Annie Kenney - Suffragette

Lucy Worsley is back with a new series of Lady on Trial, where courtroom drama meets history - with a twist.

Lucy and her team of all female detectives travel back more than a hundred years to meet women hauled before the courts for crimes ranging from murder, adultery, and bigamy, to the shocking offense of not knowing their place.

In this episode Lucy is investigating suffragette Annie Kenney. Born in 1879 near Oldham into a large, working-class weaving family, Annie works in a mill from a young age. But everything changes when she hears Christabel Pankhurst speak for votes for women in 1905. She quickly becomes involved in the campaign, giving rousing speeches and encouraging women to smash windows. Constantly in and out of prison, Annie endures hunger strike and is one of the first women released under the infamous Cat and Mouse Act.

With Lucy to explore Annie Kenney’s story is barrister Jennifer Robinson, author of Silenced Women: Why the Law Fails Women and How to Fight Back. Jennifer gives us insight into how Annie’s actions might be interpreted today, and how they have directly impacted current protest laws.

Lucy is also joined by historian and author Dr Lyndsey Jenkins, who wrote a book on Annie Kenney, Sisters and Sisterhood: The Kenney Family, Class and Suffrage.

Lucy wants to know how effective the suffragette movement was in gaining women the vote. What did militancy achieve? And in today’s tumultuous landscape, is our right to vote more fragile than we think?

Producer: Hannah Fisher
Readers: Clare Corbett, Jonathan Keeble and Ruth Sillers
Historical consultant: Dr Lyndsey Jenkins
Head of Production: Claire Myers
Sound design: Chris Maclean
Senior producer: Julia Hayball
Executive producer: Kirsty Hunter

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.