Project to uncover forgotten suffragette stories

A project uncovering the forgotten stories of suffragettes is seeking volunteers ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Equal Franchise Act.

The Suffrage Sisters project launched in Saltaire on Sunday with a presentation and exhibition by local researcher Dr Jennie Kiff, who spoke about the local suffragettes she has discovered.

The Saltaire and Shipley Suffrage Sisters group will be one of many launched across the UK by non-profit organization HerVote100.

Dr Kiff said it would bring individuals and communities together to research the names and lives of women who were involved in women's suffrage in the early 20th Century.

The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act was a landmark British law passed on 2 July 1928 giving women the same voting rights as men.

"Most of them have been forgotten and written out of history," Dr Kiff said.

"We tell their stories and we find new and creative ways to do that.

"Each group will have a creative project and the one for Saltaire and Shipley will be Hats Off to Women - they will be creating hats that tell the stories of the individuals they find."

The project began with Dr Kiff's PhD thesis on suffragettes in Bradford, which started with four names and "ended up with more than 200".

Dr Kiff explained that many of the suffragettes she uncovered in Bradford were teachers - in some schools they made up almost 85% of the staff numbers.

Two of the women featured in the exhibition at the Kirkgate Centre in Shipley are Marion Best, leader of the Shipley and Baildon branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, and Jessie Millar Wilson, leader of the Bradford Women's Social and Political Union.

"Most of the activists didn't get arrested, didn't go to prison, weren't force-fed," she said.

"Most of them just did local things, quietly got on with it, funding the organisation nationally by having fundraising events and doing little demonstrations locally.

"The whole movement was built on local groups and grassroots activism."

During the event on Sunday, Dr Kiff also launched the campaign for a plaque to commemorate the Great Shipley Glen Rally in 1908.

An estimated 100,000 people took part in the mass rally in support of the suffragette movement at Shipley Glen, with local campaigner Nell Kenney one of the key speakers.

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