Suffragettes of Kent

Book excerpt: A thought-provoking insight into the stories of hope, determination, courage and sacrifice of those involved in the women’s suffrage movement in Kent. Discover an untold story of a young working-class Kent maid involved in the suffrage movement. See photographs of Ethel and learn of her arrest and imprisonment in March 1912 for participating in the window-smashing militant action. The 1908 Women’s Freedom League and the 1913 Women’s Social and Political Union tours of Kent are retraced, their messages and the Kent inhabitants’ reactions explored. Details are included of Kent’s involvement in the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies’ mass pilgrimage from all parts of the country to London in 1913. Revealing the part Maidstone Gaol played in forcible feeding of suffragette prisoners the book includes an account written by the gaol’s lead medical man. The many links between national suffrage movement leaders and pioneers and Kent are included in accounts of the visits, speeches and actions of Charlotte Despard, Emmeline Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Emily Wilding Davison and Millicent Fawcett. Discover who was imprisoned in Maidstone Gaol, which pioneer was stoned by a Kent audience during her speech, who interrupted a Kent Liberal meeting in Tunbridge Wells, which woman challenged their Kent audience to do more for the cause and who was much celebrated on her visit to a Kent seaside town. “Vivid accounts of the abuse of and hardships experienced by the suffragette movement in the county of Kent. One of the most moving histories of the movement in Pen and Sword’s brilliant series.” —Books Monthly