Sara Jessie Stephenson (1873–1966) was a British suffragette and a member of the
WSPU
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 and ...
who organised census boycott in Manchester.
Early life
Sara Jessie Stephenson was born in
Louth, Lincolnshire
Louth () is a market town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.OS Explorer map 283:Louth and Mablethorpe: (1:25 000):
Louth serves as an important town for a large rural area of eastern Lincolnshire. Visitor ...
in 1873
the daughter of a farmer in Lincolnshire, England.
Despite her parents' initial reluctance, she wanted more than a domestic life and travelled in France and Germany teaching English.
Suffragette Activism
Stephenson joined the
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 and ...
(WSPU), and donated some of her earnings from teaching to their cause,
before returning to work in London for a barrister. She lived in rooms at the Twentieth Century Club at
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road M ...
, as did fellow activist
Ada Flatman
Ada Susan Flatman (1876–1952) was a British suffragette who worked in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Life
Ada Susan Flatman was born in Suffolk in 1876. She was of independent means and became interested in women's rights. She live ...
.
Stephenson became actively involved in 1907, cycling around during her holiday with a banner 'Keep the Liberal Out' and 'Votes For Women', annoying a local minister and schoolteacher. This was in support of the WSPU in the
Jarrow
Jarrow ( or ) is a town in South Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. It is east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is situated on the south bank of the River Tyne, about from the east coast. It is home to the southern portal of the Tyne ...
by-election with
Christabel Pankhurst
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bord ...
,
Nellie Martel
Ellen Alma "Nellie" Martel, (; 30 September 1855 – 11 August 1940) was an English-Australian suffragist and elocutionist. She stood for the Australian Senate, Senate at the 1903 Australian federal election, 1903 federal election, one of th ...
and
Mary Gawthorpe
Mary Eleanor Gawthorpe (12 January 1881 – 12 March 1973) was an English suffragette, socialist, trade unionist and editor. She was described by Rebecca West as "a merry militant saint".
Life
Gawthorpe was born in Woodhouse, Leeds to John Ga ...
. On return, her employer called her "one of the shreiking sisterhood".
A year later Stephenson was a chief marshal for the
Paddington
Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...
section of the women's large
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
march (known as "
Women's Sunday
Women's Sunday was a suffragette march and rally held in London on 21 June 1908. Organised by Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to persuade the Liberal government to support votes for women, it is thought to have b ...
") and a main speaker (on platform 20) at that event, wearing white and a sash in the WSPU colours of purple, white, green. She took note on arriving of 'rough' men threatening concealed missiles or to set off bells to disrupt the event.
Stephenson was also in the women's delegation with
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence (; 21 October 1867 – 11 March 1954) was a British women's rights activist and suffragette.
Early life
Pethick-Lawrence was born in Bristol as Emmeline Pethick. Her father, Henry Pethick, w ...
,
Florence Haig
Florence Eliza Haig (1856–1952) was a Scottish artist and suffragette who was decorated for imprisonments and hunger strikes.
Biography
Haig was born in 1856. Her father was a Berwickshire barrister and she had two sisters, Cecilia and Evelyn. ...
,
Maud Joachim
Maud Joachim (1869 – 1947) was born in 1869 and was educated at Girton College., she was one of the groups of suffragettes that fought to grant women the right to vote in the U.K., she was jailed several times for her protests.
Activism
She ...
and
Mary Phillips that attempted with Emmeline Pankhurst to enter the House of Commons, but was not one of those arrested then.
She was imprisoned however in November 1910, for a month, for breaking a window, at the home of
Herbert Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, (6 November 1870 – 5 February 1963) was a British Liberal politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935.
He was the first nominally-practising Jew to serve as a Cabinet minister and to beco ...
, Liberal MP, telling his maid who answered the door that 'Suffragettes do not injure flesh and blood",
following the harsh treatment of women protesters on
Black Friday. The arrested women sang in the
Black Maria
Black Maria may refer to:
Art and literature
*Black Mariah (comics), a character in the Luke Cage comics series
*List of One Piece characters#Animal Kingdom Pirates, Black Maria, a character in the manga series ''One Piece''
*Black Maria (nove ...
police van on the way to
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.
Hist ...
,
where Stephenson wrote to
Margaret Travers Simons to secretly send news from outside prison.
Stephenson described the treatment of women on arrival having their hair let down and searched, undressing to be searched, but since the change in rules, then allowed to wear their own clothes unlike most other prisoners. She was also allowed to get a letter from her barrister, saying she would lose her job and accommodation if she did not pay the fine to be released, but she refused and completed her sentence with the other imprisoned suffragettes. Fifteen, including Stephenson and
Mary Clarke, were released just before Christmas, to be met by
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
,
Mabel Tuke
Mabel Kate Tuke born Mabel Kate Lear (19 May 1871 – 22 November 1962) was a British suffragette known for her role of honorary secretary of the militant Women's Social and Political Union.
Life
Tuke was born in Plumstead in London in 1871.Eli ...
and a group of three hundred supporters.
At the celebration meal they all attended at the
Criterion,
Piccadilly
Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...
for the release of prisoners, Stephenson was given a job offer as a paid organiser for WSPU and was placed next to Christabel Pankhurst,
and made a speech reported in''
Votes for Women
A vote is a formal method of choosing in an election.
Vote(s) or The Vote may also refer to:
Music
*''V.O.T.E.'', an album by Chris Stamey and Yo La Tengo, 2004
*"Vote", a song by the Submarines from ''Declare a New State!'', 2006
Television
* " ...
'' 30 December 1910 "Thank God for Mrs. Pankhurst."
Stephenson then organised the
1911 census
The United Kingdom Census 1911 of 2 April 1911 was the 12th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The total population of the United Kingdom was approximately 45,221,000, with 36,070,000 recorded in England ...
night protest
in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
.
Right to vote granted
In 1918, after the First World War was almost over, and women had been pressed into roles previously unheard of in Britain whilst the men were at the front, the right for (some) women to vote was granted. Stephenson was clear in her writing "No Other Way' that the suffragist (non militant National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies) approach would not have achieved this alone:
Governments are not philanthropists - certainly not to non-voters - seldom give what they are absolutely not forced to, and I say with positive certainty - the Government would not have granted women's suffrage with such a harmless and poorly backed demand NUWSS.html" ;"title="National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies">NUWSS">National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies">NUWSS... . As it was the Government returning, all tired, to home affairs after the Great War, to a country recently ablaze from end to end with enthusiasm for women's vote, and likely to burst into still more desperate enthusiasm if denied, faced with this threat, passed the Electoral Bill in January 918
__NOTOC__
Year 918 ( CMXVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* December 23 – King Conrad I, injured at one of his battles with Arnu ...
Stephenson's two volume memoirs 'No Other Way' were released in 1932. She also said:
Woman now has in her hands the key, to get repealed the scandalous laws made against her in the past ... We surviving warriors, battled, mauled and mostly worn out, look confidently to her to steadily and surely march towards the greatest reform the world has ever faced ... I have dreamt of since my early girlhood, which will, which must come.
Stephenson died in Norfolk in 1966.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stephenson, Jessie
1870s births
1960s deaths
British women's rights activists
Women's Social and Political Union
English suffragettes