Annie Barnes (suffragist)

Annie Barnes
Born Annie Cappuccio
Maybe 1887
Stepney
Died 1982
East Ham
Nationality UK

Annie Barnes [née Cappuccio] (Maybe 1887 – 1982) was a British socialist and suffragist.

Life

Barnes was born in Stepney in about 1887.[1]

Sylvia Pankhurst persuaded her to join the East London Federation of Suffragettes. She was later shocked by Pankhurst's disregard for matrimony. Pankhurst was a communist, but Barnes joined a Socialist group.[1]

She was an enthusiastic supporter of women's suffrage but she avoided getting involved in any protest that might lead to a custodial sentence.[1] Barnes enjoyed the many suffrage meetings and she found it difficult to refuse Pankhurst's leadership. She did refuse to be smuggled into the Houses of Parliament to drop flour on the prime ministers head, but she later dropped leaflets from London Bridge. She was stopped by the police but managed to talk her way out of an arrest.[2]

Barnes became a councilor in Stepney.[2] In 1938 she joined the Charity Organization Society which was active in assisting the poor but it had a poor reputation. Under her advice the organisation changed its name to remove the word "charity" to assist those who received their philanthropy.[1]

She and her husband were bombed out during the second world war and lived for a time at Toynbee Hall.[1] She continued to keep in contact with Sylvia Pankhurst until she emigrated to Ethiopia in 1955.[2]

Death and legacy

Barnes died in East Ham. The accounts of Barnes's life were in part inspiration for the film Suffragette.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Elizabeth Crawford, ‘Barnes , Annie (c.1887–1982)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 28 July 2017
  2. 1 2 3 Barbara Winslow (18 October 2013). Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics And Political Activism. Routledge. pp. 48–. ISBN 978-1-134-22010-6.
  3. ↑ Gavron, Sarah (2015-11-02). "The Making of the Feature Film Suffragette". Women's History Review. 24 (6): 985–995. doi:10.1080/09612025.2015.1074007. ISSN 0961-2025.
  • Annie Barnes; Kate Harding; Caroline Gibbs (1980). Tough Annie: From Suffragette to Stepney Councillor. Stepney Books. ISBN 978-0-9505241-3-9. </ref>
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