Mrs Edith Rigby

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: Married Dr Charles Rigby in 1893.

Additional Information: Edith was initially a member of the Liverpool branch of the law-abiding NUWSS and remained so at least until 1907, by which time she had become branch secretary and taken part in the society's 'mud march'. However, once the WSPU started to hold regular meetings, she joined in 1904. In 1907, she took part in a deputation to the House of Commons, was arrested and sentenced to two weeks in prison ? she served her time in the worst, third class 'criminal' division of the prison. Far from deterring Edith, this seems to have spurred her on. She was arrested twice more for deputations and 'raids' on the House of Commons and for a holding a meeting outside a hall where Winston Churchill was speaking in her home town of Preston. She also broke a window in Liverpool, where Churchill was meant to speak, and was sentenced to two weeks in prison, went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed. In 1911, she was arrested again for taking part in a window-smashing campaign. Like many suffragettes, Edith responded to leader Christabel Pankhurst's call for an increase in militancy and, in 1913, defaced a statue of Lord Derby in Preston. She also set fire to a bunglalow belonging to Lord Leverhulme. Edith gave herself up and was sentenced to nine months in prison with hard labour. She was temporarily released under the 'Cat and Mouse Act' after going on hunger strike, but was recaptured trying to plant a bomb in the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. She was released again after hunger striking and escaped for several weeks, before being rearrested in her home town at a meeting, although she was in disguise. Edith was disappointed that the Pankhursts' WSPU did not continue the fight for women's suffrage when the war broke out in 1914. She left and formed a branch of the new Independent WSPU (IWSPU) in Preston, which continued to work towards votes for women.

Other Suffrage Activities: In the late 1890s, Edith had set up a night school in Preston for working class mill girls to attend and joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1905. She organised the women's 'branch' of the ILP, the Women's Labour League, in Preston but resigned (as WSPU leaders Emmeline and Christabel did) in 1907. During the 1914 war, she joined the Women's Land Army.