Age group: Pioneers/Venturers

How long it will take: Theme for a trip to Lockerbrook

What materials you will need:

The aim of the activity: To learn about how the franchise was won for women

What to do:
The right to participate in the democratic life of our country was one which had to be fought for.

If your group has a trip to the Woodcraft Folk's Lockerbrook centre planned, you may want to use the story of Hannah Mitchell as a focus for your work. Hannah was born in 1871 and grew up in Alport Castles Farm, about two miles from Lockerbrook. She describes her childhood and later life - involved in the suffragette movement, the trade union and labour movement and later as an Independent Labour Party local councillor - in her autobiography The Hard Way Up (Virago, now out of print, but relatively easy to find in second hand bookshops or on the internet).

Hannah Mitchell's life is also the theme of one of the features at the Pumphouse People's Museum in Manchester (in the basement floor, just along from the old Woodcraft Folk photograph and the co-op display!)