Kenney Family

Ann (Annie) Kenney (1879-1953) and all but two of her siblings were born at Springhead, Yorkshire. At the age of 10 Annie started work as a cotton-mill operative. In 1905 she was recruited to the cause of women's suffrage after hearing Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters addressing an open-air meeting in Manchester, and on 13th October 1905 she accompanied Christabel Pankhurst to an election meeting in Manchester Free Trade Hall. The pair heckled the speaker, Sir Edward Grey, were evicted, and conducted an impromptu meeting in the street. They were arrested and imprisoned, Ann for three days, Christabel for seven. Thereafter Annie Kenney was a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the organisation founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903.

Annie supported Christabel Pankhurst's policy of militant action, served several terms in prison, went on hunger and thirst strike, and endured forcible feeding. After the imprisonment of Emmeline Pankhurst and other WSPU leaders in 1912, and Christabel's escape to France, Annie took over the London end of the organization of the WSPU. At the outbreak of World War I and the suspension of militant action by the WSPU, Annie was an active supporter of the government and in particular its policy of mobilising women.

When limited suffrage was extended to women in 1918, Annie withdrew almost entirely from active politics; she was physically and mentally exhausted. While recuperating in Scotland in August 1918, she met James Taylor, whom she married in April 1920. For most of the period 1918-1920 she was occupied with writing of her own account of her life as a suffragette, published as Memories of a Militant in 1924. In February 1921 Annie gave birth to her only child, a son, Warwick Kenney-Taylor. In 1923 the Taylor family moved from London to Letchworth.

In October 1932 Annie developed what she described as my serious illness [diabetes] and thereafter did not enjoy good health. In 1953 she suffered a stroke and died on July 9th. Her ashes were scattered on Saddleworth Moor.

Jessica (Jessie) Kenney (1887-1975?) was Annie Kenney's younger sister; her career largely mirrored that of Annie until 1918. She had a gift for organization and was for a time Secretary of the WSPU. She worked alongside Christabel Pankhurst in Paris from 1912, assisting Christabel in the long-range direction of WSPU operations. In 1917 she accompanied Emmeline Pankhurst to Russia, on behalf of the British government. Their particular objective was to promote the mobilisation of Russian women in the war effort. Jessie was in Russia for some three months and made a detailed record of events which she later prepared for publication under the title The Price of Liberty ; the work was never published.

By 1920 Jessie, too, had withdrawn from active political campaigning, and trained as a wireless telegraph (W/T) operator. It was her ambition to work as a W/T operator on board ship, but she was thwarted in this aim and settled for work as a stewardess. During the 1930s she worked variously for the Furness and Orient lines. Aboard ship she read voraciously, and began to write. On the outbreak of World War II she was obliged to remain in Britain, vacating her London flat in 1940 to reside temporarily with her sister Annie and James Taylor in Letchworth. After the war, and unsuccessful in her efforts to follow a career as a writer, she worked as a school secretary and welfare assistant. After her retirement she remained in London until 1965, when failing health precluded further independent living. She spent her last years in St Francis' Nursing Home, Braintree, where she was cared for by the Missionary Franciscan Sisters.

Caroline Kenney (1880-1952) and Jane (Jenny) Kenney (1884-?) were sisters of Annie and Jessie Kenney. They too were suffragettes, and appear to have played a supporting role, providing a refuge for women on the run or temporarily released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act at their Tower Cressy premises.

Caroline, like her older sisters, began her working life as a child operative in the cotton mills. Subsequently she followed the example of her younger sister Jane and trained as a Montessori teacher. Jane studied in Rome with Maria Montessori in 1914 and then became Madame Montessori's appointed demonstrator in England. She and Caroline established their own Montessori school at Tower Cressy, Campden Hill, circa 1915. In 1916 they left England for the United States and were appointed joint teachers in charge of the newly-established Lenox School, New York. They retired as joint principals in 1929, and then settled in California.

James (Jim) Taylor (1893-1977?) was born in St Pancras, the son of a solicitor's clerk. He married Annie Kenney in April 1920. Between 1907 and 1914 he worked for various employers chiefly as a metalworker or pipefitter. In 1914 he enlisted in the King's Royal Rifles, rising to the rank of sergeant, then in 1916 he was despatched to the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory, Greenock, where he worked as a tinman until demobilisation in 1918. It was while working in Greenock that he met Annie Kenney. Between 1918 and 1930 he returned to metal-working and related trades. In 1923, he and Annie removed to Letchworth, where he was appointed maintenance engineer at St Christopher's School. There he undertook some part-time teaching of handicraft. Following periods of similar work elsewhere, he was appointed an instructor in the Government Training Service in 1930. He rose to become Assistant Manager of the Service's Letchworth training centre and retired in 1958, whereupon he embarked on an extended tour of Europe by moped. James Taylor had a fine singing voice and at one time had aspirations to a musical career. He was active in the community in Letchworth, in particular in local music and drama groups.

The Clarke family, of Montreal, is the family of Sarah Ellen (Nell) Kenney (1876-1953). Nell was the elder sister of Annie, Jessie, Caroline, and Jane Kenney and was born in Lees, Lancashire. Like her siters Annie and Mollie (Mary) she was put to work in the cotton mills at an early age. She married Frank Randall Clarke (1872-1955) and they settled in Montreal, where Frank was active in schemes to assist the training and employment of the disabled. A quantity of documents and information supplied by Nell's daughters Beatrice (b. 1910) and Dorothy (b. 1911), which sheds much light on the Kenney and Clarke families, is still being studied.

Sylvia Williams Hale is the grand-daughter of Mary Elizabeth (Mollie) Kenney (1874 -?), the eldest of the Kenney sisters and, like Nell, born in Lees. Also like Nell, she began her working life in the cotton mills while still a child. She married George Dixon, and like her sisters Caroline and Jane became resident in the United States.

We are indebted to Warwick Kenney-Taylor, Sylvia Williams Hale and Beatrice and Dorothy Clarke for the genealogical, biographical, and historical information that they have supplied.

From the guide to the The Kenney Papers, 1874-[ongoing], (University of East Anglia)