IT WAS an honour to have local actress Maxine Peake attending our Annie Kenney fundraising dinner at the weekend. Maxine is very vocal on the importance of raising women’s issues and fight for equal rights everywhere. So it was great to hear Maxine backing calls from Oldham campaigners for a statue honouring Annie, our local born Suffragette.
Maxine attended the dinner hosted at the Blue Tiffin Restaurant in Oldham to help fundraise for the Annie Kenney statue. We were also joined by Debbie Abrahams MP. and Angela Rayner MP
Annie was the only working class woman to hold a senior position in the ‘Women’s Social and Political Union’ (WSPU), which spearheaded the campaign for universal suffrage under the banner ‘Votes for Women.’ Not only this, she was fundamental to the establishing the WSPU.
The statue of Annie will stand outside Oldham’s refurbished Old Town Hall, the site where Winston Churchill once addressed residents. It’s a fitting honour, as Annie was wrongly arrested for protesting in front of Winston Churchill in Manchester years before women won the vote.
It’s about time that we recognised our Annie’s important role in the fight for women’s rights. She was pivotal to winning the vote for women, and is inspiration to us folk in Oldham. She came from a humble working class background, but wasn’t scared to fight for her beliefs in equality and fairness for all.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Maxine for supporting our campaign, and also to Councillor Graham Shuttleworth for organsing the dinner.
If you or your organisation would like to organise a fundraising event please get in touch with the Office of Jim McMahon MP on 0161 652 8485 or if you would like to make a donation you can do so by visiting http://www.anniekenney.co.uk.
Jim McMahon OBE MP 