ABSTRACT
Mary Gawthorpe (1881-1973) was ‘Yorkshire born’. Like Hannah Mitchell, she was a woman of working-class background who joined the suffrage movement by way of socialist and labour politics in the early years of this century. But, again like Hannah Mitchell, when she looked back upon her militant suffragism, she located its origins within the context of domestic life, and the oppression of women within the family. Mary Gawthorpe grew up among the back-to-back houses of Meanwood in Leeds where her father worked in the local tannery. Before marriage, her mother had escaped from work in the mill by helping with a home dressmaking business established by a sister. Though the family was poor, it was one which, during her early childhood, enjoyed a certain standing in the local community. Mary attended the local Church of England school. Her father was choirmaster, superintendent of the Sunday school and lay official of the church. He was also captain of the cricket team, a ‘good lodge man’, and honorary secretary of the local Conservative Party branch. In the days of Lord Randolph Churchill’s ‘Tory democracy’ there had even been some talk of his standing for Parliament. But instead he had to be content with acting as the political agent for his employer, who was also the local Conservative Member of Parliament. John Gawthorpe loved books, read widely, and enjoyed some success in literary competitions. Looking back from a new life she later established for herself in America, Mary Gawthorpe identified her father as a victim of ‘the caste system of England’, ‘an intellectual soul who would have done brilliantly in an intellectual profession’ if the social system had allowed him such opportunity.1
