Do You Have a Suffragette in the Family?
2018 marked the first time when women could vote in parliamentary elections and FFH recognised the long struggle for the women's vote by bringing to light the wide range of women who took part in an imaginative and wide-ranging campaign.
We know there was a very active branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in York from 1910 up to the out-break of WW1, and many local women took part in an imaginative and vigorous campaign. But, sadly they have left little trace of what they did. Do you remember family stories about women (and some men) who were involved?
And, what has happened to their beautiful banner?
Two local families were heavily involved; Annie Coultate of 33 Melbourne Street, Fishergate, and the Suffield sisters of East View House, Back Lane, Fulford. Annie Coultate was a teacher at Fishergate School and the founding Secretary of the York Branch of the WSPU. The Suffield sisters were heavily involved in the York campaign and Ada Suffield was the Scarborough secretary - Read more about the Suffield sisters HERE
Along with Annie Coultate, Violet Key-Jones was a founding Organiser of the York WSPU, and related to the Key family of Water Fulford Hall.
She is pictured here after being arrested for chaining herself to a chair and disrupting a political meeting.
FFH held a meeting in October 2018 on the local campaign for the vote, where researcher, Mike Waters, gave an interesting and very informative talk describing their activities. You can read his notes HERE
York Civic Trust has an interesting article about York Suffragettes on its website HERE
2018 marked the first time when women could vote in parliamentary elections and FFH recognised the long struggle for the women's vote by bringing to light the wide range of women who took part in an imaginative and wide-ranging campaign.
We know there was a very active branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in York from 1910 up to the out-break of WW1, and many local women took part in an imaginative and vigorous campaign. But, sadly they have left little trace of what they did. Do you remember family stories about women (and some men) who were involved?
And, what has happened to their beautiful banner?
Two local families were heavily involved; Annie Coultate of 33 Melbourne Street, Fishergate, and the Suffield sisters of East View House, Back Lane, Fulford. Annie Coultate was a teacher at Fishergate School and the founding Secretary of the York Branch of the WSPU. The Suffield sisters were heavily involved in the York campaign and Ada Suffield was the Scarborough secretary - Read more about the Suffield sisters HERE
Along with Annie Coultate, Violet Key-Jones was a founding Organiser of the York WSPU, and related to the Key family of Water Fulford Hall.
She is pictured here after being arrested for chaining herself to a chair and disrupting a political meeting.
FFH held a meeting in October 2018 on the local campaign for the vote, where researcher, Mike Waters, gave an interesting and very informative talk describing their activities. You can read his notes HERE
York Civic Trust has an interesting article about York Suffragettes on its website HERE
Annie Coultate posted a notice in Votes for Women on 18th February 1910, announcing that: ‘A group of women has undertaken to organise a women’s meeting on March 2nd. All interested are invited to write to Mrs Coultate as above. Hon. Sec. Mrs Coultate, 68 Nunthorpe Road.’
This led to the founding of a very active branch of the WSPU in York.
A year later when the 1911 census enumerator called at 33 Melbourne Street in Fishergate, York, he discovered that then resident Annie Coultate had signed the census form, but she had not made an entry for herself and described her son Henry as the head of the household. The enumerator scratched out ‘Head’ and wrote ‘Son’ and added a terse note diagonally across the form saying: ‘The signature is that of a well-known suffragette. She was away from her home during the night of the census but was most probably enumerated amongst a number of suffragettes who passed the night in a room in Coney Street, York, with the object of evading the census’.
Annie was secretary of York WSPU and had spent census night in a room adjacent to their offices in Coney Street, where an enumerator counted the 18 women and 3 men as they left the building.
After the event, Votes for Women reported that ‘a large upper room was furnished with comfortable chairs and the evaders settled themselves in for the night…The most thrilling moments were when policemen ascended the stairs and the room ‘lay low’… Supper was served and amid much merriment and a most enjoyable night was spent.’
As secretary, Annie was at the centre of the campaign and Votes for Women records her regularly selling large numbers of the newspaper from door to door and on the street in York. She also organised events and social gatherings and occasionally spoke at public meetings in York and other towns. There were few examples of militant action in York, but Annie actively supported those who took part in the campaign. When Lilian Lenton was released under the Cat and Mouse Act, she escaped from house arrest in York by acting as a nanny and pushing Annie’s daughter Florence’s baby, Stephen, in a pram.
Annie was born Annie de Lacy in 1856, the daughter of Henry, a wholesale druggist traveller. She became a pupil-teacher at the age of 15, and was 55 years old when she set up the York WSPU. By then she was a highly respected senior teacher at Fishergate Elementary School, where her work for women’s suffrage was admired by the headmaster, George Barker. She was one of very few women included in a municipal poster of photographs of key figures working for York Corporation in 1910. This is the picture above - the only known photograph of her. Annie married Frank Coultate in 1881. He was also a schoolteacher, but he died aged 41 and Annie brought up Henry and Florence on her own. Florence followed Annie into teaching and married William Mountain Holmes, headteacher of Poppleton Road School in York, and both were involved in the suffrage movement. Henry was a grocer’s assistant and also worked for the cause. Annie died in 1931 at her daughter’s house in Acomb, York. She was 75.
Annie Coultate has been given national recognition by her inclusion in a new website, Mapping Women's Suffrage' which aims to give information about the women and men across the country who campaigned for equal voting rights. We aim to add information about other local women in the next few months.
You can access the Mapping Women's Suffrage website HERE
DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YORK'S SUFFRAGETTES? Please get in touch HERE
This led to the founding of a very active branch of the WSPU in York.
A year later when the 1911 census enumerator called at 33 Melbourne Street in Fishergate, York, he discovered that then resident Annie Coultate had signed the census form, but she had not made an entry for herself and described her son Henry as the head of the household. The enumerator scratched out ‘Head’ and wrote ‘Son’ and added a terse note diagonally across the form saying: ‘The signature is that of a well-known suffragette. She was away from her home during the night of the census but was most probably enumerated amongst a number of suffragettes who passed the night in a room in Coney Street, York, with the object of evading the census’.
Annie was secretary of York WSPU and had spent census night in a room adjacent to their offices in Coney Street, where an enumerator counted the 18 women and 3 men as they left the building.
After the event, Votes for Women reported that ‘a large upper room was furnished with comfortable chairs and the evaders settled themselves in for the night…The most thrilling moments were when policemen ascended the stairs and the room ‘lay low’… Supper was served and amid much merriment and a most enjoyable night was spent.’
As secretary, Annie was at the centre of the campaign and Votes for Women records her regularly selling large numbers of the newspaper from door to door and on the street in York. She also organised events and social gatherings and occasionally spoke at public meetings in York and other towns. There were few examples of militant action in York, but Annie actively supported those who took part in the campaign. When Lilian Lenton was released under the Cat and Mouse Act, she escaped from house arrest in York by acting as a nanny and pushing Annie’s daughter Florence’s baby, Stephen, in a pram.
Annie was born Annie de Lacy in 1856, the daughter of Henry, a wholesale druggist traveller. She became a pupil-teacher at the age of 15, and was 55 years old when she set up the York WSPU. By then she was a highly respected senior teacher at Fishergate Elementary School, where her work for women’s suffrage was admired by the headmaster, George Barker. She was one of very few women included in a municipal poster of photographs of key figures working for York Corporation in 1910. This is the picture above - the only known photograph of her. Annie married Frank Coultate in 1881. He was also a schoolteacher, but he died aged 41 and Annie brought up Henry and Florence on her own. Florence followed Annie into teaching and married William Mountain Holmes, headteacher of Poppleton Road School in York, and both were involved in the suffrage movement. Henry was a grocer’s assistant and also worked for the cause. Annie died in 1931 at her daughter’s house in Acomb, York. She was 75.
Annie Coultate has been given national recognition by her inclusion in a new website, Mapping Women's Suffrage' which aims to give information about the women and men across the country who campaigned for equal voting rights. We aim to add information about other local women in the next few months.
You can access the Mapping Women's Suffrage website HERE
DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YORK'S SUFFRAGETTES? Please get in touch HERE