Alex Park ......... the people’s park ........ remembering a century and bit of protest

It was Keir Hardie who called Alex Park “the people’s park” in 1893 and I rather think that remains a pretty good alternative name for the place.*

Expressing free speech, 1980

On any day of the week at any time of the year there will loads of people doing something in the park, from walking the dog, to watching the sun glint on the lake or kicking a ball and of course once the weather gets just a little like summer out will come the picnic baskets, the old rugs and a heap of interesting sandwiches.

All of which fulfils Keir Hardie’s reference to the people’s park.

But Mr Hardie’s description was less about the park’s recreational opportunities and more about its place as a forum for debate, and on that day in May 1893 he wasn’t alone in addressing the crowds.

There were according to the newspaper reports a number of platforms each with speakers but all united by the issue of demanding an eight hour working day summed up by the slogan “work for all out work for none.”

But like some many demonstrations down the centuries it was also about free speech with Mr Hardie condemning “the authorities in refusing the legitimate demand of the citizens to the free use of the people's park, and regards that refusal as an overt attempt to crush the right of free meeting and free speech.”*

Mrs Annot Robinson, date unknown

And that has intrigued me. For almost a century one of the popular meeting places had been Stevenson Square, and long before that peaceful assembly gathered in St Peter’s Field the centre of much popular unrest had been New Cross at the junction of Oldham Street and Great Ancoats Street.

But now increasingly protest marches would finish with a rally in the park.

It was here that Mrs Annot Robinson spoke in 1908 spoke to a crowd of thousands on “Votes for Women” and was undeterred by a section of the crowd “of young fellows inclined to be hostile [and] frequently hostile.”

Now I have great admiration for Annot Robinson juggled the demands of being a single parent and played an important part in the politics of the labour movement here in Manchester.***

And two years later she was back, speaking from the Women Workers' platform, she argued “that women were ‘too cheap@ in the home and in the labour market. ...........The best step that could be taken to raise the position of women in society was to allow them to have some share of political power. 

There were cases in Manchester, Mrs. Robinson went on, of girls who worked long hours for six, seven, or eight shillings a week. In the mackintosh trade wages sank even below that. It was this underpayment of girls that incited them to evil living. If women were given an opportunity of influencing the laws of the land matters would be mended.”****

Nor was she alone because during the period after her first meeting there were a whole series of political rallies in support of extending the vote to women.

Busy with the business of protest, 1980

It was a tradition of political protest which has continued.

There will be many like me who remember finishing marches in the park in the 1970s and 80s and I even came across a reference to the veteran fascist Oswald Mosley attempting to peddle his bankrupt ideas.

So there you have it ........... the people’s park more than just a place for a picnic.

At which point I just have to say that the banner of the Moss Side Constituency Labour Party often appeared in the park but not in this picture which was taken in Liverpool in 1980 on another demonstration.

So if anyone has a picture of a demonstration in the park I would love to see it.

Location; Alexandra Park

Picture; popular protest, the Moss Side CLP banner, Liverpool, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* The Alexandra Park Labour Demonstration, Manchester Guardian, May 8 1893

**Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

*** Votes for Women, Interruption in Alexandra Park, Manchester Guardian, July 13 1908

**** Women's Suffrage, The Conciliation Bill, Meeting in Alexandra Park, Manchester Guardian, October 10 1910

Annot Robinson ........ revisiting a remarkable woman

I have decided to revisit Annot Robinson*.

Mrs Annot before her marriage to Sam Robinson

I first came across her   in an excellent account of her contribution to Manchester politics in the early 20th century.**

Just weeks before I had  been reading some of her correspondence to the Daily Citizen in 1915 on the exploitation of woman in the workforce. 

“Women” she wrote “will most certainly have to take the place of men.  

There is already a shortage of men workers in Manchester  but so far as I am aware no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage.“***

She had been born in Scotland in 1874 married and moved to Ancoats in 1908 and returned to Scotland in 1923 where she died two years later.

She had become active in Scottish politics in the 1890s and by 1895 was working for the Independent Labour Party in Dundee.

Annot Robinson speaking at a Suffragette meeting circa 1910 with her daughter

“She entered a marriage based at first on love and shared political ideals but which was ultimately disastrous. 

Subsequently living as a single-parent in an unaccepting age, she struggled in support of her chosen and unpopular causes, a constant and active member of the ILP and at different times of the WSPU, the NUWSS and the Women’s Labour League (WLL), Women’s War Interests Committee, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, an ebullient speaker and tireless traveller and twice a candidate in local elections.”****

All of which was set against the backdrop of being “at first the family bread winner and then a single parent of two young children.”*****

And at this point rather than just lift Ms Rigby’sresearch I shall point you towards the article and in the fullness of time return to Annot Robinson when I found out more myself.

Pictures; Annot  before she married Sam Robinson, and Suffragette meeting in Manchester, circa 1910, Annot Robinson standing.  The baby is her daughter, Cathy.  From ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE

*Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

**ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE, Kate Rigby, Manchester Regional History Review, Vol 1 Nu 1 Spring 1987,
http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/mcrh/files/2013/01/mrhr_01i_rigby.pdf

***"no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage" ............stories from the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/no-women-taking-on-mans-work-will-be.html

****ibid Kate Rigby

***** ibid Kate Rigby

Letters to the Daily Citizen, courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/

Annot Robinson ........

Annot before her marriage to Sam Robinson

I have decided to revisit Annot Robinson.*

I first came across her in an excellent account of her contribution to Manchester politics in the early 20th century.**



I had already been reading some of her correspondence to the Daily Citizen in 1915.

“Women” she wrote “will most certainly have to take the place of men.  

There is already a shortage of men workers in Manchester  but so far as I am aware no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage.“***

She had been born in Scotland in 1874 married and moved to Ancoats in 1908 and returned to Scotland in 1923 where she died two years later.

She had become active in Scottish politics in the 1890s and by 1895 was working for the Independent Labour Party in Dundee.

Annot Robinson speaking at a Suffragette meeting circa 1910 with her daughter

“She entered a marriage based at first on love and shared political ideals but which was ultimately disastrous. 

Subsequently living as a single-parent in an unaccepting age, she struggled in support of her chosen and unpopular causes, a constant and active member of the ILP and at different times of the WSPU, the NUWSS and the Women’s Labour League (WLL), Women’s War Interests Committee, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, an ebullient speaker and tireless traveller and twice a candidate in local elections.”****

All of which was set against the backdrop of being “at first the family bread winner and then a single parent of two young children.”*****

And at this point rather than just lift Ms Rigby’sresearch I shall point you towards the article and in the fullness of time return to Annot Robinson when I found out more myself.

Pictures; Annot  before she married Sam Robinson, and Suffragette meeting in Manchester, circa 1910, Annot Robinson standing.  The baby is her daughter, Cathy.  From ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE

*Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

**ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE, Kate Rigby, Manchester Regional History Review, Vol 1 Nu 1 Spring 1987,

***"no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage" ............stories from the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=stories+from+the+Great+War

****ibid Kate Rigby

***** ibid Kate Rigby

Letters to the Daily Citizen, courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/

Sharing the Square with Mrs. Pankhurst ............

Now the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in St Peter’s Square remains a popular one.*

Mrs. Pankhurst, 2022

On any one day there will be someone having their picture taken beside her.

And that is as it should be given her contribution to the campaign for extending the franchise to women.

Equally significant is that she was the first woman in 117 years to be recognised with a statue in a public place in the city since that of Queen Victoria in 1901.

But of course, Mrs. Pankhurst was not alone in the campaign, and we rightly remember Annie Kenney whose statue stands in Oldham’s Parliament Square, and those who died during the struggle.

Annot Robinson, crca 1895

And then there are the less well-known ones like Ada Chew who was active in the Trade Union Movement and the Independent Labour Party and whose name is on the plinth of Millicent Fawcett's statue in Parliament Square, London.

Here in Manchester, there were a host of working class women including Annot Robinson who is less well known but deserves more recognition.**

So perhaps we shall have more statues to those who made that contribution to maintaining the campaign, and perhaps Mrs. Robinson would be a start.***

Location; St Peter’s Square

Picture;  Sharing the Square with Mrs, Pankhurst, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Annot Robinson, from ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE***

*Emmeline Pankhurst, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=mrs.+pankhurst

**Annot Robinson, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

***ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE, Kate Rigby, Manchester Regional History Review, Vol 1 Nu 1 Spring 1987, http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/mcrh/files/2013/01/mrhr_01i_rigby.pdf

"no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage" ............stories from the Great War

“Women will most certainly have to take the place of men.  

There is already a shortage of men workers in Manchester  but so far as I am aware no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage.“*

Now it is easy to fall into that view of the Great War which portrays women as coming out of the shadows and somehow being liberated by the conflict.

It is an attractive idea and of course has some substance.

Women were employed in a whole range of occupations some of which were totally new to them but in the process faced opposition from male colleagues.

In 1915 the secretary of the National Agricultural Labourers’ & Rural Worker’s Union wrote “I am to point out that we shall oppose to the uttermost the employment of women in Agriculture and if the policy outlined is pursued our 300 Branches scattered throughout the country will undoubtedly have something to say on the matter, and I am quite certain trouble lies ahead.  

We oppose the employment of women in the Agricultural Industry on moral and economic grounds.”** 

And a few months later the union wrote of one woman employed on a farm in Shropshire who “worked for days in succession driving a pair of horses attached to harrows or other agricultural implements , to cultivate the land.  This woman receives one shilling a day in wages without any other allowance s for the service s which she renders to the farmer.”***

Of course it might be easy to dismiss such evidence as a one off, but as Annot Robinson pointed in March 1915, “no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage” and going on to reveal that “the Women’s Emergency Corps have undertaken an enquiry  to find in what trades women could replace men .  

It has not found a single instance where women’s wages have been increased to meet the rise in the cost of living.

In the majority of cases a percentage has been taken off their wages and the amount employers are offering for clerks for instance is generally about 5 shillings a week less than the current  rates before the war.”

Nor had things improved a year later when she reported that few employer’s in the Manchester munition factories were following the government’s recommendations of a flat rate for women of at least a £ a week.

So that much advanced idea that women gained from the war has to be judged more carefully as does that equally hawked view that a grateful nation rewarded the contribution made by women by finally granting them the vote for in reality the extension of the franchise was limited.

Now for some this will not be a revelation but for others I think it will, and so I shall be revisiting working conditions in the Great War, drawing on the correspondence of the War Emergency Workers National Committee and looking more closely at Annot Robinson who was a remarkable women.****

Pictures; the Tube Factory, the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, 1918,  from the collection of Mark Flynn, http://www.markfynn.com/london-postcards.htm Women Munitions workers Belsize works, Openshaw, 1918 m08093, and  Women working in a munitions factory, date unknown, m08096   courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

*Mrs Annot Robinson, Daily Citizen, March 20 1915

**letter to the War Emergency Workers National Committee, February 27 1915, archives People’s History Museum

*** letter to the War Emergency Workers National Committee, April 26 1915

****War Emergency Workers National Committee, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20War%20Emergency%20Workers%20National%20Committee

Letters to the War Emergency Workers National Committee, courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/

Standing in front of Annie Kenney and Mrs Pankhurst .......

Now, amongst all the press coverage of the unveiling of the statues of Ememeline Pankhurst in Manchester and that of Annie Kenney in Oldham’s Parliament Square, one fact leapt out at me which is that we have had to wait a long time for both.

Mrs Pankhurst, Manchester, 2018

In the case of Mrs Pankhurst, hers is the first statue of a woman to be erected in the city since Queen Victoria statue  was unveiled in 1901 and until relatively recently the role of working class women in the campaign for the vote was largely overlooked.

At best working class women like Annie Kenney, Selina Cooper and Annot Robinson get “walk on parts” and at worst were almost completely ignored.

Many combined their campaigning activities alongside full time work and bringing up young families.

Others were also involved in their trade unions and in the campaigns to improve working conditions and during the Great War arguing for peace.

All of that said, to have two statues unveiled at the same time just eight miles apart commemorating the struggle to achieve the right of women to vote in Parliamentary elections is to be applauded.

Looking towards the Free Trade Hall, 2018

Mrs Pankhurst’s story is well known, and now she is represented by a bronze statue by sculptor Hazel Reeves which stands in St Peter’s Square facing towards the old Free Trade Hall  where some of the first demands for the vote and just a short distance from her home in Nelson Street.

The original idea came from Councillor Andrew Simcock who  launched a campaign in 2015,  to identify a Manchester “woman of significance” who would be remembered by a statute.

Andrew asked for suggestions and Mancunians voted for Mrs Pankhurst.

From there the project took another step forward with the invitation of 19 sculptors to produce a design from which a short list of six was chosen which resulted in the winning design by  Hazel Reeves, and the result was unveiled this week.

With Annie Kenney in Oldham, 2018

And while that event was happening, over in Oldham the statue of Annie Kenney was also unveiled.

Ms Kenny was born in 1879, and started part-time work in a textile mill at the age of 10, before going full time at 13.

She remained at the mill for 15 years, was involved in trade-union activities, furthered her education through self-study and promoted the study of literature among her work colleagues. She was a regular church attender.

One day I hope that there may also be a statue to Annot Robinson, who was born in Scotland in 1874.*

Annot Robinson, circa 1895

She had become active in Scottish politics in the 1890s and by 1895 was working for the Independent Labour Party in Dundee.

After her marriage she settled in Ancoats and became active in the labour movement in Manchester, continuing her work after she and her husband parted.

Subsequently living as a single-parent in an unaccepting age, she remained an active member of the ILP and at different times of the WSPU, the NUWSS and the Women’s Labour League (WLL), Women’s War Interests Committee, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, an ebullient speaker and tireless traveller and twice a candidate in local elections.

We shall see.

Location; Manchester and Oldham

Pictures; at the unveiling of Mrs Pankhurst and Annie Kenney's statues, courtesy of Matthew Benham and Annot Rbinson, from ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE**

*Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

**ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE, Kate Rigby, Manchester Regional History Review, Vol 1 Nu 1 Spring 1987,
http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/mcrh/files/2013/01/mrhr_01i_rigby.pdf

Women and the Great War, part 1 ............ Barnet Postwomen circa 1914-18

Now there is a lot of sloppy history presented to us and some of is about the role of women in the two world wars.

The received package of sleek easy to take in information will be that women took the place of men in many industries and won the right to the vote in recognition of their efforts.

Of course as ever there is truth in that line but it hides much more.  Many women at the time were fully aware of the efforts they made but as Annot Robinson observed *

“Women “will most certainly have to take the place of men.  

There is already a shortage of men workers in Manchester  but so far as I am aware no women taking on a man’s work will be receiving a man’s wage.“**

Now I have written about Mrs Robinson and the degree to which women were exploited while working in a whole range of industries and often then doing another job at home.

And so here to start a short series a group of post women from Barnet, kindly supplied by David Harrop.

The caption just says, "Barnet Postwomen circa 1914-18."

In time I will go looking for more on this group but for now that's it.

Picture;  Barnet Postwomen circa 1914-18, courtesy of David Harrop

*Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

**Letters to the Daily Citizen, courtesy of the Labour History Archives & Study Centre,  at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, http://www.phm.org.uk/


Annot Robinson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annot%20Robinson

Additional information from

ANNOT ROBINSON: A FORGOTTEN MANCHESTER SUFFRAGETTE, Kate Rigby, Manchester Regional History Review, Vol 1 Nu 1 Spring 1987,
http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/mcrh/files/2013/01/mrhr_01i_rigby.pdf