Hannah Wood

Women's Suffrage Work

The first instance found of Hannah's suffrage work is in 1876 when she spoke at the public meeting in Batley Town Hall, although she had already become known for her public speaking through her work with the Weavers' Union Committee (see below). 

The (Dewsbury) Reporter, 4th March 1876. 

Mrs. WOOD, Dewsbury, supported the resolution, and expressed her approval of the objects of the National Society for Women's Suffrage. She believed with Mrs. Scatcherd that if the girls had been educated and trained as the boys they would have had the franchise for women before now. (Hear, hear.) She was a regular politician, and she was not ashamed to tell them she was a thorough Liberal. (Laughter and applause.) In the course of some further remarks, Mrs. Wood caused considerable amusement by relating how she had asked a man and his wife to come to that meeting and the man had replied that his wife would look better at home. He went further than that, and said, if she might tell them in broad Yorkshire, "If my wife were to go, I would pawse her to deeoth." (Laughter.) He also said, "If a lot of you had a good stick to your back to make you stay at home it would look much better of you." (Renewed laughter.) She thought if he had treated her with common civility it would have looked much better of him. (Hear, hear.) She did not say that because the man was not there, because she had seen him at the meeting. (Much merriment.) If that man would not allow his wife to have a vote or to come to a meeting to hear two such able speakers as they had had that night he was not ashamed to come himself, and so she thought she would not be ashamed of telling the audience that he was there. (Laughter.) After stating what another man had said to her, on the subject, she said she hoped those gentlemen would not be offended at what she had said, for she would not tell their names. (Laughter and applause.)

For the full report see: Public Meeting at Batley, 29th Feb 1876


Trade Union Work


In 1875, Hannah was made President of the Weavers' Union Committee, a group of women selected to represent both male and female workers during strike action in Dewsbury and Batley. For further information see: http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/west-yorkshire-lasses-female-trade-unionism-and-its-radical-past/

Fellow suffragists Ann Ellis and Ann Abernethy were also members of the committee.


Biography

Hannah was born in Bridgenorth, Shropshire in 1842 to Henry Shipman and Elizabeth Langley. The couple had at least four children: one boy and three girls. 

By 1851, the family had moved to Dewsbury and were living on Long Causeway. Henry was working as a carpet weaver. By 1861, Henry had also become a shopkeeper. The family had moved to Spinkwell in Dewsbury and Hannah had taken work as a woollen power loom weaver. 

A year later she married Jabez Wood at the Dewsbury Parish Church. He was originally from Leeds and worked as a heald and reed maker.

The 1871 census shows the couple settled at Crackenedge Road, Dewsbury with their two sons and a daughter. Jabez was now working as a beamer and the family had taken on a female woollen weaver as a lodger. Sadly in 1873, their two year old daughter Sarah Elizabeth died.

By 1881, the family had moved to Cliff Street, Dewsbury and were now accompanied by a second daughter born in 1879, Jabez's mother, Hannah's father, a female domestic servant and a female lodger. Jabez was working as a warper.

In 1890, Hannah died in Dewsbury from Bronchitis at the age of 49.

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