Christmas card from Christabel Pankhurst to Jessie Kenney, 1954
Friendship
Christmas card from Christabel Pankhurst to Jessie Kenney, 1954. [transcript is available below]
The front depicts a cathedral with the subtitle “Christmas Blessings” and a star with the subtitle “I am the light of the world.” John 8:12. The inside of the card reads: “On the birthday of Our Lord, May you know the joy and comfort of those who dwell safely within His abiding love.”
Christabel writes that the cathedral on the card reminds her of Notre Dame and their time in Paris during the final phase of the campaign for the vote. Christabel spent the last two years of the suffragette struggle exiled in Paris in order to evade the British authorities. During this time Annie and Grace Roe were left in charge of operations in London and Jessie worked as Christabel's secretary in Paris. Her thoughts go to Annie, who had passed away the previous year, and her son, Warwick, and husband, James. “The fine record she made as she passed through the world we can all be highly proud of. She fought a good fight and finished her course triumphantly.”
Pankhurst, Christabel
Unknown
December 1954
Copyright: Estate of Christabel Pankhurst (c/o Helen Pankhurst). All rights reserved.
Source: UEA Archives. Transcript: Hazel Brain
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English (United Kingdom)
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KP/JK/3/Pankhurst,C./19-20
"Clapham has an air", <em>The Evening News</em>, 1954
Work
Jessie Kenney article “Clapham has an Air,” published in the Evening News.
Jessie Kenney knew Clapham well from her time living in London. “There is a place in London where you can live among the philosophers. It is not in Soho, Chelsea, Hampstead, or in the precincts of the British Museum. It is in Clapham.” She comments on its unusual street names - “Aristotle-road,” “Voltaire-road,” “Plato-road,” and the like. She suggests that Clapham’s connection to philosophy may be due to the “Clapham Sect” - “four of whom have busts and monuments in Westminster Abbey.” She mentions William Wilberforce (1759-1833), leader of the abolitionist movement, and Samuel Pepys (1655-1669), the Elizabethan politician and diarist. She ends the article by looking at the daily habits of Clapham residents, including “the little grocer” who always finds time to talk to his customers. “There are many others [. . .]. Many of them may not have heard of Epictetus and might smile at the thought of anyone being called by the name of Pythagoras. But they are philosophers all the same.”
Kenney, Jessie
Kenney Papers, University of East (UEA) Anglia Archives
<em>The Evening News</em>
10 July 1954
Copyright: Estate of Jessie Kenney. All rights reserved. Included here by kind permission of Warwick Kenney-Taylor (son of Annie Kenney) and later generations of the Kenney and Taylor families.
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English (United Kingdom)
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KP/JK/4/3/2