Miss Jessie Kenney

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/g11gck6z22f
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999)

Family information: Jessie was sister to suffragettes Annie and Nellie Kenney.

Additional Information: Jessie was, with her sister Annie Kenney, at the Oldham meeting where they heard Christabel Pankhurst and Teresa Billington-Greig speak about women's suffrage. This impacted on Jessie, who, like her sister, joined the WSPU as a result. Jessie followed after her sister by going to London to 'rouse' people in 1906 and became private secretary to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, then a leading figure in the WSPU. She was aged just 19 years old. Jessie soon proved herself a hard worker. She became the youngest WSPU organiser, aged 21, and was based at the WSPU headquarters in London. From there, she organised publicity stunts, meetings and militant acts. Jessie was arrested in 1908 after 'disturbances' in Parliament Square and was sentenced to one month in prison. She also signed up to the Young Hot Bloods (YHB), a secretive group of younger WSPU members who were prepared to undertake 'danger duty'. By 1913, she needed a short break to recover, either from a 'breakdown' or from a lung condition ? it is hard to say which ? but she spent time in Switzerland. Christabel Pankhurst cited this illness as the reason why Jessie failed to dispose of incriminating papers found in her London flat by police, which led to the arrest of Edwy Clayton (see Edwy Clayton). In 1914, she returned to England after a spell in Paris with Christabel, using the aliases 'Constance Burrows' and 'Mary Fordyce' to look after the printing of the WSPU magazine, then entitled The Suffragette. When war broke out in 1914, Jessie remained close to the Pankhursts, who lent the WSPU's services to the government war effort. Annie noted later that they received very little for their efforts in return. In 1919, she was listed as parliamentary secretary for the Women's Party ? a renamed WSPU.

Other Suffrage Activities: After the war, Jessie became the first woman to qualify as a ship's Radio Officer (first class certificate in radio operating) but, because she was a woman, she was not allowed to practise. She travelled all over the world, working as a steward on cruise liners.