14 Annie Kenney’s Bristol and Mary Blathwayt’s Bath
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Jill Liddington
Abstract
Bristol was the city where regional WSPU organizer Annie Kenney was based; further out, the elegant spa towns of Baths and Cheltenham were suffrage strongholds. And just outside Bath in imposing Eagle House lived suffragette Mary Blathwayt and her parents. All three Blathwayts wrote daily diaries, offering a rare foot-soldiers’ view of census weekend. Mary herself joined the mass evasion at Lansdown Crescent in Bath, organized by the WSPU. Back at Eagle House, her parents complied with the census ~ and her mother's diary is a rare account of a woman complier. The most daring evader in the Bristol region was Lillian Dove-Willcox, who headed south-west into rural Wiltshire. She spent the night in a caravan somewhere near Salisbury Plain. Her evasion went up from the local enumerator, to the registrar and right up to the top Whitehall civil servant. Meanwhile in Bristol itself, Annie Kenney talked up the census boycott to the local press. She even boated of a caravan, turned into an ‘ark of refuge from the flood of census questions’, driving over Clifton Suspension Bridge. But what does the evidence of the Bristol census schedules tell us now about the real extent of the boycott across the city?
Abstract
Bristol was the city where regional WSPU organizer Annie Kenney was based; further out, the elegant spa towns of Baths and Cheltenham were suffrage strongholds. And just outside Bath in imposing Eagle House lived suffragette Mary Blathwayt and her parents. All three Blathwayts wrote daily diaries, offering a rare foot-soldiers’ view of census weekend. Mary herself joined the mass evasion at Lansdown Crescent in Bath, organized by the WSPU. Back at Eagle House, her parents complied with the census ~ and her mother's diary is a rare account of a woman complier. The most daring evader in the Bristol region was Lillian Dove-Willcox, who headed south-west into rural Wiltshire. She spent the night in a caravan somewhere near Salisbury Plain. Her evasion went up from the local enumerator, to the registrar and right up to the top Whitehall civil servant. Meanwhile in Bristol itself, Annie Kenney talked up the census boycott to the local press. She even boated of a caravan, turned into an ‘ark of refuge from the flood of census questions’, driving over Clifton Suspension Bridge. But what does the evidence of the Bristol census schedules tell us now about the real extent of the boycott across the city?
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents 237
- List of maps vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgements xi
- List of abbreviations xiii
- Chronology xiv
- Introduction 1
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Part I Prelude: people and their politics
- 1 Charlotte Despard and John Burns, the Colossus of Battersea 13
- 2 Muriel Matters goes vanning it with Asquith 24
- 3 Propaganda culture 36
- 4 Parallel politics 48
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Part II Narrative: October 1909 to April 1911
- 5 Plotting across central London 63
- 6 The battle for John Burns’s Battersea revisited 71
- 7 The Census Bill and the boycott plan 78
- 8 Lloyd George goes a-wooing versus Burns’s ‘vixens in velvet’ 86
- 9 The King’s Speech 97
- 10 Battleground for democracy 108
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Part III Census night: places and spaces
- 11 Emily Wilding Davison’s Westminster – and beyond 125
- 12 The Nevinsons’ Hampstead – and central London entertainments 132
- 13 Laurence Housman’s Kensington, with Clemence in Dorset 145
- 14 Annie Kenney’s Bristol and Mary Blathwayt’s Bath 154
- 15 Jessie Stephenson’s Manchester and Hannah Mitchell’s Oldham Road 169
- 16 English journey 183
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Part IV The census and beyond
- 17 After census night 197
- 18 Telling the story 209
- 19 Sources and their analysis 219
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Front matter
- Contents 237
- Introduction 239
- Abbreviations 242
- Key mass evasions 243
- London boroughs and Middlesex 245
- Midlands 300
- Southern England 333
- Northern England 342
- Notes 363
- Select bibliography 389
- Index 395
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents 237
- List of maps vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgements xi
- List of abbreviations xiii
- Chronology xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Part I Prelude: people and their politics
- 1 Charlotte Despard and John Burns, the Colossus of Battersea 13
- 2 Muriel Matters goes vanning it with Asquith 24
- 3 Propaganda culture 36
- 4 Parallel politics 48
-
Part II Narrative: October 1909 to April 1911
- 5 Plotting across central London 63
- 6 The battle for John Burns’s Battersea revisited 71
- 7 The Census Bill and the boycott plan 78
- 8 Lloyd George goes a-wooing versus Burns’s ‘vixens in velvet’ 86
- 9 The King’s Speech 97
- 10 Battleground for democracy 108
-
Part III Census night: places and spaces
- 11 Emily Wilding Davison’s Westminster – and beyond 125
- 12 The Nevinsons’ Hampstead – and central London entertainments 132
- 13 Laurence Housman’s Kensington, with Clemence in Dorset 145
- 14 Annie Kenney’s Bristol and Mary Blathwayt’s Bath 154
- 15 Jessie Stephenson’s Manchester and Hannah Mitchell’s Oldham Road 169
- 16 English journey 183
-
Part IV The census and beyond
- 17 After census night 197
- 18 Telling the story 209
- 19 Sources and their analysis 219
-
Front matter
- Contents 237
- Introduction 239
- Abbreviations 242
- Key mass evasions 243
- London boroughs and Middlesex 245
- Midlands 300
- Southern England 333
- Northern England 342
- Notes 363
- Select bibliography 389
- Index 395
