Happy 152nd Birthday Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
and
Happy 136th Birthday Lady Shena Simon of Wythenshawe (née Potter)
First:
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence was a member of the Suffrage Society and was introduced to Emmeline Pankhurst in 1906. She became treasurer of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), which Pankurst had founded in 1903, and raised £134,000 over six years. Pethick-Lawrence attended a number of events with Pankhurst including the aborted visit to the Prime Minister in late June 1908, along with Jessie Stephenson, Florence Haig, Maud Joachim and Mary Phillips after which there was some violent treatment of women protesters, and a number of arrests.
Pethick-Lawrence founded the publication Votes for Women with her husband in 1907. The couple was arrested and imprisoned in 1912 for conspiracy following demonstrations that involved breaking windows, even though they had disagreed with that form of action. After being released from prison, the Pethick-Lawrences were unceremoniously ousted from the WSPU by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, because of their ongoing disagreement over the more radical forms of activism that the Pethick-Lawrences opposed. They then joined the United Suffragists. In 1938 Pethick-Lawrence published her memoirs, which discuss the radicalization of the suffrage movement just before the First World War. She was involved in the setting up of the Suffragette Fellowship with Edith How-Martyn to document the movement.
Second:
Shena Dorothy Simon was an English politician, feminist, educationalist and writer. In 1911, Shena Potter became secretary of a committee for safeguarding women's rights under David Lloyd George's insurance bill. Simon founded the Women Citizens' Association in Manchester, a local branch of the National Women Citizens' Association. Her husband was Lord Mayor of Manchester from 1921 to 1922. As Lady Mayoress, Simon caused a stir by refusing to attend a function at St Mary's Hospital for Women because there were no women on the Board or among the medical staff. Shena Simon was a member of the Manchester City Council from 1924 to 1933, when she was voted out by the Conservatives. She was a member of the Royal Committee on Licensing in 1929 and a member of the Manchester Estate Council from 1931 to 1933.
Text for both abstracted from their Wikipedia entries, 'cos it's too much for me to be bothered to write, sorry.