Gertude Townend | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London |
| Occupation(s) | nurse and suffragette |
| Organization | private care home nursing recovering suffragettes |
| Known for | suffragette activism and hunger strike |
Gertrude Catherine Townend[ citation needed ] was a British nurse and suffragette. She provided, with Nurse Catherine Pine, a care home for suffragettes recovering from imprisonment and force-feeding, and participated in suffragette gatherings.
Gertrude Townend trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, qualified in 1901 and became a sister at (Great) Ormond Street Hospital. [1] By 1908, she was running a private nursing home [2] with Nurse Catherine Pine in 3 Pembridge Gardens, Notting Hill, London.
Townend and Pine's nursing home was watched by police looking for escaped suffragettes, due to return to prison to finish their sentences. At the home, medical assistance was provided by Dr. Flora Murray, a fellow suffragette. [3] The service provided by Townend was particularly used by women released from prison temporarily, to recover after becoming seriously ill during force-feeding under the "Cat and Mouse Act". [3]
Townend helped Pine look after Emmeline Pankhurst's son Harry, prior to an examination under anaesthesia, at Pembridge Gardens from the farm he was staying on when he took an acute inflammation of the bladder. [4] She trusted Townend and Pine to care for him while she travelled. [4]
For the event on 18 June 1910, Townend was named in The British Journal of Nursing as the contact with Nurse Catherine Pine, for nurses in uniform wishing to parade with the women's march from Embankment to the Royal Albert Hall which ultimately attracted 10,000, including international. occupational and regional groups, walking in their relevant contingents. [3]
In 1912, after a campaign by The British Journal of Nursing and the Men's League for Women's Suffrage, Townend cared for Ellen Pitfield who had been released from prison after an arson incident, at the nursing home on Pembridge Gardens although she died a few weeks later. [3]
These nurses also helped Christabel Pankhurst stay overnight and then escape to France after the raid on Clements Inn, [3] by letting her dress in Townend's nurse's uniform to avoid suspicion as she left. [5]
In October 1913, Townend was herself injured when there was a crush as detectives raided the Bow Baths Hall meeting, where Sylvia Pankhurst was speaking, under the above Act. Sylvia escaped to be arrested the next day. [3]
Emmeline Pankhurst 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 Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914, she supported the war against Germany. After the war, she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.
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 founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. Sylvia was eventually expelled.
Adela Constantia Mary Walsh was a British born suffragette who worked as a political organiser for the WSPU in Scotland. In 1914 she moved to Australia where she continued her activism and was co-founder of both the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement.
Rachel Barrett was a Welsh suffragette and newspaper editor born in Carmarthen. Educated at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth she became a science teacher, but quit her job in 1906 on hearing Nellie Martel speak of women's suffrage, joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and moved to London. In 1907, she became a WSPU organiser, and after Christabel Pankhurst fled to Paris, Barrett became joint organiser of the national WSPU campaign. In 1912, despite no journalistic background, she took charge of the new newspaper The Suffragette. Barrett was arrested on occasions for activities linked to the suffrage movement and, in 1913–1914, spent some time incognito to avoid re-arrest.
Marion Wallace Dunlop was a Scottish artist, author and illustrator of children's books, and Suffragette. She was the first and one of the most well known British suffrage activists to go on hunger strike on 5 July 1909, after being arrested in July 1909 for militancy. She said she would not take any food unless she was treated as a political prisoner instead of as a common criminal. Wallace Dunlop's mode of protest influenced suffragettes after her and other leaders like M. K. Gandhi and James Connolly, who also used fasting to protest British rule. She was at the centre of the Women's Social and Political Union and designed some of the most influential processions of the UK suffrage campaign, as well as designing banners for them.
Black Friday was a suffragette demonstration in London on 18 November 1910, in which 300 women marched to the Houses of Parliament as part of their campaign to secure voting rights for women. The day earned its name from the violence meted out to protesters, some of it sexual, by the Metropolitan Police and male bystanders.
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience. In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragist, in order to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.
The Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial is a memorial in London to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, two of the foremost British suffragettes. It stands at the entrance to Victoria Tower Gardens, south of Victoria Tower at the southwest corner of the Palace of Westminster. Its main feature is a bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst by Arthur George Walker, unveiled in 1930. In 1958 the statue was relocated to its current site and the bronze reliefs commemorating Christabel Pankhurst were added.
Mary Elizabeth Phillips was an English suffragette, feminist and socialist. She was the longest prison serving suffragette. She worked for Christabel Pankhurst but was sacked; she then worked for Sylvia Pankhurst as Mary Pederson or Mary Paterson. In later life she supported women's and children's organisations.
Jessica "Jessie" Kenney (1887–1985) was an English suffragette who was jailed for assaulting the Prime Minister and Home Secretary in a protest to gain suffrage for women in the UK. Details of a bombing campaign to support their cause were discovered by the authorities in her flat when Kenney was sent abroad to convalesce. She later trained as a wireless operator but worked as a stewardess.
Mabel Kate Tuke born Mabel Kate Lear was a British suffragette known for her role of honorary secretary of the militant Women's Social and Political Union.
Catherine Emily Pine was active in the women's suffrage movement in Britain. She took care of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and her son Henry. Pine travelled with Pankhurst until she decided to move back to Britain permanently in 1924.
Gladice Georgina Keevil was a British suffragette who served as head of the Midlands office of the Women's Social and Political Union between 1908 and 1910.
The Battle of Downing Street was a march of suffragettes to Downing Street, London, on 22 November 1910. Organized by Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union, the march took place four days after Black Friday, a suffragette protest outside the House of Commons that saw the women violently attacked by police.
Ellen Pitfield was an English midwife, nurse, devoted suffragette and member of Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union. The movement focused on gaining the women’s right to vote with the motto “Deeds Not Words.” This expresses the importance of action and change within the United Kingdom.
Edith Hudson was a British nurse and suffragette. She was an active member of the Edinburgh branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and was arrested several times for her part in their protests in Scotland and London. She engaged in hunger strikes while in prison and was forcibly fed. She was released after the last of these strikes under the so-called Cat and Mouse Act. Hudson was awarded a Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by the WSPU.
The Historiography of the Suffragette Campaign deals with the various ways Suffragettes are depicted, analysed and debated within historical accounts of their role in the campaign for women's suffrage in early 20th century Britain.
Eleanor Grace Watney Roe (1885–1979) was Head of Suffragette operations for the Women's Social and Political Union. She was released from prison after the outbreak of World War I due to an amnesty for suffragettes negotiated with the government by the WSPU.
Katherine Douglas Smith was a militant British suffragette and from 1908 a paid organiser of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She was also a member of the International Suffrage Club.