Janet Carson

The next entry is Janet Carson who was arrested during November 1913.

A Miss J Carson, Honorary Secretary is mentioned in the Suffragette newspaper from November 1912 to March 1913 based at 95 The Grove, the Hammersmith WSPU shop. By September, Miss Carson appears to have stood down as secretary. Earlier the Common Cause, 9 May 1912, reports a Miss Carson having her goods sold in Hammersmith having been seized for non-payment of taxes. However, no report regarding Janet’s arrest has been located and official records do not shed any light.

​The most likely candidate is Janet Carson who was living with her widowed mother, Helen, in Hammersmith. Born in 1857 in Islington to David, a boot maker’s agent and Helen, Janet grew up in the area. David died in 1874 leaving Helen with six children, the youngest of whom was nine years old. By 1891, Janet and her mother have moved to Hammersmith. Janet is recorded as an art teacher in a drawing school. Although ten years later, the family are not living in Hammersmith it seems likely that they had returned as in 1913 Helen died, a death which is registered in Fulham which, at the time, included Hammersmith. Not unsurprisingly, neither woman appears on the 1911 census.

​In 1939, Janet is living in Birmingham. The entry on the register notes that Janet is an artist and Honorary Secretary of the LNU, possibly the League of Nations Union. After that Janet disappears from the records.

If anyone knows any more, please do get in touch.

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