Janie Allan (born Jane Allan; 28 March 1868 – 29 April 1968)
[Ewan ''et al.'' (2006), p. 11] was a Scottish activist and fundraiser for the
suffragette movement of the early 20th century.
Early life and family
Janie Allan was born to Jane Smith and Alexander Allan (who married in 1854), members of a wealthy
Glaswegian
The Glasgow dialect, popularly known as the Glasgow patter or Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegia ...
family that owned the
Allan Line
The Allan Shipping Line was started in 1819, by Captain Alexander Allan of Saltcoats, Ayrshire, trading and transporting between Scotland and Montreal, a route which quickly became synonymous with the Allan Line. By the 1830s the company had off ...
shipping company.
[Simkin (1997)] Her grandfather,
Alexander Allan, founded the firm in 1819, and by the time that her father – the youngest of Alexander Allan's five sons, also named Alexander – took over the running of the company's Glasgow operations, the line had many vessels, additional offices in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
and
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
, and had wrested the
Royal Mail's North American contract away from the
Cunard
Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Berm ...
line. Janie's brother, Robert S. Allan, was later a partner of the Allan Line.
In common with many of her family, Allan held
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
political views and helped the city's poor.
[Atkinson (2018)] She was an early member of the
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
(ILP), and she edited a column covering
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
issues for the socialist newspaper ''
Forward''.
Suffragette movement
In May 1902, Allan was instrumental in re-founding the Glasgow branch of the
National Society for Women's Suffrage
The National Society for Women's Suffrage Manchester Branch
The National Society for Women's Suffrage was the first national group in the United Kingdom to campaign for women's right to vote. Formed on 6 November 1867, by Lydia Becker, the organ ...
as the
(GWSAWS), and was a member of its executive committee.
[Crawford (2001), p. 246] She was a significant financial supporter, and as one of the GWSAWS vice-presidents she took up a position on the
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...
(NUWSS) committee in 1903, in order to represent the association following their affiliation.
[Crawford (2001), p. 7]
In 1906, Allan was among the audience when
Teresa Billington
Teresa Billington-Greig (15 October 1876 – 21 October 1964) was a British suffragette who helped create the Women's Freedom League in 1907. She had left another suffrage organisation – the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) – as s ...
(who had been arrested and jailed following a protest in London earlier in the year) toured Scotland,
although the GWSAWS themselves refused to invite Billington to speak. In December of that year she attended a lecture by
Helen Fraser as she expounded the
militant principles of the newly formed
Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership an ...
(WSPU).
In 1907, concerned that the non-violent GWSAWS was not being as effective as it should have been, Allan resigned from their executive committee and joined the WSPU,
[Crawford (2001), p. 244] although she maintained her subscription to GWSAWS until 1909.
Over the following few years, Allan provided at least £350 (approximately ) in funds to the WSPU,
[ as well as donating some funding for the ]Women's Freedom League
The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality. It was an offshoot of the militant suffragettes after the Pankhursts decide to rule without democratic support fro ...
(WFL) following their split from the WSPU. In addition to her monetary contributions, Allan was an active participant in the WSPU's militant activism.
Imprisonment and forced-feeding
In early March 1912, along with over 100 others Allan participated in a window smashing protest in central London. The women secreted large stones and hammers under their skirts and, once in position, in a coordinated action they destroyed shop windows in Regent Street, Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
, and the vicinity. Following this, the women patiently and calmly waited for the police to arrive. While police attention was diverted elsewhere by the protests, Emmeline Pankhurst and three others managed to get close enough to 10 Downing Street to throw stones through four of its windows. In the aftermath, along with many of her associates Allan was arrested, tried, and sentenced to four months in Holloway Prison
HM Prison Holloway was a closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, until its closure in 2016.
Histor ...
.
Her imprisonment was widely publicised, and around 10,500 people from Glasgow signed a petition to protest for her freedom. Her fellow suffragette, Margaret McPhun – who was herself imprisoned in Holloway for two months in 1912 after breaking a government office window – composed a poem entitled "''To A Fellow Prisoner (Miss Janie Allan)''", that was included in the anthology '' Holloway Jingles'' published by the Glasgow branch of the WSPU later that year.[Norquay (1995), p. 176]
While in prison Allan used her privileged position to improve the levels of comfort for her inmates, including distributing confectionery and fruit to fellow suffragettes. Two months into her sentence, she barricaded the door to her cell, and it reportedly took three men with tools around three quarters of an hour to break into the room. Following this action, Allan started a hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
, a form of protest that had been pioneered amongst the suffragette movement by Marion Dunlop in 1909. However, following Dunlop having thus successfully forced the authorities to release her on health grounds, the British government introduced a policy of forced-feeding
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...
of imprisoned suffragettes who refused food.
In accordance with this policy, Allan was force-fed for a full week. Forcible feeding was an ordeal described by Pankhurst as a "horrible outrage", and has been likened by women's history scholar June Purvis
June Purvis is an emeritus professor of women's and gender history at the University of Portsmouth.
From 2014-18, Purvis was Chair of the Women’s History Network UK and from 2015-20 Treasurer of the International Federation for Research in Wo ...
to a form of rape.[Purvis (2002), p. 134] In a later letter to a friend, Allan herself stated that "I did not resist at all ... yet the effect on my health was most disastrous. I am a very strong woman and absolutely sound in heart and lungs, but it was not till 5 months after, that I was able to take any exercise or begin to feel in my usual health again – the nerves of my heart were affected and I was fit for nothing in the way of exertion ... There can be no doubt that it simply ruins the health."
In February 1914, forcible feeding was implemented in Scotland during Ethel Moorhead
Ethel Agnes Mary Moorhead (28 August 18694 March 1955) was a British suffragette and painter and was the first suffragette in Scotland to be forcibly-fed.
Early life
Moorhead was born on 28 August 1869 in Fisher Street, Maidstone, Kent. She ...
's imprisonment for violently resisting arrest after being spotted behaving suspiciously in the vicinity of Traquair House
Traquair House, approximately 7 miles southeast of Peebles, is claimed to be the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland. Whilst not strictly a castle, it is built in the style of a fortified mansion. It pre-dates the Scottish Baronial s ...
. Allan was a key part of the campaign against this action, and as well as publicly protesting met with the Medical Prison Commissioner, Dr James Devon, to advocate against the use of a method that she regarded as likely to "injure permanently a woman's health."[Leneman (1993), p. 18] In June that year, Allan wrote to prison authorities that the burning of Whitekirk Parish Church near Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
was due to the treatment of Moorhead and if other suffragettes in Perth, Arabella Scott
Arabella Scott (7 May 1886 – 27 August 1980) was a Scottish teacher, suffragette and campaigner. As a member of the Women's Freedom League (WFL) she took a petition to Downing Street in July 1909. She subsequently adopted more militant tac ...
and the woman known as 'Frances Gordon' were force fed, threatened the upcoming royal visit to Scotland could see 'disastrous' protests. And in July, Allan again intervened at the highest level, in support of Frances Parker
Frances Mary "Fanny" Parker (24 December 1875 – 19 January 1924) was a New Zealand-born suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for her actions.
Early lif ...
following her imprisonment for attempted arson on Burns Cottage
Burns Cottage, the first home of Robert Burns is located in Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland. It was built by his father, William Burness in 1757. Burns, Scotland's national poet, was born there on 25 January 1759. It is a two-roomed clay and ...
.[Leneman (1993), p. 31]
Taxation protests
Allan was taken to court in 1913. In addition to direct suffragette action, she was involved with and supported the Women's Tax Resistance League, which argued that as women could not vote and therefore were not represented in parliament, they should not be subject to taxation.[Mackintosh Architecture] These beliefs led to her refusal to pay super tax on her income and investments for the financial year ending April 1912. At her trial on 1 March 1913, Allan defended herself and argued that as women were not considered 'persons' under the Franchise Act, they should not be considered 'persons' under the Finance Act
A Finance Act is the headline fiscal (budgetary) legislation enacted by the UK Parliament, containing multiple provisions as to taxes, duties, exemptions and reliefs at least once per year, and in particular setting out the principal tax rates f ...
either. The judge, Lord Cullen, found against her and stated that "it being clear on a construction of these axstatutes that women are not excluded from their scope."[''The Vote'' (1913)]
The St. Andrew's Halls incident
By early 1914, Allan had become one of the principal organizers for the WSPU in western Scotland, based in Glasgow. On 9 March 1914, Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU national leader, was to address a public meeting at St Andrew's Halls in the city, and Allan was in attendance. Ethel Moorhead
Ethel Agnes Mary Moorhead (28 August 18694 March 1955) was a British suffragette and painter and was the first suffragette in Scotland to be forcibly-fed.
Early life
Moorhead was born on 28 August 1869 in Fisher Street, Maidstone, Kent. She ...
said Allan had a presence due to her height, beauty and quietness. The event took place when Pankhurst had recently been released from prison under the terms of the new, so-called 'Cat and Mouse Act
The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act, commonly referred to as the Cat and Mouse Act, was an Act of Parliament passed in Britain under H. H. Asquith's Liberal government in 1913. Some members of the Women's Social and Political ...
', introduced by the government to counter the suffragette hunger strikes. In accordance with the Act, once Pankhurst was returned to full health she was due to be rearrested and re-incarcerated.[National Library of Scotland (2009)]
Glasgow police decided to use the occasion of the public address to effect the arrest. However, the WSPU activists anticipated their action and increased security coverage for their leader, including enforcing strict secrecy surrounding her movements and erecting a concealed barbed wire barrier across the front of the stage.[The Glasgow Herald (1914)] A short time into Pankhurst's speech, around 160 police officers stormed the hall and began to move toward the stage. They were met by a barrage of thrown chairs and plant pots, and soon fights broke out between the police and members of the audience. During the commotion one of the women present drew a revolver and fired several blank cartridges toward the ceiling. The police attempted to apprehend her, but she managed to slip their grasp and escape. Despite not being positively identified at the time, many since have stated that Allan was the woman with the revolver. She tried in vain for six months afterwards to get a public enquiry into police behaviour.
Later life
At the outbreak of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
later in 1914, the WSPU suspended their suffragette activities and threw their weight behind a concerted national effort in the conflict. Allan donated a large sum of money to Dr Flora Murray
Flora Murray (8 May 1869 – 28 July 1923)[Flora Murray](_blank)
findagrave.com was a Scottish medical pioneer, ...
and Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson
Louisa Garrett Anderson, CBE (28 July 1873 – 15 November 1943) was a medical pioneer, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette, and social reformer. She was the daughter of the founding medical pioneer Elizabeth Gar ...
that enabled the founding of the Women's Hospital Corps.[Crawford (2001), p. 8]
In 1923, she chaired the Women's Watch Committee, continuing to report on public authority attitudes to women, and she was involved in the Scottish Council for Women's Trades
The Scottish Council for Women's Trades was an organisation in the early 1900s that campaigned for improvements in the working conditions of women. The organisation was originally formed in 1894 as the Glasgow Council for Women's Trades.
After two ...
for 20 years.
Allan died in April 1968 at her home in Invergloy, near Spean Bridge
Spean Bridge ( gd, Drochaid an Aonachain) is a village in the parish of Kilmonivaig, in Lochaber in the Highland region of Scotland.
The village takes its name from the Highbridge over the River Spean on General Wade's military road between ...
in the Scottish Highlands
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...
, one month after her 100th birthday.
References
;Citations
;Bibliography
*Allan, Janie (1914). ''Various letters and press cuttings concerning the arrests of Janet Parker and Arabella Scott and the forcible feeding of women prisoners. Dated June 16 to July 27, 1914''. National Library of Scotland, Acc. 4498/2.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Allan, Janie
1868 births
1968 deaths
Scottish suffragettes
Scottish tax resisters
Scottish socialist feminists
Politicians from Glasgow
Journalists from Glasgow
Women's Social and Political Union
20th-century British journalists
British women journalists
Scottish centenarians
Women centenarians
Philanthropists from Glasgow
Women philanthropists
Hunger Strike Medal recipients
19th-century Scottish women
20th-century Scottish women