[Miss Walker]

I am wondering if anyone knows anything about suffragettes in Hexham during the votes for women movement? I have read that in 1907 Annie Kenney and Emmeline Pankhurst visited to canvass before a by-election and the photograph in this article;
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.stylist.co.uk/visible-women/annie-kenney-suffragette-letter-discovered-first-militant/228511/amp

shows Annie Kenney and another (one source says it’s Emmeline and another said it was Mary Gawthrone). Does anyone know anything about the photograph? Where it was taken? Potentially by the Abby was my initial thoughts. Any information would be of great interest.

Thank you.

[Mark Benjamin]

Unfortunately, your link seems to result in a blank page! However, if the photo referred to is two suffragettes chalking their slogan on the pavement, we are fairly sure that it was taken on the eastern side of what is now the HSBC Bank in Hexham, at the top of Fore Street. The original caption to the photo clearly states that it depicts Annie Kenney and Mary Cawthorne. We have yet to firmly identify the origin of the photo but it seems likely to have been in either the Hexham Courant or the Hexham Herald. Issue 16 of our journal, the Hexham Historian,(available from our shop) carried an article entitled “Suffragettes in Hexham”, by the late Anna Rossiter. Sadly, she makes no mention of the 1907 by-election although she does mention that the suffragettes were still backing the opposition Tory candidate in the 1910 general election.

[Miss Walker]

Hi mark, thanks so much for your reply! That’s really fascinating and a good piece of history for Hexham in terms of women’s suffrage. Thanks again.

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