Hannah Mitchell
Hannah Mitchell, the daughter of John Webster, a small farmer in Derbyshire, was born in 1871. Hannah received only two weeks of formal schooling and was kept busy on the farm and with domestic duties. Her three brothers did not have to work at home and she grew up with a strong awareness of gender inequalities.
At the age of fourteen Hannah had a vigorous row with her mother over the work she was expected to do. After being badly beaten with a stick, Hannah ran away from home. Hannah found work as a dressmaker in Bolton. Although she was only earning eight shillings a week, she managed to subscribe to a small library and over the next few years taught herself to read and write.
While working in Bolton, Hannah met Gibbon Mitchell, a tailor's cutter. Gibbon was the son of a widow with eight children and had worked since the age of ten. Gibbon was a socialist and the couple began attending meetings at the Bolton branch of the
Independent Labour Party. Hannah and Gibbon became active in the trade union movement in Bolton during this period and avid readers
The Clarion a journal produced by
Robert Blatchford.
Hannah married Mitchell in 1895. Hannah insisted that they should share domestic duties. Although he agreed on principal with this, he found it difficult to live up to Hannah's expectations of how a husband should behave. She later pointed out in her autobiography that she gradually realised that "socialists are not necessarily feminists." Hannah also objected to the way her husband "handed over the wages and left all the worrying to me." She wrote that even "the most sympathetic man can never be made to understand that meals do not come up through the tablecloth, but have to be planned, bought and cooked."
In 1904 Hannah joined the local branch of
Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Gibbon Mitchell supported her involvement and because of local hostility to the suffragettes was employed as one of the bodyguards at public meetings. Hannah's involvement in the movement grew and in 1905 she became a full-time worker for the
WSPU.
Like many of the leading figures in the
WSPU, Mitchell objected to the way that
Emmeline Pankhurst and
Christabel Pankhurst made important decisions without consulting fellow members. In 1907
Charlotte Despard persuaded her to join
Women's Freedom League.
Mitchell was a pacifist and refused to become involved the
WSPU army recruiting campaign in 1914. She joined the
Independent Labour Party and other organised that opposed the war including the
No-Conscription Fellowship and the Women's Peace Council.
In 1924 Hannah Mitchell was elected to the
Manchester City Council. She remained an important political figure in
Manchester until she retired. In her seventies Hannah wrote her autobiography
The Hard Way Up. Unfortunately, the book was not published until after her death in 1956.
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