Kate Kilburn

Women's Suffrage Work 

The earliest reference found so far to Kate's involvement in the women's suffrage movement was in reference to a meeting held in December 1907 at which she spoke.

Newspaper reports suggest that she was very active as a member of the Huddersfield branch of the N.U.W.S.S. She is frequently mentioned as having spoken at meetings. Her skills for essay writing were rewarded in 1908 when she won first prize in a writing competition held by the 'Women's Franchise' newspaper:

Women's Franchise, 6th August 1908 

JUDGING the essays sent in in response to our paragraph offering a prize of 1l. 1s. has been a difficult matter, as the subject had been treated from so many points of view as to render comparison almost impossible.  Happily the difficulty of deciding between two of apparently equal merit was saved us by the fact that one competitor had not conformed to the rules, and we therefore have had great pleasure in forwarding the sum of 1l. 1s. to Miss Kate Kilburn.

Women's Franchise, 10th September 1908

More Questions. 

   WOMAN is fast outgrowing man's idea of her. One knows he has styled her his guardian angel-his better half-that he tells us his wife had been the making of him-that he owes all to his mother or sister, and to this subtle form of flattery the woman has ever been susceptible, whilst the man has thought that to acknowledge his indebtedness has been sufficient-has been content to let her play the part of angel rather than admit her as an equal, that is, as a citizen with the same rights and privileges as himself.

Man's appraisement and approval of woman does not, and ought not to suffice her. She must appraise and approve herself in future. What may not these wives and mothers themselves have achieved had not a noble, though often universe spirit of self-sacrifice, led them to play the part of stepping-stone to their husbands and sons?

If, with all the odds against her, woman has succeeded in gaining her present position, what may we not expect given a free hand and a fair field?

We do not know, for instance, what Thomas Carlyle or Mr. Gladstone would have been without their wives. Neither do we know what Jane Welsh and Catherine Glynne would have been without their husbands. We only know that they, with hundreds of other wives, were content to minister to their husbands' greatness and glory, to merge almost their identity in their husbands.

What of the Scottish mothers of whom J. M. Barrie tells us, who have lived, and still live in obscurity, working their fingers to the bone to enable their sons to study at the university? What of the daughter's education being neglected, and her very nature starved to secure the son's advancement in life? What about this eternal sacrifice of woman to man? How rare is the devotion of a Charles Lamb! We ask not of the love that inspires or the custom that enforces the sacrifice, but what of the selfishness, perhaps unthinking - that acquiesces and accepts it all? When are men going to efface themselves to advance the progress of women? When are they even going to put justice to women before party politics? Do they owe more to governments than they own to women?

The only freedom we have known has been freedom to serve. Beside serving in our own homes and other people's, in hospitals, shops, and factories, we are now permitted to serve on Town and Urban District Councils, on Boards of Guardians, as prison inspectors, and so forth ; but where for us are the rights and rewards that for men follow in the train of service? Virtue we know is its own reward, but only for women has work been so considered. At last woman realizes that she is of genus homo, and neither an angel floating over a man's head, nor a slave at his feet.

The spirit and need of the times demands the emancipation of woman, demands that women work and make sacrifice for women.

KATE KILBURN

Biography 

Kate was born in Meltham in 1868. Her father was James Kilburn of Meltham, an Iron Founder, Engineer and in later life, an Alderman. Her mother was Ann Eastwood Farrar a native of nearby Slaithwaite. The couple had eight children: three boys and five girls.

Kate began life at 1 Mill Moor, Meltham. The 1871 census shows that Kate's father was doing well as a mechanical engineer, millwright and iron founder employing 26 men and six apprentices. The family were also able to employ a servant for nursing and domestic duties.

By 1891, the family had moved to Croft House, close to Meltham Town Hall.

Her father was active in local politics as a member Meltham Local Board and Vice-President of Meltham Liberal Association.

By 1911, Kate was living with her widowed father, now 83 years, Leonard the youngest of the brothers, aged 53 and sister Charlotte, aged 50. The family continued to employ a female domestic servant.

Kate died at the Morecambe Bank House Nursing Home in Grange over Sands at the age of 59 on 29th February 1928.