Area 5.4 14 Ivy Lane, Little Dormers

The delightful thatched cottage, Number 14 Ivy Lane or Little Dormers as it is known today, bears a plaque on it which states that this was the residence of the political activist Emmeline Pankhurst from 1912 until 1914.

It was well known by older villagers that Emmeline Pankhurst and one of her daughters, Sylvia, used Stewkley as a place of retreat away from police attention and the rigours of leading the Sufragette Movement. Emmeline lived in Stewkley using a false name, Mrs Fraser and in this way passed a blissful two years in hiding here.

Although other women across the world in places like New Zealand, Australia and some US territories, like Wyoming and Utah were already allowed to vote, by 1903 in Britain women were still not enfranchised.

Emmeline Pankhurst and daughter Christabel were perhaps the most prominent of the Suffragettes in the Women’s Social and Political Union and after a period of peaceful protests, Emmeline Pankhurst decided the movement had to become more radical and militant if it was going to be effective. She therefore changed the direction of the Union toward more violent tactics to wage war on Lord Asquith’s Government in Britain, perhaps influenced by Russian methods of protest such as hunger strikes, arson and chaining oneself to railings.

No one really knows whether these radical tactics actually harmed or helped the cause, but at the outbreak of war in 1914 the Women’s Social and Political Union wholeheartedly embraced the war effort and ceased this militant policy, preferring to join the war effort and show just how important the women’s role could be in helping to win the war. In 1918 some limited women’s voting rights were passed but it was not till some time later that all women over a certain age were allowed the vote.