KP/AK - Annie Kenney

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Annie Kenney

1889-1974

Kenney, Annie, 1879-1953Ann (Annie) Kenney (1879-1953) was the fifth of the 12 children of Horatio Nelson Kenney and Ann Wood, and their fourth daughter. She and all but two of her siblings were born at Springhead, Yorkshire. At the age of 10 Annie started work as a cotton-mill operative. In 1905 she was recruited to the cause of women's suffrage after hearing Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters addressing an open-air meeting in Manchester, and on 13th October 1905 she accompanied Christabel Pankhurst to an election meeting in Manchester Free Trade Hall. The pair heckled the speaker, Sir Edward Grey, were evicted, and conducted an impromptu meeting in the street. They were arrested and imprisoned, Annie for three days, and Christabel for seven. Thereafter Annie Kenney was a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the organisation founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903.

Annie supported Christabel Pankhurst's policy of militant action, served several terms of imprisonment, went on hunger and thirst strike, and endured forcible feeding. After the imprisonment of Emmeline Pankhurst and other WSPU leaders in 1912, and Christabel's escape to France, Annie took over the London end of the organisation of the WSPU. At the outbreak of World War I and the suspension of militant action by the WSPU, Annie was an active supporter of the government and in particular its policy of mobilising women.

When limited suffrage was extended to women in 1918, Annie withdrew almost entirely from active politics; she was physically and mentally exhausted. While recuperating in Scotland in August 1918, she met James Taylor, whom she married in April 1920. For most of the period 1918-1920 she was occupied with writing her own account of her life as a suffragette, published as Memories of a Militant in 1924. In February 1921 Annie gave birth to her only child, a son, Warwick Kenney-Taylor. In 1923 the Taylor family moved from London to Letchworth.

In October1932 Annie developed what she described as "my serious illness" [diabetes] and thereafter did not enjoy good health. In 1953 she suffered a stroke and died on 9 July. Her funeral was conducted according to the rites of the Rosicrucian Order and her ashes were scattered by her family on Saddleworth Moor.