Spouse(s) Jack Dow (1918) | Name Dora Thewlis Died 1976, Australia | |
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Born 1890 Honley Known for working for women's rights Criminal charge Arrested in 1907 for planning to break into the Houses of Parliament Parent(s) James and Eliza Thewlis Organization | ||
Suffragette Dora Thewlis was the forgotten activist
Dora Thewlis (1890–1976) was a British suffragette.
Contents
- Suffragette Dora Thewlis was the forgotten activist
- Tolson and Huddersfield
- Early life
- As a suffragette
- References
Tolson and Huddersfield
Early life
Dora was born in Honley, near Huddersfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1890. She was one of seven children born to James and Eliza Thewlis. At the time James was working locally as a weaver. Dora worked in a Yorkshire mill as a teen.
As a suffragette
Thewlis was sixteen when she joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1907. She was arrested the same year, having been part of a planned break in into the Houses of Parliament. She was patronised by the judge at her court appearance and labelled the 'Baby Suffragette' and the 'little mill hand' by the press. She appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror (picture to the right) after the event, with the caption "Suffragettes storm the House." The judge suggested her parents might take her in hand and sort her out. Their reply was she was her own person and they fully supported her. The family were socialists.
She emigrated to Australia before the start of the First World War, therefore never seeing the passage of women's suffrage in England, and in 1918 married Jack Dow. She died in 1976.