Suffragettes of Kent delivers a thought provoking insight into the many stories and journeys of hope, determination, courage and sacrifice of those involved in the women’s suffrage movement in Kent.

Discover an untold story of Ethel Baldock, a young working class Kent maid, involved in the suffrage movement. See photographs of Ethel and learn of her arrest and imprisonment for her part in the 1912 window-smashing militant action.

The tours of Kent by the Women’s Freedom League in 1908 and 1913 and the Women’s Social Political Union in 1913 are retraced. Their messages and the reaction of the Kent inhabitants are explored. A detailed account is given of the significant part Kent played in the 1913 mass pilgrimage to London by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

Revealing the part Maidstone Prison played in forcible feeding of suffragette prisoners, the book includes accounts by those who experienced such treatment and a medical report by Maidstone Prison’s leading medical officer, Dr. Charles Edward Hoar. Discover who was imprisoned in Kent’s Maidstone and Canterbury prisons, including a leading women’s suffrage pioneer.

Detailing connections between national women’s suffrage pioneers and the county of Kent, this book includes accounts from 1866 through to 1928 of significant meetings, visits, speeches, tours, demonstrations and militant action. Incorporated are stories of pioneers such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Millicent Fawcett, Charlotte Despard, Christabel Pankhurst, Emily Wilding Davison, Mrs Emmeline Pethick Lawrence and Annie Kenney.

Discover who challenged their Kent audience to do more for ‘the Cause’ and which pioneer was stoned and injured by an audience in Maidstone. Find out who hid overnight and became the first to disturb a political meeting in the county and who was much celebrated on her visit to Kent seaside towns. Read details of how Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, and Home Secretary, Mr Gladstone were targeted in Kent by suffragettes. Learn how some Kent residents boycotted the 1911 census and of the Kent manor house subjected to a militant arson attack whilst servants slept inside.