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Showing posts from June, 2015

Spotlight on...Dorothy Pethick (1881-1970)

When Winston Churchill came to Bristol in 1909, a number of women came to the city to help Bristol organiser Annie Kenney organise protests during his visit. Actions included window breaking, heckling, and Leeds suffragette Theresa Garnett’s assault of Churchill at Temple Meads Railway station. Among the women who came to help was Dorothy Pethick, younger sister of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. Dorothy Pethick was educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and then worked in a Women’s University Settlement in Blackfriars Road in London. She had been working with Annie in Bristol and the west country since at least 1908. When Annie went to speak in Weston-super-Mare in August 1908, Dorothy went on ahead to make arrangements for the meeting and advertised it by chalking the pavements. Dorothy was one of many suffragettes who sometimes stayed with the Blathwayt family in Batheaston; Mrs Blathwayt described her as “an educated lady”. In 1911 Dorothy planted a fir tree in the Blathwa