First name/s: Annie
Last name: Kenney
Known names / nicknames:
Date of birth: 13/09/1879
Year of birth: 1879

Life before Ruskin

Date and place of birth: 13 September 1879  in Springhead, Lancashire

Family:  Father Horatio Nelson Kenney, mother: Ann Wood.  Annie had seven sisters and four brothers.

Work: Annie started work on her tenth birthday as a half-timer (6am-12.30pm) at Henry Atherton & Sons’ textile mill in Springhead.  When she was thirteen she left school and worked full-time as a card and blowing room operator from 6 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

Politics/Trade union activity: Member of the Independent Labour Party, Active in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the first woman member of the textile union committee

Trade Union membership (at time of entry to Ruskin)

Life at Ruskin

Dates at Ruskin:

Exact date unknown – Annie undertook a correspondence course which was not completed

Source of funding:

Campaigns/political activity:

From 1905 onwards active in the WSPU and was a paid organiser.

Subjects studied at Ruskin:

Dissertation:

Qualification:

Life after Ruskin

Education:

Work:

Annie withdrew from political and community life after her marriage.

Politics/trade union activity:

Her activity in the WSPU led to an arrest and in June 1913 she sentenced 18 months in prison.   During her time in prison she went on hunger strike and was subsequently involved in ‘Cat and Mouse’ activities.  She became involved in theosophy and the Rosicrucian Order.

Family:

Annie married James Taylor, 21 April 1920, with whom she had a son, Warwick, b. 4 February 1921.

 

Place & date of death:

Lister Hospital, Hitchin, 9 July 1953.

Date of death: 09/07/1953
Year of death: 1953

Achievements / Publications

Renowned leading suffragette from 1905-1918 who worked nationally and internationally.

Material in archives or already published articles

See Oxford DNB Also

http://www.gurdjieff-bibliography.com/Current/1601_kenney_socialist-meets-g_2004-07-03.pdf

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wkenney.htm?menu=socialism

Image

Notes on Image/s

Comment of contributor/s and sources

Annie Kenney was an active suffragette who studied at Ruskin through a correspondence course.   It is impossible to discover how many women and men took up correspondence courses at Ruskin because the records were destroyed in summer 2012.

This is a summarized version of the entry in Oxford DNB by Brian Harrison.

Author/s

Annie Skinner