Agnes Brown (suffragist)
| Agnes Henderson Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born |
12 April, 1866 Edinburgh |
| Died |
1 December, 1943 Edinburgh |
| Nationality | UK |
Agnes Brown (12 April, 1866 – 1 December, 1943) was a British suffragist and writer. She was one of the "Brown Women" who walked from Edinburgh to London in 1912.
Life
Brown was born in Edinburgh in 1866 to William and Jessie Brown. Her middle name was her mothers name before she married. Her father was an activist for women's rights. His opposition to taxes that differentiated between genders caused him to end up in Calton Gaol. Her father ran a number if fruit shops but he trained his daughters, Agnes and Jessie, well and refused to submit to laws that he objected to.[1]
Brown was an activist for the Women's Freedom League which was a suffrage organisation created in 1907 in reply to the Pankhursts autocracy. She volunteered to be one of the "Brown Women". The "Brown Women" were not named after her but after the brown coats that the walkers wore. Brown and five others set off from Edinburgh in 1912 to walk to London. They had white scarfs and green hats and as they travelled they gathered signatures for a petition for women's rights.[1] The hikers had to walk fifteen miles and attend a meeting each day and in this way they took five weeks to get to London.[2] They followed the route of the A6 and they were joined by others along the way. One one day near Berwick they walked over 30 miles before being welcomed by the local member of parliament. Finally they got to London where their horse and cart was sent back to Scotland. They went by tube to Trafalgar Square where the walkers entered to music.[3] Rosalie Gardiner Jones was a supporter of the “Pankhursts,”. She organised walks in America that were similar to the "Brown Wowem" walks.[4] One of Jones Suffrage Hikes include the hike to Albany, New York in December 1912.
With a father who had been a de facto political prisoner she supported the idea that men could be members of the Women's Freedom League. In 1913 a group of professional men failed to get a meeting with Asquith to discuss extending votes to women. That group formed the Northern Men's Federation for Women's Suffrage and Agnes volunteered to be their secretary.[2]
In 1917 she went to help the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes as they assisted Scottish agriculture but in time they were cut out of the organisation by the Scottish board of agriculture. In 1918 she was one of the founding members of the Edinburgh Women Citizens Association which was one of many WCAs that were formed across the country to educate new women voters. Other members were Sarah Siddons, Lillias Tait Mitchell , Agnes Syme Macdonald and Alexi Buttar Jack.[5]
Brown wrote articles and plays and she continued to walk. Not content with the Brown Women walk she repeated a similar walk but this time she set off from John O Groats. As she travelled to London she reported on her journey in the Weekly Scotsman.[1]
Brown died and was buried in Edinburgh in 1943.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 Eleanor Gordon, ‘Brown, Agnes Henderson (1866–1943)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 accessed 23 May 2017
- 1 2 "The Brown Sisters". www.cheztiana.eclipse.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
- ↑ "Friends of Berwick Museum" (PDF). Retrieved 24 May 2017.
- ↑ Roberta J Park; Patricia Vertinsky (13 September 2013). Women, Sport, Society: Further Reflections, Reaffirming Mary Wollstonecraft. Taylor & Francis. pp. 62–. ISBN 978-1-317-98579-2.
- ↑ Edinburgh Women Citizens Association, WomenofScotland.org, Retrieved 24 May 2017