Annie Kenney - Oldham, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 32.518 W 002° 06.696
30U E 558870 N 5932929
This statue of Annie Kenney, a leading sufragette, was erected on December 14th 2018, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of when British women were first able to vote in the 1918 United Kingdom general election.
Waymark Code: WM104XG
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/26/2019
Views: 1
"Ann "Annie" Kenney (13 September 1879 – 9 July 1953) was an English working-class suffragette who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie Baldock. Kenney attracted the attention of the press and public in 1905 when she and Christabel Pankhurst were imprisoned for several days for assault and obstruction, after heckling Sir Edward Grey at a Liberal rally in Manchester on the issue of votes for women. The incident is credited with inaugurating a new phase in the struggle for women's suffrage in the UK, with the adoption of militant tactics. Annie had friendships with Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt, Clara Codd, Adela Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst.
Personal life
Annie had a succession of close female friends within the suffragette movement. She would share a bed with Mary Blathwayt, Clara Codd and Adela Pankhurst. She and Christabel Pankhurst went on holiday to Saak together, but it is not clear if that relationship was ever physical. Mary Blathwayt noted in her diary Kenney's several female sleeping partners when she stayed at the Blathwayt's home, Eagle House. Blathwayt's jealousy has been proposed as the reason. Annie was indulged by the Blathwayts. She was a frequent visitor to Eagle house and unlike everyone else she planted four trees. They paid for presents and watches and paid her medical and dentistry bills for both her and her sisters.
Kenney married James Taylor (1893–1977) and settled in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, after women over 30 won the vote in 1918. A son, Warwick Kenney Taylor, was born in 1921. She died of diabetes at the Lister Hospital in Hitchin on 9 July 1953 aged 73. Her funeral was conducted according to the rites of the Rosicrucians and her ashes were scattered by her family on Saddleworth Moor.
Posthumous recognition
In 1999, Oldham Council erected a blue plaque in her honour at Lees Brook Mill in Lees, near Oldham, and where Kenney had started work in 1892. On 14 December 2018 a statue, funded by public subscription was unveiled close to the site of the former Oldham Town Hall.
Her name and image (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are etched on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, that was unveiled in 2018"
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Details of the statue
The statue depicts Annie Kenney preparing to make a speech. She is carrying pamphlet with a heading of 'Votes for Women' in her left hand. In her right hand is a bell she would ring to attract an audience.
She is shown wearing smart dress from her period with a high necked, ankle length dress and a votes for women sash over her shoulder.
The statue sculpted by Denise Dutton is of bronze and shows her standing on a soap box. It stands on a raise paved area in Parliament Square in front of Oldham's former town hall.
At the time of the creation of this waymark someone has placed baskets of flowers next to the soapbox which has been covered in the Suffragette colours of purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope.