The Vote Road Trip: Day 20 Leicester, Knebworth
Leicester Seamstress
Alice Hawkins
8/15 There were two statues to visit in the city center of Leicester, one of the oldest cities in England. The Leicester Seamtress by James Butler dedicated in 1990 in honor of hosiery makers, an important
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back view
Depicted forthrightly speaking, Hawkins is gesturing with one hand and holding a scroll in the other. A “Votes for Women” sash is across her long dress, and a fashionable hat on her head. Striving to project respectability suffragettes typically wore hats, as did British and American suffragists. I am planning to do a photo essay on the hats worn by women fighting for the vote!
Constance Lytton
Happily I found my way back to Linda. Then we were on to a stop I had been anticipating—the Lytton Mausoleum In Knebworth, the burial place of Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, known as Constance Lytton. Involved in prison reform, she became interested in the WSPU, although she didn’t approve of the militant tactics. But the government’s harsh opposition and police brutality changed her mind: In 1908 she wrote to her aunt—“I go deeper and deeper in my enthusiasm . . .as I understand more and more—not only what they do, but what has been done to them to drive them to their tactics.”
Lytton as Jane Warton
Arrested in 1909 and given a 30 day sentence, she was released after fourteen days. Convinced that she received special treatment because of her family (her brother was a member of Parliament), Constance Lytton disguised herself as Jane Wharton, a London seamstress. She threw a stone to get arrested and imprisoned as Jane Wharton. In the Walton Gaol in Liverpool, she was brutally force fed eight times and smacked in the face by a doctor. Her sister finally tracked her down and she was immediately released. (The incident was covered in American newspapers and I included it in my book The Vote: Women’s Fierce Fight.) Constance Lytton spoke and wrote a book Prisons and Prisoners about her experience and helped bring about prison reforms. In 1920, she sent a telegram to the National Woman’s Party celebrating the victory of the American fight for the vote. Never a physically healthy
Open to the public Knebworth House, an elegant English country house, is the site of various events. Its grounds feature gardens, an adventure playground, and a dinosaur park. We arrived late in the afternoon on a cold, rainy day. I explained our purpose and the attendant at the toll booth allowed us to enter without paying.