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Rebel With a Cause: The Life and Times of Sarah Benett, 1850–1924, Social Reformer and Suffragette
One hundred years on, it is hard to imagine the violent disruption caused by the suffragette movement. After a century of peaceful protest had brought no progress a small group of determined women took matters into their own hands and turned to direct action. By virtue of their actions the cry ‘Votes for Women’ was heard throughout the country.
One of these unlikely ‘vandals’ was a mature middle-class spinster named Sarah Benett. After leaving home on the death of her parents, she spent a decade attempting to improve deprived workers’ conditions in the Staffordshire potteries. Realizing that nothing could be achieved until women obtained the vote and could compete with men on equal terms, she moved to London aged 55. Disowned by her family she joined Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political union and became an active suffragette. Ahead of her lay verbal and physical abuse, public contempt, imprisonment and hunger strikes.
Rebel With a Cause is her extraordinary story told largely in her own words.
One of these unlikely ‘vandals’ was a mature middle-class spinster named Sarah Benett. After leaving home on the death of her parents, she spent a decade attempting to improve deprived workers’ conditions in the Staffordshire potteries. Realizing that nothing could be achieved until women obtained the vote and could compete with men on equal terms, she moved to London aged 55. Disowned by her family she joined Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political union and became an active suffragette. Ahead of her lay verbal and physical abuse, public contempt, imprisonment and hunger strikes.
Rebel With a Cause is her extraordinary story told largely in her own words.
288 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 1, 2018
When I got offered the chance to review this book, I literally snatched it up, I knew that this would be right up my street and I was right. This is an extraordinary book, it is told mostly through Sarah’s words from her letters, diaries and documents that have survived and it tells the story of a truly inspiring and remarkable woman who gave everything for the suffrage movement.
This book tells the story of Sarah Benett, who was one of the most unlikely militant suffragette’s, before joined the cause she was working tirelessly in the Staffordshire Potteries trying to improve the workers conditions, trying to get them the rights they deserved but unfortunately unless women had equality and more immortal the right to vote her actions came to naught. Which is when after attending a meeting and hearing Flora McKinnon Drummon – or otherwise known as ‘The General’ speak Sarah knew then that this was her calling, this was what was needed. At the age of 57, Sarah Benett became a Suffragette.
I have read so much about the Suffragette’s and what they went through to be able to put that cross on the ballot paper, but this has brought a whole new understanding and even further respect to those brave and wonderful women who gave their all for something that many women today do take for granted and we truly are indebted to them.
Iain Gordan has written an informative, brilliantly researched and compelling book that can be read and enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in the subject. His writing is powerful, thoughtful and sympathetic to the subject as well as illuminating and engaging especially with the addition of the brilliant illustrations and photographs that really work to bring the time and this woman to life.
This is definite must read, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
This was a complimentary copy via the publisher in exchange for an honest review, thank you Rosie at Pen and Sword.
This book tells the story of Sarah Benett, who was one of the most unlikely militant suffragette’s, before joined the cause she was working tirelessly in the Staffordshire Potteries trying to improve the workers conditions, trying to get them the rights they deserved but unfortunately unless women had equality and more immortal the right to vote her actions came to naught. Which is when after attending a meeting and hearing Flora McKinnon Drummon – or otherwise known as ‘The General’ speak Sarah knew then that this was her calling, this was what was needed. At the age of 57, Sarah Benett became a Suffragette.
I have read so much about the Suffragette’s and what they went through to be able to put that cross on the ballot paper, but this has brought a whole new understanding and even further respect to those brave and wonderful women who gave their all for something that many women today do take for granted and we truly are indebted to them.
Iain Gordan has written an informative, brilliantly researched and compelling book that can be read and enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in the subject. His writing is powerful, thoughtful and sympathetic to the subject as well as illuminating and engaging especially with the addition of the brilliant illustrations and photographs that really work to bring the time and this woman to life.
This is definite must read, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
This was a complimentary copy via the publisher in exchange for an honest review, thank you Rosie at Pen and Sword.
December 8, 2024
Sarah Benett was a campaigner and activist who fought for social change and improvement for working-class people. She came from a middle-class family, which gave her access to education and personal funds to take up charitable works.
She worked for 12 years in the Potteries of Staffordshire, trying to improve working conditions, but found that her sex was held against her and the laws of the time often prevented her from achieving positions of influence and power. She came to believe that only through women’s suffrage would she and other women eventually be able to change society and the law to have access to positions of power and make real change.
Iain Gordon is a military history specialist who has written several books, including biographies on the 18th-century Admiral John Child Purvis, and his son Richard Fortesque Purvis, an officer in the British Raj. In 2016, he published The Night Hunter’s Prey, which tells the story of two airmen in WW2, one in the RAF and the other in the Luftwaffe.
Gordon shares Benett’s story using diary entries and newspaper articles written by Benett, and supplemented with contemporary posters, cartoons, newspaper extracts and photographs. Through Benett’s experiences, Gordon explores the evolution of the movement and the various members, supporters and anti-suffragette factions.
Benett became a suffragette at 56 and worked tirelessly to support the cause, including both peaceful and militant actions. She marched with five other women from Edinburgh to London with a petition, taking signatures and giving speeches in the towns they passed through, and was involved in window-breaking and trying to force her way through police cordons. She was imprisoned several times and went on hunger strikes, but did not have to suffer force-feeding because of her age and health. There is an analysis in the book of the suffragettes' legacy and the effectiveness of peaceful and militant methods. The impact of women’s actions on the Home Front in WW1 is also seen as a factor in winning the vote.
LGBT relationships within the movement, which are now being researched and investigated by scholars, are touched on by Gordon, but they are not a focus of the book. Benett did not marry, however, there is no evidence that she had romantic or sexual relationships with other members of the suffragettes.
This is an impressive and important book to learn about the struggle for suffrage, not only for women but for the working-class men, too. It shows how much British society has changed over the last century concerning political rights and freedoms for its citizens. It is a necessary reminder of how hard people have fought for us to have these rights, and that we should not take them for granted.
She worked for 12 years in the Potteries of Staffordshire, trying to improve working conditions, but found that her sex was held against her and the laws of the time often prevented her from achieving positions of influence and power. She came to believe that only through women’s suffrage would she and other women eventually be able to change society and the law to have access to positions of power and make real change.
Iain Gordon is a military history specialist who has written several books, including biographies on the 18th-century Admiral John Child Purvis, and his son Richard Fortesque Purvis, an officer in the British Raj. In 2016, he published The Night Hunter’s Prey, which tells the story of two airmen in WW2, one in the RAF and the other in the Luftwaffe.
Gordon shares Benett’s story using diary entries and newspaper articles written by Benett, and supplemented with contemporary posters, cartoons, newspaper extracts and photographs. Through Benett’s experiences, Gordon explores the evolution of the movement and the various members, supporters and anti-suffragette factions.
Benett became a suffragette at 56 and worked tirelessly to support the cause, including both peaceful and militant actions. She marched with five other women from Edinburgh to London with a petition, taking signatures and giving speeches in the towns they passed through, and was involved in window-breaking and trying to force her way through police cordons. She was imprisoned several times and went on hunger strikes, but did not have to suffer force-feeding because of her age and health. There is an analysis in the book of the suffragettes' legacy and the effectiveness of peaceful and militant methods. The impact of women’s actions on the Home Front in WW1 is also seen as a factor in winning the vote.
LGBT relationships within the movement, which are now being researched and investigated by scholars, are touched on by Gordon, but they are not a focus of the book. Benett did not marry, however, there is no evidence that she had romantic or sexual relationships with other members of the suffragettes.
This is an impressive and important book to learn about the struggle for suffrage, not only for women but for the working-class men, too. It shows how much British society has changed over the last century concerning political rights and freedoms for its citizens. It is a necessary reminder of how hard people have fought for us to have these rights, and that we should not take them for granted.
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March 2, 2019Terrific book. Loved it very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews