KP/JK/4/3/1 - Scrapbook

KP/JK/4/3/1

Item

Scrapbook

1 Scrapbook

This scrapbook containing newspaper clippings was found among Jessie Kenney’s papers. Included is a newspaper clipping from 26/5/1966 of Bernard Levin’s column for the Daily Mail. In it, he writes about the popular success of the Home Secretary Mr. Roy Jenkins’s prison reforms. More specifically this refers to the direction sent to Prison Department’s institutions for women and girls to be referred to either by given name and surname or the prefix “Miss” or “Mrs” followed by the surname, instead of just by their surname as had been the case until that point. “Why is this not only praise-worthy, but important?”, writes Levin, “Because people in prison are human beings”. Jessie records her own feelings on the subject in handwriting, recalling her time spent as a suffragette prisoner. “Re my own imprisonment in Holloway [. . .] I was No.2 other women were treated the same way. Had we been murderers or bank breakers we could not have been treated worse. We lost our identity.”

A digital copy of the cover and one double spread can be seen at Suffragette Stories: https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/items/show/84