[Transcript by Zoe Kelly]
KP/AK/2/Lytton/10
RAIL.KNEBWORTH.G.N.R TELEGRAMS. KNEBWORTH
HOMEWOOD,
KNEBWORTH,
HERTS.
April 12. 1910
Dearest Annie
It is dreadful to have to refuse you especially as I believe to be alongside of you would do me an immense amount of good just now. But my body is still on strike, gets exhausted (& the brain too) with the smallest exertion. I am
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concentrating my power on the Glasgow Exhibition- I am booked to open it on the 2? Day/. April 28th. The [Dr][&] my people think that a [m]ad idea & I expect I shall have to do it in the face of their contrary advice. If that [answers] –if I do
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the job creditably & do not break from it, then I shall go on & make other engagements but I daren’t book myself for such a long journey immediately after Glasgow. I have been struggling for a week with an article for Votes. My
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brain simply won’t work & the vain effort makes me fearfully deprest [depressed] I daren’t undertake [r]eal meeting speeches while like this.
Of course I don’t really feel deprest [depressed]: it is only a passing thing.
Good luck [for] all [your] special weeks.
Your always loving
Sister Conny
Don’t [trouble ] to answer this.
[Transcribed by Hazel Brain]
Transcript – KP/JK/3/Pankhurst,C./1
Midland Hotel
BIRMINGHAM
29 Nov [November] 1918
My darling old Jessie
I am so very sorry about the news your letter brings but I hope you are better by now.
The weather here is damp and horrid – only one gleam of sun (reported in the Daily Mail) has visited us so far.
But the Smethwick [people’s friendliness] seems
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to make up for it.
You can imagine what work it has been to get the organisation side going. 3000 absent voters to
circula[rise], committee [loans] hard to get [through] the political views of their landlords etc. etc. But all is smoothing out and in the next two weeks we shall [illegible deletion] reap
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the fruits of all this [illegible] work.
The [happiest] band is the [Meetings] Department.
Miss [illegible] and Maguire and Co [Company]. They are on familiar ground so far as the work is concerned and they are doing it well.
My final meeting was last night
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and was most encouraging. No Unionist opposition and the only Labour opposition came from measly Bolsheviks and very few at that.
But of course meetings are not the final test and we act accordingly.
I have written to Dr. S[-----] asking if it is really impossible to get the stuff mother
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has when she is in U.S.A. [United States of America]
If he arranges anything I will let you know so that you may share the benefit. What you need is more
Bu[---] and dry [“dry” underlined twice] weather, for dampness is the worst thing for your troubles.
I have some hope
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that Dr. [illegible].S. will rise to the occasion as the one thing needed on this job is plenty of “push and go”.
Annie may be interested in the enclosed cutting, do please hand to her
With best love
C.P. [Christabel Pankhurst]
Transcript – KP/JK/4/3
PRIME MINISTER
10, Downing Street.
Whitehall, S.W.1
Miss Jessie Kenny has been known to me for some years and I should have no hesitation in recommending her for a responsible secretarial post. She has a great gift of organisation and has had a great deal of experience in this direction. I feel certain that she would display keenness and ability in any work she undertook. During the war she rendered valuable service in helping to organise women for war work.
Signed: F. I. Stevenson
(Secretary To Rt. Hon. David
Sept. 1919.