Mrs Eleanor Charlotte Penn-Gaskell

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999)

Family information: Her husband was a supporter of women's suffrage (see Suffrage Activity).

Additional Information: In 1906, Eleanor had organised a meeting for the NUWSS, and in 1907 was honorary secretary of the Willesden branch of the London Society for Women's Suffrage (LSWS). In 1908, she and her husband subscribed to the WSPU and she quickly became one of its most active speakers in the London area. She seems to have been willing to take part in militant acts but was perhaps restrained a little by her husband. Eleanor was arrested once in 1908, when distributing leaflets advertising a WSPU meeting, and her husband became a member of the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement (MPU). By 1910, Eleanor was honorary secretary of the North-West London branch of the WSPU and was a supporter of the Northern Men's Federation for Women's Suffrage when it formed (the NMFWS was Scottish-based). In 1911, Eleanor and her husband provided a 'hide out' at their address (12 Nicoll Road, Willesden) for suffragettes who wished to illegally avoid completing the government census survey by staying away from their own homes on census night, 2 April, when officials came to collect. How many stayed there is unclear. In 1915, she stopped working for the WSPU in protest at the Pankhursts' lack of campaigning on the votes for women issue, in favour of supporting the government's war effort. Eleanor thence became a member of the Suffragettes of the WSPU (SWSPU), who continued to work for women's suffrage during the war.