Come and join in, it’s absolutely FREE! Here at Social Circle we make it our business to offer you the best of what Manchester has to offer. Our selection of walks enable you to to come along and explore this great city, and meet new people in Manchester along the way.
In August 1819 at least a dozen people were killed demonstrating for the right to vote at St Peter’s Fields, Manchester.
Nearly a hundred years later, in 1903, the Pankhurst family, disgusted with the Independent Labour Party’s refusal to allow women to use the newly-opened Pankhurst Hall in north Manchester, founded the Women’s Social and Political Union to campaign for the right of women to have the vote in parliamentary elections.
What had been a sedate pressure group, willing to stay within the law to change the law, soon became hostile and aggressive. The suffragettes disrupted a rally staged by the opposition, the Liberal Party, at the Free Trade Hall in 1905 and two of their leaders – Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney – were jailed. Manchester had become Suffragette City, but it took a generation and many thousands of broken windows for women to secure the vote.
This walk by Ed Glinert is in memory of the Pankhursts – Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia – fierce campaigners, resolute radicals, recalling their city centre haunts and outlining their struggle.
*Please check website for updated times and meeting points as they are subject to change*