved his family up the social ladder and up the hill to a house in Victoria Road where he ...