For years I've had a postcard on my wall of Christabel Pankhurst in Manchester, with posters advertising her meeting at the Free Trade Hall, the scene of the 1905 arrest that got her imprisoned and kicked the suffrage movement up a gear.
In January 1909 when this was taken, Mary Gawthorpe was well established as the WSPU's organiser, running their Manchester office.
That's Christabel apparently holding a box file on her head by means of bedclothes. Who's that stood to the left of her?
Let's have a closer look.
And here's another one I've found, clearly taken the same day.
7 comments:
We've never seen this particular photograph of Mary Gawthorpe and Christabel P. Many thanks for posting it.
T. B. Garrs was Thomas Birtwistle Garrs. Mary's middle name was Eleanor - family called her Nellie - but not after 1908.
Wow..... I am directly related to T B Garrs. He was my great grandfather.
Nice to see a photo of him.
Thanks Tim Garrs
timgarrs@hotmail.co.uk
Tim, where's the photo of TB Garrs?
'Let's start at the very beginning'
My father, Thomas Birtwhistle Garrs was born in Holbeck in 1880. He, like Mary Gawthorpe, was a pupil teacher who had to give it up to support his mother and family.He became a compositor on the 'Yorkshire Post', and in time head of the union there, with a break to serve in WWI until his death in 1947, just months after his retirement.
I reckon he and Mary must have
come to a parting of the ways long before the Hyde Park rally of 1908.
And of the men in the picture of Mary Gawthorpe with Christabel Pankhurst, none of them resemble my father.Sorry, Tim
He married my mother in the 1920s a young widow with three children and they had four more. I was the youngest and strangely we lived in Woodhouse(Lucas Place) until his death, when my mother and I moved to live with one of my sisters.
I went to Lawnswood High School for Girls and when I left, worked at the University's Brotherton Library before going to Training College.
I went back to Woodhouse a few years ago and found it to be greatly changed, as is the Headingley area where we lived when my mother remarried.
Leeds itself is greatly changed too.Perhaps you should never look back .(Although I have found this website and blog fascinating).
annette_mann@talktalk.net
Hello,
What great images. I'm currently proeparing a handout for a blue plaque for Mary Gawthorpe on behalf of the Civic Trust - it will be unveiled on 30 April. Would you mind if we used the image of Mary and Christabel?
best wishes
Mel
Mel, of course you can take it (not that I really own it at all). Please tell me more about the blue plaque - where is it (the house she was born and raised in was dmeolished long ago).
Hi
Thanks for getting back to me. The blue plaque will be unveilled on 30 April at 9 Worrels Mount. Please feel free to email me on office@leedscivictrust.org.uk and I'll gladly send more information. (I've just finished the handout - tahnk you for the image!) I'll forward to you.
Many thanks
Mel
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