Jessie Stephen: Maryhill’s Suffragette

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Jessie Stephen: Maryhill’s Suffragette. Photo credit: Aurora Segnan

For some time I have been working with Aurora Segnan, Heritage & Operations Coordinator at Maryhill Burgh Halls, to stage an exhibition about Jessie Stephen – Suffragette, Labour and Trades Union activist. I’m delighted to report that it opened on March 11th and will run until 13th June.

Maryhill Burgh Halls: Jessie Stephen

Jessie, who spent her formative years in Maryhill, is one of the few Scottish working class Suffragettes we know much about. Working class women could not afford to be caught and sent to prison because they often had families depending on them, so they tended to remain anonymous. Jessie never married and dedicated her whole life to activism. This public career, her unpublished autobiography, and several interviews she gave in the 1970s mean she has left her mark on history.

Before going on to tell the story of Jessie’s life the exhibition starts with a brief explanation of who the Suffragettes were and a map of some of the suffrage activities in Glasgow.

Suffrage activities in Glasgow

Life in Glasgow

Jessie was born in London in 1893 to a Scottish father and an English mother. When she was about two years old the family moved to Edinburgh, then Dunfermline, before finally settling in Glasgow. Their home was in Rolland Street, demolished in the 1970s, but you can still just see a tiny bit of it emerging on to Maryhill Road. A new school has been built on the main site – Jessie would have liked this.

Rolland Street today
North Kelvinside Primary School

Jessie was the eldest of 11 and worked hard helping her mother with the younger children and taking jobs before and after school, such as delivering laundry. The children all attended Sunday School and Socialist Sunday School. Jessie did well academically and hoped to become a teacher, but in 1908 her father, a tailor, found trade so bad that she left school to help support the family by becoming a domestic servant.

Belhaven Terrace (West) today. Jessie worked at number 20.

Jessie chose this role because food and lodgings were provided which meant she could send more money home. Her first employer, Mrs Harvey of Burnbank Terrace, was reasonably pleasant to work for but a later employer, Lady Chisholm of Belhaven Terrace, sacked her when she twisted her ankle in the course of her work. Influenced by her father’s socialism, Jessie was already politically active, becoming Vice Chair of Maryhill Independent Labour Party aged only 16, and a strong believer in Trades Unions. Her treatment by the Chisholms prompted her to create the Scottish Domestic Workers’ Federation in 1913. This involved organising not just meetings of servants but addressing their employers too – as a result she got 2 hours off every day for her members and an agreement that all uniform would be paid by employers.

Pillar box with Jessie’s name second box from left
Kirklee postbox

Alongside these activities Jessie joined the Women’s Social and Political Union, or Suffragettes. One of the campaigns she took part in was attacking pillar boxes with paint or acid. Dressed in her maid’s uniform, she looked completely unsuspicious and was never caught. For this she has been commemorated in the Great Tapestry of Scotland Women get the vote panel. The pillar box next to it in the gallery above is Edwardian and right opposite Belhaven Terrace where Jessie worked – could this be one of those she attacked?

Life after Glasgow

During the First World War Jessie was recruited by Sylvia Pankhurst to work for her Workers’ Suffrage Federation in London, and she never lived in Glasgow again. When some women got the vote in 1918, Jessie was not one of them, because she was under 30 and owned no property. Women over 21 did not get the vote until 1928.

Jessie believed this was just the beginning and continued to campaign for equality in all areas of life. She served as a councillor and tried unsuccessfully to become an MP several times between the 1920s and 1960s.

Standing for parliament. Readers of a certain age might spot Harold Wilson in the furthest away image. I had to explain him to a young journalist who said the first Prime Minister she could remember was David Cameron.

To finance her activism, which included two speaking tours of North America in the 1920s, Jessie worked at a variety of jobs, including in Trades Unions, as a freelance journalist, running a twopenny library, and taking over an ailing typing service which she turned into a thriving secretarial agency and training school. However, one thing she would never do was move to a job for a higher salary if it violated what she stood for. Wherever she worked, she always fought to unionise and to get better conditions for workers, especially equal pay for women.

Some of Jessie’s journalism. These are not old newspaper cuttings, they are print-outs painted with tea!

Jessie finally settled in Bristol in the 1940s where she became the first woman president of the Trades Council. Her work for the Trade Union movement was recognised by a TUC Gold Medal in 1955 and an MBE in 1977. She died in Bristol in 1979.

Remembering Jessie

As well as telling the story of Jessie’s life, the exhibition includes a collection of memorabilia about her, such as:

  • A mug produced as part of Journey to Justice Bristol 2017.
  • Commemorative material from Glasgow Women’s Library. Jessie features in two of their walks and trails, and in a bookmark made from some of the wood torn from the Suffrage Oak on the Kelvin Way by Storm Ophelia in 2017.
  • Educational resources including Jessie from creative project and social enterprise Protests and Suffragettes.
  • A portrait by Ann Vance on loan from Govanhill Baths Community Trust.
  • The pièce de résistance, a banner made by Sheana Stephen, Jessie’s great-niece, and carried in a procession in Edinburgh in 2018 to celebrate the centenary of the first women getting the vote. I am grateful to Sheana for lending so much to the exhibition.
Jessie memorabilia
Protests and Suffragettes material
Protests and Suffragettes material and portrait be Ann Vance
Banner by Sheana Stephen
Banner in use 2018, Sheana is on the right
Reverse of banner, Sheana is first on the right

Conclusion

Jessie could turn her hand to almost anything and was unafraid to stand up to those whose principles did not measure up to her ideals. Some adults found her intimidating, calling her nicknames such as Leather Lungs and Battle Axe, but children were not afraid of her because she always carried a good supply of sweeties in her handbag.

She was an activist almost to her last breath. When she fell ill and was admitted to hospital for the last time, she was due to attend the National Conference of Labour Women. It was reported at her funeral that her last words were: “You’ll have to change my tablets. I’m going to a women’s conference.” What might she have achieved if she had been elected to Parliament? We can only wonder.

Main sources

Corston, J. (2018). Suffragette and activist Jessie Stephen: a life remembered. Retrieved from https://ukvote100.org/2018/03/02/suffragette-and-activist-jessie-stephen-a-life-remembered-by-jean-corston/

Dallas, G. (1975). Jessie. Spare Rib, 32, 10-13. (Available in Glasgow Women’s Library.)

LSE Women’s Library Collection: The Suffrage interviews. Retrieved from https://www.lse.ac.uk/library/collection-highlights/the-suffrage-interviews. (A collection of oral histories conducted by the historian Brian Harrison between 1974 and 1981. Jessie is number 157 on the list.)

Stephen, J. (n.d.). Submission is for slaves. (Unpublished autobiography. Available in Working Class Movement Library, Salford.)

Historic figures, Scotland , , , ,

48 Comments »

  1. Now I’ve just been looking thru my blog comments to find a name – haven’t got that one yet … but came across your comment about Jessie: “My” Suffragette Jessie Stephen once ran a two penny library and a secretarial agency in Lewes! I’ve never been …’ Lewes doesn’t look the image I took when I visited back in March! … but thought I should put that note up here … cheers Hilary

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  2. Well done Anabel – I hope the exhibition gets lots of visitors. It’s great bringing unknown or not well known women to life in our age and remind us of the past. Love the march with your friends all dressed in Suffragette colours … cheers Hilary

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  3. What a fascinating woman! Jessie was so young when she started her activism, I love that she stayed true to her beliefs throughout her life. The exhibition is such a great way to share Jessie’s story, as her achievements deserve to be more widely known. Congratulations!

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  6. Very well done , it looks a great exhibition. Jessie sounds like a real character and I love that she carried sweeties in her handbag. 🙂
    It’s amazing that she started her activism at such a young age.

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  7. What a fascinating and incredible woman, Anabel. I can see why you’ve been so passionate and adamant about sharing her life and story. Congrats on putting the exhibition together. A huge achievement for the greater good!

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  12. You’ve done an amazing job researching Jessie, Anabel, and getting this exhibit organized. I spied you in that last photo, too. Some amazing women dedicated their lives so all women could lead better ones. They deserve our everlasting gratitude.

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  15. What a redoubtable woman! I’d – of course – never heard of her, but I have now! The first woman MP I have any memories of was Bessie Braddock. It turns out that Malcolm’s mother knew her well as she, like Bessie was a Labour Councillor in Liverpool. My parents were fiercely Tory and were very underwhelmed when their daughter followed a different political path (‘ You’ll learn, when you’re older’ opined my mother. Well, I didn’t)

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    • I reaise my comment looks as though I thought JS became an MP! No, I realiise that she didn’t. She certainly should have though! Interesting that her work got her an MBE. I can’t help thinking that had she been a member of the Conservative Party and done equivalent tasks for right-leaning causes (whatever they might have been) she’d have had a higher honour.

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    • I hadn’t heard of her either until I started going to the Women’s Library. I’m very happy to bring her to a wider audience. I don’t remember Bessie Braddock, I think Barbara Castle is the first woman MP I have clear memories of. Jessie regarded her as a friend though was quite critical of her. Yes, that thing about moving to the right as you get older doesn’t always work – though I know one or two where it did and it’s scary!

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  16. I’d never heard of Jessie Stephen until you started writing about her. Thank you for bringing her to my attention, she sounds like a very interesting and remarkable woman, I would have liked to meet her.

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  19. I have to admit to not having heard of Jessie Stephen despite having an interest in the Suffragette movement. She sounds an amazing woman. Congratulations on the exhibition, you’ve clearly done a great job and should be very proud of it! By the way, I had to smile at your comment about the journalist who said the first PM she could remember was David Cameron because Harold Wilson is the first one I remember well. My parents (my mother in particular) were big admirers.

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    • Thank you Sarah! I had never heard of Jessie either till I went to Glasgow Women’s Library 12 years ago and I’m pleased to be bringing her to a wider audience. Harold Wilson is one of the first PMs I remember too, though I also remember Alec Douglas Home who i think was just before him. (The election in the display is 1964 when Wilson won his first term). As you can imagine, I have never felt so ancient as when talking to that young woman!

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