Kenney, Annie (1879-1953)

English suffragette. The only working-class woman in the leadership of the suffragette movement, she was arrested in 1905 with Christabel Pankhurst (1880-1958) for interrupting a meeting in Manchester, and again in 1906 for disrupting a speech by the prime minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman. During Pankhurst's exile in Paris, she took over the leadership, crossing the Channel every week to receive instructions.

Kenney was born in Springhead, near Oldham. A full-time worker from the age of 13, she started a union, then began a correspondence course at Ruskin College, Oxford. She joined the suffragettes after meeting Christabel Pankhurst, but later withdrew from public life in 1926.