Alice Hawkins

Alice Hawkins (Stafford, 1863 – Leicester, 1946) was a leading English suffragette among the boot and shoe machinists of Leicester. She went to prison five times for acts committed as part of the Women’s Social and Political Union militant campaign. Her husband Alfred Hawkins was also an active suffragist and received £100 when his kneecap was fractured as he was ejected from a meeting in Bradford. In 2018 a statue of Alice was unveiled in Leicester Market Square.
Life
Alice Riley was born in 1863 in Stafford, one of nine children, and by 13 years old, she was working in Leicester creating boots and shoes. In 1884 she married Alfred Hawkins, whom she met at a socialist meeting. She became a mother of six children and continued to work as a machinist at Equity Shoes. In 1896 she joined the new factory's new Women's Co-operative Guild where she learnt about socialism and the writings of Thomas Mann. The factory had a library and allowed time for political education. She corresponded with other socialists. such as Tom Anderson of Glasgow, in 1906. Hawkins had joined the Independent Labour Party in 1894 and via that organisation met Sylvia Pankhurst. Pankhurst came to Leicester in 1907 and Hawkins made introductions. They were soon joined by Mary Gawthorpe and they established a WSPU presence in Leicester.
Activism and imprisonment
Hawkins was first jailed in February 1907, after attending her first suffragette rally in Hyde Park, when 300 women then marched to Parliament, after hearing that votes for women was not on the King's Speech. She was among 29 women sent to Holloway Prison after a brutal charge by 20 police on horses and a pitched battle. Her lawyer wrote to the local MP that 'in no other civilised country would women be dealt with in this manner'. Bail was set at £2 for disorderly conduct and resisting the police, but all the women arrested chose to serve jail sentences instead. Supporters from the suffragette movement stood outside and cheered when the women were released after two weeks in jail, and marched to a celebratory breakfast. Hawkins read out the MP's response which was that the behaviour of the women was 'not doing any good for the cause and that the WSPU had now lost the public interest'. She returned to Leicester and set up a branch of the WSPU inviting Emmeline Pankhurst to speak, and she signed up the first 30 members.
In June 1908, Flora Drummond invited Hawkins to speak at the Hyde Park rally on 21 June 1908. The event was advertised on a Thames barge outside the Houses of Parliament, saying 'Cabinet Ministers Specially Invited'. The Pankhursts sent a chauffeur-driven car to collect her and local children followed the vehicle.
Hawkins was jailed a second time in 1909 as she tried to force entry into a public meeting where Winston Churchill was speaking in Leicester, at which suffragettes had been specifically barred. In this case the lead role was played by her husband, Alfred who volunteered to raise the issue. During Churchill's speech, Alfred asked Churchill to explain how he could ' stand on a democratic platform' while women did not have a vote and he was ejected from the event. Alice was protesting outside when she too was arrested. Alfred paid the fine, but Alice again opted for prison. This time it was in Leicester jail and she went onto hunger strike.
Alfred also defended Alice when heckled by men in a crowd where she was speaking saying 'get back to your family!" She was able to say 'here is my family they are here to support me" as Alfred was demonstrably for the cause, which some but not by any means all suffragists could claim. Alfred suffered for his support, when he was eventually awarded £100 compensation after having his leg broken during a suffragette protest on 26 November 1910. His case had been taken up by the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement after he was thrown down some stairs after protesting against Winston Churchill during a Liberal party meeting Bradford. The judge ruled that he had been ejected without warning after merely asking a question and that was an assault.
Her third imprisonment was in 1911 after throwing a brick through a Home Office window in full view of a policeman. When her son Tom died of a brain tumour in 1912, she wrote ti Emmeline Pankhurst in deep sympathy. She was jailed twice more in 1913, first for throwing ink into a Leicester post box, and then a last time for digging a slogan into a golf course at night. She received a Hunger Strike Medal from the WSPU. Hawkins was one of the prisoners who built a relationship with the female prison warders also working-class women who comforted the prisoners as well as having the job of holding them down to be force-fed.
In 1913 Hawkins was among the representatives chosen to speak with leading politicians David Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey. The meeting had been arranged by Annie Kenney and Flora Drummond with the proviso that these were working-class women representing their class. The boot and shoe industry was particularly unfair in its treatment of women, who did exactly the same work as men but for unequal pay, lived in the poor quality housing and worked in sweated conditions. All the representatives explained that to improve the terrible pay and working conditions of women, their hope was that a vote would enable women to challenge the status quo in a democratic manner. Hawkins explained how her fellow male workers could choose a man to represent them whilst the women were left unrepresented. She was also suspected of being one of the four women who damaged a golf course writing 'no votes, no golf' in horse dung but this was not proven.
Her protests ceased when war was declared in 1914 and the WSPU agreed to cease protests in exchange for having all prisoners released. Home Office report that 1,300 women were arrested over the years in this cause, along with 100 men like Alice Hawkins' husband Alfred.
Later life
Three of Hakwins's sons joined the army in World War I, in different regiments, and all met by chance 10 miles behind enemy lines and a local photographer captured them. When some women were given the vote in the Representation of the People Act (1918), Hawkins was proud of the role that women had taken in the factories and land during the war, and also said that suffragette action had led to this and the right to vote. Due to the property-owning conditions of the Act however, she was unable to vote herself for a further 10 years, at the age of 63. Alfred died in 1928 and Hawkins had to live with her children and families, due to her poverty.
Death and legacy
When Hawkins died in 1946, aged 83, her burial had to be paid for by the state, in a 'pauper's grave'.
She has a plaque at her workplace and another on the Leicester Walk of Fame. In 2018, a five-year funding campaign ended when a seven foot high statue was unveiled in market square by four women including Manjula Sood and Liz Kendall. The ceremony was witnessed by Helen Pankhurst, dozens of her relatives and hundreds of people, as part of the centenary celebrations of Votes for Women.
Her great-grandson, Peter Barratt speaks to schools and at public events, a century later, that Hawkins was fighting for women to have equal pay and that is still not achieved, and encouraging all people to use their right to vote. He found the transcript in the National Archives of the delegation including Hawkins of Working Women to Lloyd George, the chancellor, from January 1913. In 2023, he created and performed an Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, with historical re-enactment actress, Ruth Pownall: Alice Hawkins Suffragette - A Sister for Freedom in which he shared family archive material as well as public material.
Hawkins granddaughter, Vera recounted that her grandmother said
"Vera, you must use your vote, we suffered for it".
Other sources
Alice Hawkins: And the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian Leicester, 2007
Tejera, P. (2018). Reinas de la carretera. Madrid. Ediciones Casiopea.
References
1863 births
1946 deaths
English suffragists
People from Stafford
Hunger Strike Medal recipients
Co-operative Women's Guild
Suffragettes
British suffragists
Activists from Leicester
Women's Social and Political Union
Historical reenactment events