Kenney, Annie (1879–1953)

English trade unionist and militant suffragist. Born in Springhead, near Oldham, Lancashire, England, on September 13, 1879; died in 1953; fifth of twelve children of Nelson Horatio Kenney and Anne (Wood) Kenney; sister of Jessie Kenney (also a militant suffragist); attended village school; took correspondence courses at Ruskin College; married James Taylor, in 1921.

Annie Kenney was born in Springhead, near Oldham, Lancashire, England, in 1879, the fifth of twelve children of Nelson Horatio Kenney and Anne Wood Kenney . Her parents worked in the Oldham textile industry. By age ten, Annie was working part-time in the same mill. Three years later, at 13, she joined the "great masses," she wrote, of those "whose lives were spent spinning and weaving cotton. I was a full-time. I rose at five o'clock in the morning. I had to be in the factory just before six, and I left at five-thirty at night." It wasn't long before she formed a union and organized other unions as well in other mills. In 1905, after meeting Christabel Pankhurst , Kenney began speaking for the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and became a dependable lieutenant to Christabel, especially when the Pankhursts were in exile in Paris. Kenney also campaigned for the election of Keir Hardie for prime minister.

Like the others, Annie Kenney was arrested and imprisoned numerous times. During one arrest, in 1913, she was found guilty of making an inflammatory speech which she did not deny. But, she told the magistrate, she had filched her speech from Sir Edward Carson, a respectable lawyer and leader of Irish resistance in Ulster, and had only replaced the word Irish every time it was used with the word women. Thus, she suggested that they arrest Carson for the speech, "the alterations alone being mine." Kenney retired from activism when she married in 1921. Her memoirs were published in 1924 as Memories of a Militant.

related media:

"Shoulder to Shoulder," produced by the British Broadcasting Company, based on the documentary book of the same name compiled and edited by Midge MacKenzie , was shown in the United States as a six-part series on "Masterpiece Theater" in 1988. The episodes are titled, "The Pankhurst Family," "Annie Kenney," "Lady Constance Lytton," "Christabel Pankhurst," "Outrage," and "Sylvia Pankhurst."