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Letter from Constance Lytton to Annie Kenney, 1910

Dublin Core

Title

Letter from Constance Lytton to Annie Kenney, 1910

Subject

Direct action
Political activists

Description

[Transcript of letter is available below] Dated 12 April 1910, this letter from Lady Constance Lytton is a reply to an invitation to speak at a Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) fundraiser from Annie Kenney. Lady Constance refuses on account of her ill health following her hunger strike during a prison stay. She was booked to open the Grand Suffrage Bazaar and Exhibition held in St Andrews Halls, Glasgow, 28 – 30 April 1910 and could not undertake any more public appearances due to their strain on her mental and physical recovery.

Constance Lytton was a prominent suffragette, women's rights activist, and campaigner for prison reform. She was imprisoned on a number of occasions, but felt she was not given the same treatment as other suffragette inmates due to her aristocratic background. To test her theory, she gave a fake name - Jane Warton - after being taken to Walton Gaol, Liverpool. As Jane Warton, she adopted the hunger strike and was force-fed - an experience which disturbed her health for the rest of her life. She documented the experience in her 1914 memoir Prisons and Prisoners. [Transcript of letter is available below]

Creator

Lytton, Lady Constance

Source

Kenney Papers, University of East (UEA) Anglia Archives

Publisher

Unknown

Date

12 April 1910

Rights

Copyright: Owned by Knebworth Estates – www.knebworthhouse.com. All rights are reserved.
Source: UEA Archives. Transcript: Zoe Kelly
Creative Commons: This image is also available within Creative Commons BY-NC and all copyright and the source must be attributed. The image must not be used for commercial purposes.

Format

jpeg image file

Language

English (United Kingdom)

Identifier

KP/AK/2/Lytton/10

Text Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Letter

Transcription

[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

 

[Page 2]

 

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

 

[Page 3]

 

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

 

[Page 4]

 

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.

Collection

Militancy

Tags

1910, 1910s, Annie Kenney, Constance Lytton, Direct action

Citation

Lytton, Lady Constance, “Letter from Constance Lytton to Annie Kenney, 1910,” Suffragette Stories, accessed May 18, 2025, https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/items/show/19.

Output Formats

  • atom
  • dcmes-xml
  • json
  • omeka-xml
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