Rebel Girls: Their Fight For the Vote

by Jill Liddington

Rejecting the deadening conventions of their Victorian elders, the rebel girls demanded new freedoms and new rights. They took their suffrage message out to the remotest Yorkshire dales and fishing harbors to win Edwardian hearts and minds. Heroic women who have disappeared from written records have been restored by Jill Liddington's painstaking research into sources including back copies of local newspapers, diaries, census records, and recently uncovered government records disclosing details of covert surveillance carried out on women prisoners. The intriguing characters to emerge include 16-year-old Huddersfield weaver Dora Thewlis, who was arrested at a demonstration and found herself catapulted onto the tabloid front-pages as "Baby Suffragette." Dancer Lilian Lenton waited until her 21st birthday before deciding to burn two buildings a week until the Liberal government granted women the vote.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2006

About the author

Jill Liddington (born in Manchester, 1946) is a British writer and academic who specialises in women's history.
She joined the Department of External Studies at Leeds University in 1982 and became a Reader in Gender History, School of Continuing Education, until her transfer to CIGS, where she is currently Honorary Research Fellow.
Liddington stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Sowerby Bridge ward in the Calderdale Council election, 2004 - largely to prevent more BNP councillors being elected.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Johanne]

Interesting - I was particularly intrigued with the story of the youngest Pankhurst Adela who has almost been expunged from the records. As this book shows the suffragette & suffragist causes were not always unified forces. Its focus is very specifically on the votes for women campaign in Yorkshire and it makes you wonder how many other untold regional stories there are.

[Sara Reis]

This is the perfect way of telling biographies that are linked with the history of a greater movement. Jill Liddington did some fine detective work through three decades across Yorkshire trying to track down the lives of the 8 rebel girls that this book focuses on. It's very detailed and frequently spans out to national political events and what was happening in other English cities regarding the Votes for Women campaign. But what is truly great about this book is that it's never dull, the author has an engaging way of telling the stories of these girls and the wider movement without it feeling like she's describing their lives. They become alive and we can actually get the sense that these women were real, they had distinct personalities, life circumstances, feelings. The historical rigour is also there. Yorkshire, with its diverse cities, also comes alive with the descriptions of the women's campaigns, caravanning, and soap-box speeches. Well worth a read.

[Luke]

"Dancer Lilian Lenton waited until her 21st birthday before deciding to burn two buildings a week until the Liberal government granted women the vote."

A woman after my own heart.

[Lisa Bywell]

I’m in awe of all the women featured in this book, be they members of the WSPU, WFL or NUWSS (and this book is great at defining all the different groups and their origins). There was a lot more to this fight than just the Pankhursts. Very intelligent read full of detail and fabulous photos.

[Vanessa Wester]

A great read that took a while to get through since it was so in depth.

[Kr]

Brilliantly researched!

[Karoline]

Fascinating account of the fight for women's suffrage in Yorkshire, can't help musing on whether some of the campaigning described in the book impacted on my Great grandmothers and their daughters & sisters.

[Heather Harland]

I adored this book. It was informative and well put together. I learned so much about the contribution of the women of my home area to women's suffrage. Couldn't put it down.