Photograph of Suffragette Jennie Baines

Portrait of the Suffragette leader Jennie [Sarah Jane] Baines
Jennie Baines was born in Birmingham in 1866 and began working in a small arms factory from the age of 11 years. Following involvement with the Salvation Army, the Temperance movement and the Independent Labour Party, Jennie joined the Women's Social and Political Union around 1905 served her first term of imprisonment in Holloway in 1906 after being arrested outside the House of Commons From 1908 she was employed by the WSPU as a salaried Organiser in the Midlands and North of England. Married to a boot maker, by this time her eldest daughter was 20 years old and she also had two younger sons. Leaving her daughter to manage the family home Jennie travelled from her base at Stockport by train and bicycle, planning WSPU demonstrations, setting up new branches and addressing meetings often staying overnight at Salvation Army & Temperance hostels.
Jennie was imprisoned multiple times for militancy including a term of 9 months in Mountjoy prison for being implicated in the burning of the Theatre Royal in Dublin. During her periods of imprisonment Jennie joined the hunger-strikes but was never force-fed due to her suffering from the condition chorea that caused muscular spasms. In July 1913 Jennie, her husband and 17 year old son were arrested on suspicion of bombing a railway carriage in a siding at Newton Heath. Still weakened by her previous imprisonment the entire family fled to Wales disguised as the 'Evans' family from where they travelled to Melbourne, Australia.
During World War I Jennie worked campaigned alongside Adela Pankhurst as a member of the Women's Peace Party and remained a political activist until her death in Australia in 1951.
Sarah Jane Baines joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1905.