page_title: Jessie Stephenson
section_title: Suffragette Activism
hierarchical_section_title: Jessie Stephenson / Suffragette Activism
caption_attribution_description: English: 7JCC/O/02/047 Photograph, printed, paper, monochrome, three rows of women dressed in white wearing 'Votes for Women' sashes and holding 'Votes for Women' ribbons over their shoulders, 'pulling' a carriage at the rear of the procession; printed inscription on reverse 'Copyright: World's Graphic Press Limited, 36-38 Whitefriars Street, Fleet Street, London EC. Please Acknowledge'. The image shows one of the Womens Social &amp; Political Union (WSPU) teams that drew the carriage of released prisoners away from Holloway
context_page_description: Jessie Stephenson was a British suffragette, a member of the WSPU, who organised census boycott in Manchester.
context_section_description: Stephenson joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and donated some of her earnings from teaching to their cause, before returning to work in London for a barrister. She lived in rooms at the Twentieth Century Club at Notting Hill, as did fellow activist Ada Flatman. 
  Stephenson became actively involved in 1907, cycling around during her holiday with a banner  'Keep the Liberal Out' and 'Votes For Women', annoying a local minister and schoolteacher. This was in support of the WSPU in the Jarrow by-election with Christabel Pankhurst, Nellie Martel and Mary Gawthorpe. On return, her employer called her "one of the shreiking sisterhood".
  A year later Stephenson was a chief marshall for the Paddington section of the Women's large Hyde Park march and a main speaker (on platform 20) at that event, wearing white and a sash in the WSPU colours of purple, white, green.  She took note on arriving of 'rough' men threatening concealed missiles or to set off bells to disrupt the event. 
  Stephenson was also in the women's delegation with Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Florence Haig, Maud Joachim and Mary Phillips that attempted with Emmeline Pankhurst to enter the House of Commons, but was not one of those arrested then.
  She was imprisoned however in November 1910, for a month, for breaking a window, at the home of Herbert Samuel, Liberal MP, telling his maid who answered the door that 'Suffragettes do not injure flesh and blood", following the harsh treatment of women protesters on Black Friday. The arrested women sang in the Black Maria police van on the way to Holloway Prison, where Stephenson wrote to Margaret Travers Simons to secretly send news from outside prison.
  Stephenson described the treatment of women on arrival having their hair let down and searched, undressing to be searched, but since the change in rules, then allowed to wear their own clothes unlike most other prisoners. She was also allowed to get a letter from her barrister, saying she would lose her job and accommodation if she did not pay the fine to be released,  but she refused and completed her sentence with the other imprisoned suffragettes. Fifteen, including Stephenson and Mary Clarke,  were released just before Christmas, to be met by Emmeline Pankhurst, Mabel Tuke and a group of three hundred supporters.
  At the celebration meal they all attended at the Criterion, Piccadilly for the release of prisoners, Stephenson was given a job offer as a paid organiser for WSPU and was placed next to Christabel Pankhurst, and made a speech reported inVotes for Women 30 December 1910 "Thank God for Mrs. Pankhurst."
  Stephenson then organised the 1911 census night protest in Manchester.
caption: Processing suffragettes, c.1908. (22301202314)
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