HistoricaLeigh: The Leigh Mob

September 30, 2018 by Carole Mulroney

The Southend Telegraph of 1 March 1913 reported on a meeting to be held at the Séance Hall in the Broadway which had had to be abandoned. A speaker was to have travelled from Scotland but instead a letter arrived to explain the situation.

Dear Mr Editor

 In view of the fact that posters are distributed in this town announcing a meeting in the séance hall on the subject of Votes for Women I am writing to say that the Committee of the Southend and Westcliff Spiritualist Association who holds its religious services every Sunday in that hall has issued a strong protest against the little church being used for any other purpose. Under the circumstances I shall be glad if you will give this letter publication so that any of your readers wishing to attend the meeting on Votes for Women may not be unduly inconvenienced since it will not be held in that building.  Thanking you for your attention 

Yours faithfully WM Bundle, President

The Secretary of the Southend Votes for Women party issued a strong protest against a ‘mob’  who set on a peaceable suffragette gathering at Leigh Post Office. Knocking one lady down, hitting another and tearing their hats off. 

She also complained that the police who were fetched did not interfere and adds ‘Surely it is time the men of England  took some measures to prevent men militanising (sic) against women’s bodies whilst they are simply asking for justice’.