Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Evidence was given that letters in pillar boxes had been damaged, and that the defendant, as hon. secretary of the Women’s Social and Political Union, had addressed meetings at the Miners’ Institute and on Woodhouse Moor. She said at the first place: “Three-pennyworth of paraffin will do a great deal more than all the collections. One good building burned down does more good than all the meetings. I urge you women, every one of you who think we ought to have better conditions, to come and take part in this great fight.” The defendant had at the second meeting said: “We are not going to get six weeks for asking questions. I would rather have five years for burning down a mansion. I say every woman in our union is ready for anything that may come along – arson, pillar-boxes, windows, or anything. We raised £15,000 at the great meeting at the Albert Hall. The police have not found that. Oh no. Our local branches are self-supporting, and it certainly does not cost much for three-pennyworth of paraffin and three-pennyworth of firelighters, and it does more good than all your constitutional methods.” The defence was that the charge was trumped up, and that the context in the speech had been missed by the police reporters. She was found guilty.

Comment

Comment

What’s the source of Klara Mills and Nicola Pullen’s “The time has gone by for constitutional work. We women are outside the constitution. We are outlaws“?

Houses, not to be burnt down. In 1914, after leaving Leeds, she (and husband Henry Cohen?) were running a vegetarian boarding house at “Pomona”, Harlow Moor Drive, Harrogate: “Reform Food Establishment. Excellent catering by specialist in Reform diets. Late Dinners. Separate Tables.” A brief search hasn’t revealed which house that was, but they’re large down there, so I guess the Cohen jewellery business was doing well. However, 1923-36 they were back in Leeds and were living near us at 2 Claremont Villas, Clarendon Road – second house on the left as you head up from Woodhouse Square.

Their only child (1902-84) changed his name from Reginald Fox Cohen to Corwen in 1929 and registered it in 1955, presumably either fearing or having experienced anti-semitism.

The Cohen family owned the Crown Manufacturing Company, which imported watches in the 1930s but began making them during WWII. Leonora Cohen’s 1919 action against the Excelsior Engineering Co. related however to munitions manufacturing – did she actually work there, or was this trade union-related?

OBE June 1928 (Times Court Circular) for social work (Times obit 7/9/1978).

Leonora, her father Canova Throp/Thorpe and nominative determinism:

Very 1870s Leeds: Canova Throp/Thorpe (dad of suffragette Leonora Cohen) is looking for another Gothic sculptor to help him decorate the (new?) Green Dragon Hotel, Guildford St. Green Dragon Yard, off the Headrow, is all that remains pic.twitter.com/YGjQGcFte0

— SingingOrganGrinder (@elorganillero) December 11, 2022

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Original

At Leeds yesterday, before Mr. C. M. Atkinson, stipendiary magistrate, a charge of inciting to crime was preferred against Mrs. Leonora Cohen, of Warwick-place. Mr. Pearce appeared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Evidence was given that letters in pillar boxes had been damaged, and that the defendant, as hon. secretary of the Women’s Social and Political Union, had addressed meetings at the Miners’ Institute and on Woodhouse Moor. She said at the first place:-
“Threepennyworth of paraffin will do a great deal more than all the collections. One good building burned down does more good than all the meetings. I urge you women, every one of you who think we ought to have better conditions, to come and take part in this great fight.”

The defendant had at the second meeting said:-
“We are not going to get six weeks for asking questions. I would rather have five years for burning down a mansion. I say every woman in our union is ready for anything that may come along – arson, pillar-boxes, windows, or anything. We raised £15,000 at the great meeting at the Albert Hall. The police have not found that. Oh no. Our local branches are self-supporting, and it certainly does not cost much for threepennyworth of paraffin and threepennyworth of firelighters, and it does more good than all your constitutional methods.”

The defence was that the charge was trumped up, and that the context in the speech had been missed by the police reporters. Mrs. Cohen denied the meaning imputed to her, and called witnesses, who testified to a very different construction from that of the police. She was found Guilty, and at first declined to enter into a recognisance, “as that would be sacrificing her principles,” but eventually agreed to be bound over herself in £100 and two sureties of £50 to be of good behaviour and appear at the Court at the first available date after the decision of the Court of Appeal in regard to Mr. Lansbury’s case. The undertaking also laid down that Mrs. Cohen should take no part in the militant movement in the meantime.

366 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Antisemitism (6) ·
• Arson (8) ·
• Cohen, Leonora (1873-1978) (1), née Throp, suffragette and trade unionist, one of the first female magistrates ·
• Director of Public Prosecutions (England and Wales) (1) ·
• Hunslet (11) ·
• International Workers’ Day (1) ·
• Jews (12) ·
• Lansbury, George (1859-1940) (1), campaigner (social justice, women's rights, world disarmament in the face of fascism) and Labour politician (party leader 1932-5) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• May Day (3) ·
• Suffrage (4) ·
• Vandalism (2) ·
• Women’s Social and Political Union (2) ·
• Women’s rights (4) ·
• Women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom (2) ·
• Women’s suffrage (3) ·
• 📌Woodhouse Moor (13) ·

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