Blog | Lucienne Boyce

Making Money From the Suffragettes

The suffragette campaign spearheaded by Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a time of heady excitement, courage, endurance and persistence. Women marched under banners with stirring slogans …

Spotlight on Reginald McKenna (1863-1943): The Man who Introduced the Cat and Mouse Act

Reginald McKenna, the man who introduced the infamous “Cat and Mouse Act”, was Home Secretary from 1911 to 1915. Born into a Catholic family in London, he later converted to …

The Bristol Boys: The Bare Knuckle Champions and The Hatchet Inn

The Hatchet Inn on Frogmore Street in Bristol is all that remains of a row of seventeenth-century timbered houses dating back to 1606 – making it one of the city’s …

The Suffragettes could not be pacifists at any price

In 1913, and again in 1914, a bomb was found at the Bank of England in London. Other incendiary devices discovered in the capital included one with “Votes for Women” …

Dickens and Chickens

On 17 April 1860, in fields near Farnborough, Charles Dickens joined an audience amongst whom were the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, as well as a …

Spotlight on…Mrs Humphry Ward (1851 – 1920)

In 1915 the best-selling novelist Mrs Mary Humphrey Ward published Delia Blanchflower. In many ways it’s typical romantic fare: a stern guardian to a wilful young heiress must save her …

Cribb’s Parlour: Tom Cribb

I’m an inveterate English Heritage blue-plaque spotter – and if I’d missed this one in Panton Street, Haymarket, London, the pub sign would have been enough to tell me that …

Spotlight on…Dorothy Pethick (1881-1970)

When Winston Churchill came to Bristol in 1909, a number of women came to the city to help Bristol organiser Annie Kenney organise protests during his visit. Actions included window …

Writing The Bristol Suffragettes

Some “frequently asked questions” about how I came to write The Bristol Suffragettes… What sparked your interest in the local suffragette movement? Until a few years ago, I had no …

Spotlight On…Begbrook House, Frenchay, Bristol

On 11 November 1913, the head gardener at Begbrook House in Frenchay near Bristol discovered that the building was on fire. The house stood in its own wooded grounds, and …

Spotlight on Suffragette Florence Feek (1877 – 1940)

The latest Suffragette Spotlight On looks at the work of Worcestershire campaigner, Florence Feek… On 31 March 1909, thirty suffragettes attempted to get into the House of Commons to speak to Prime …

Harriette Wilson and John Murray: Surviving the Brutal Rejection

In July I wrote a blog about bad reviews and how they have always been an occupational hazard for writers. (July 2014, Dismal Trash: The Time-Honoured Art of the Bad …