{{Short description|British suffragette and socialist (1873–1951)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Bertha Quinn | birth_date = 1873 | birth_place = [[Middlesbrough]], England | death_date = {{Death date and age|1951|1873}} | death_place = [[Leeds]], England | occupation = Catholic, suffragette and socialist | organization = Tailors and Garment Workers Union | known_for = Suffragette activism including hunger strike | political_party = Labour councillor 1929 -1943 | movement = Women's Social and Political Union | awards = Papal award 1946: Bene Merenti Medal }} '''Bertha Quinn''' (1873–1951) was a British [[suffragette]] and [[Socialism|socialist]], from [[Leeds]], who was arrested five times and once went to prison, becoming one of the first [[Catholic Church in England and Wales|Catholic]] suffragette prisoners to be [[Force-feeding|force-fed]] after going on [[hunger strike]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rcdow.org.uk/news/votes-for-women-the-catholic-contribution/|title=Votes for Women! The Catholic Contribution – Diocese of Westminster|website=rcdow.org.uk|access-date=2020-03-30}}</ref> Quinn became a [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] [[councillor]] from 1929 to 1943,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Libraries|first=Leeds|date=2017-02-10|title=Who Led Leeds? Public Service between the Wars|url=https://secretlibraryleeds.net/2017/02/10/who-led-leeds-public-service-between-the-wars/|access-date=2020-09-20|website=The Secret Library {{!}} Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog|language=en}}</ref> and was a [[Trade unions in the United Kingdom|trades union]] representative of the [[National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers|Tailors and Garment Workers]] from 1915 to 1943.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Liddington, Jill, 1946–|title=Rebel Girls|date=3 September 2015|isbn=978-0-349-00781-6|location=London|oclc=932055475}}</ref> Quinn was awarded the Papal [[Benemerenti medal|Bene Merenti Medal]] in 1946.<ref name=":1" />
== Early life == Baptised Bridget, but always known as Bertha,<ref name=":5">{{Cite web|title=Caustic, Lovable Bertha Quinn – from the Catholic Herald Archive|url=http://archive-uat.catholicherald.co.uk/article/13th-april-1951/6/caustic-lovable-bertha-quinn|access-date=2020-09-20|website=archive-uat.catholicherald.co.uk}}</ref> Quinn was born in [[Middlesbrough]] in 1873, to Irish Catholic<ref name=":5" /> parents{{Citation needed|date=September 2020}}. Quinn became a worker in the garment industry and later joined the workers union.
== Suffragette activism == Quinn became involved in the [[Women's Social and Political Union]] (WPSU militant suffragettes) in common with other working women who did not join the [[National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies]] (NUWSS) which was more aligned to the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] party and employers.<ref name=":2" /> Quinn took part in WSPU protests including chaining herself to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] railings and was arrested five times, and imprisoned after protesting when [[H. H. Asquith|Prime Minister Asquith]] came to [[Leeds]],<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|title=Never Underestimate the Women by Chris Nickson|url=http://www.bigbookend.co.uk/never-underestimate-the-women-by-chris-nickson/|access-date=2020-09-20|language=en-US}}</ref> brutally prevented from entering the venue by police,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Unemployed struggles in Leeds in 1908|url=http://libcom.org/history/unemployed-struggles-leeds-1908|access-date=2020-09-20|website=libcom.org|language=en}}</ref> and resulting in five days in [[HM Prison Leeds|Armley Prison]], Leeds in October 1908.<ref name=":2" />
On 27 April 1909, Quinn and four other WSPU members accompanied a male companion into [[Palace of Westminster|St. Stephen's Hall]], at the House of Commons, allegedly waiting for their companion to meet his [[Member of parliament|M.P.]] At the planned time of 4pm, when [[Big Ben]] chimed, Quinn blew a whistle, went to the statue of [[Baron Somers|Lord Somers]], and attached a banner advertising a WSPU [[Royal Albert Hall|Albert Hall]] rally, whilst [[Theresa Garnett]], [[Margery Humes]] and [[Sylvia Russell]] attached themselves to other statues, and another (possibly [[Alys Pearsall Smith|Alys Pearsall Smith Russell]])<ref name=":3" /> whistled and started a speech in nearby Central Hall. The reason given for this protest to the crowd who gathered was that statues were of men remembered for campaigning for 'British liberties' in Stuart days and that they (the suffragettes/suffragists) were doing the same for twentieth century Britons. This unusual protest was given press publicity, in Britain,<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Burch|first=Stuart|title=London and the politics of memory : in the shadow of Big Ben|date=June 2019|isbn=978-1-315-59291-6|location=Abingdon, Oxon|pages=84, 73|oclc=1107880828}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=28 April 1909|title=Woman Suffrage: Disturbance at Westminster|page=7|work=The Times (London)}}</ref> and as far afield as New Zealand.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Chained to Statues|date=12 June 2009|title=Poverty Bay Herald|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19090612.2.74.37|access-date=2020-09-20|website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz|series=Vol. XXXVI, Iss. 11876, Supplement}}</ref>
One hundred years afterwards, 78 M.Ps signed an [[early day motion]] to commemorate Quinn and the other women's action in favour of women's rights, and to continue encouraging all women to use their vote, and for Parliament to move towards gender balance.<ref>{{Cite web|title=100th ANNIVERSARY OF SUFFRAGETTES' PROTEST – Early Day Motions|url=https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/38484/100th-anniversary-of-suffragettes-protest|access-date=2020-09-20|website=edm.parliament.uk}}</ref>
== Political life == Quinn was among a large proportion of [[Catholic Church|Catholics]] (a minority in the country at that time), in the Tailors and Garment Workers Union. That influenced her stance on a number of topical matters. At the Labour Women's Congress in May 1925, Quinn declared birth control as a 'crime against God', and information supporting it was 'filth', only to be reprimanded by 'Red [[Ellen Wilkinson|Ellen' Wilkinson]] for being insulting, urging Quinn not to assume impure motives from delegates who 'hold equally sincere but opposing views. The motion was passed there, but sentiment went to and fro on the matter, for a number of years, across different Labour party conventions and votes, as the party was split.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Perry|first=Matt|title='Red Ellen' Wilkinson: Her ideas, movements and world|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2015|isbn=9780719098482|location=Manchester}}</ref> During the [[1926 United Kingdom general strike|General Strike]] of 1926, Quinn was a leading member of the Leeds Council of Action, and later elected as a Labour councillor from 1929 to 1943, although at one point she was expelled from the party.<ref name=":4" /> At the age of 73, she still attended as councillor, the Leeds Council meetings and was described as 'fiery'.<ref name=":5" />
In a [[Leeds Library]] lecture series, former politician [[Michael Meadowcroft]] described Quinn's personality as 'formidable but difficult' with 'great passion but little diplomacy'.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Local and Liberal History|url=https://beemeadowcroft.uk/localhistory.html|access-date=2020-09-20|website=beemeadowcroft.uk|archive-date=1 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301214112/http://beemeadowcroft.uk/localhistory.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== Internationalism and faith == In 1917, Quinn was one of the two delegates sent to the Leeds Convention of the [[Independent Labour Party]] and the [[British Socialist Party]], with 1,150 people joining leading politicians of the day including [[Keir Hardie]], [[H. H. Asquith|Asquith]], [[David Lloyd George|Lloyd George]], [[Ramsay MacDonald]], Bernard Russell, [[Ernest Bevin]] which was controversially inciting action in solidarity with Russian workers and soldiers after the [[Russian Revolution|Russian revolution]]. The event had been resisted by the city dignitaries, but gone ahead due to pressure of numbers. It carried motions on world peace, a charter of human rights, and congratulated Russian workers revolutionaries, and even encouraging organised activism in the British working class.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fraser|first=Derek|title=A History of modern Leeds|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=1980|isbn=0-7190-0747-X|location=Manchester|pages=413|oclc=7138281}}</ref>
At the 1936 [[Trades Union Congress]], Quinn for the Tailors and Garment Workers Union, was one of the Catholic workers' leaders however who opposed the [[Spanish Civil War]], and decried outrages on both sides of that conflict saying 'Red outrages had been perpetrated in Spain.'<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jackson|first=Angela|title=British women and the Spanish Civil War|publisher=Routledge|year=2002|isbn=0-203-21959-7|location=London|pages=54|oclc=56924524}}</ref> Quinn objected at her own union's congress that British workers groups were being asked to formally express solidarity with the Spanish trades unions, a point taken up by the [[Catholic Press|Catholic press]].'<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Buchanan|first=Tom|title=The Spanish Civil War and the British labour movement|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1991|isbn=0-521-39333-7|location=Cambridge [England]|pages=189|oclc=21447011}}</ref> Quinn had also prevented clothing being collected and shipped out to the revolutionary side.<ref name=":0" /> And her final word was 'I have made my point and that is all I wanted.'<ref>{{Cite web|title=Catholic Shouted Down At Labour. Conference But She Made Her Point – from the Catholic Herald Archive|url=http://archive-uat.catholicherald.co.uk/article/20th-august-1937/11/catholic-shouted-down-at-labour-conference-but-she|access-date=2020-09-20|website=archive-uat.catholicherald.co.uk}}</ref>
== Death == Quinn died in Leeds, in 1951,<ref name=":1" /> and her [[Requiem|Requiem Mass]] at [[Leeds Cathedral]] was well attended.<ref name=":5" /> Quinn is buried at Killingbeek Cemetery.<ref name=":5" />
The Lord Mayor, Alderman H. O'Donnell wrote in the [[Yorkshire Post Newspapers|''Yorkshire Post,'']]<ref>{{Cite news|title=Miss Bertha Quinn|page=6|work=Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer}}</ref> <blockquote>"[Quinn] would neither be frightened out of her convictions, nor laughed out of them. She would stand in all weathers outside the cathedral and sell tickets for good causes.
" In spite of her caustic tongue, she was a loyal friend to anyone in trouble, very womanly. good living, straightforward, thinking of everyone before herself. Her life was an example to the younger generation."<ref name=":5" /></blockquote>
== References == <references />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Bertha}} [[Category:1873 births]] [[Category:1951 deaths]] [[Category:People from Middlesbrough]] [[Category:Activists from Leeds]] [[Category:Women's Social and Political Union]] [[Category:Women councillors in England]] [[Category:Independent Labour Party councillors]] [[Category:British suffragettes]] [[Category:British socialists]] [[Category:British hunger strikers]] [[Category:British Roman Catholics]]