This was a really interesting and insightful book, with so much information I had never heard about before despite being interested in the women’s suffrage movement. I really enjoyed learning all about Edith Rigby but loved that there was so much information outside of her life to discover too.

This book is brilliant, a much needed new look at a forgotten hero. It’s well researched and brilliantly written. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Net Galley and Pen and Sword for the chance to read and review this book. The opinions expressed are my own.
Edith Rigby was a fascinating woman, and I wish the author would have focused more on her life. There was too much background and not enough focus on the main character. It took too long to get to the facts about the title character. I enjoyed learning about Edith Rigby and her life.

VOTE FOR WOMEN? PREPOSTEROUS!!
At least, so believed the government and many men of the day.

In many a backward place, women have been second-class citizens for centuries untold, but they kept their peace, until...Enter the Suffragettes!

This book takes a fascinating look at the almost 100 year battle to achieve the right for women to vote on equal basis as men. The campaign, Vote for Women, raged throughout the United Kingdom, propelled by courageous, determined and self-sacrificing women who had had enough of all the injustices perpetuated towards women. The voting right realized would be symbolic towards bringing about the necessary changes.

Among the women who upheld this cause was the plucky, intrepid Edith Rigby. This biography of her role in this fight is representative of many like her who endured arrest, police brutality and abuse within the prison systems. This "crusade" towards equality with men continues to this day as author Beverley Adams spells out in her book, The Rebel Suffragette.

~Eunice C. Reviewer/Blogger~

July 2021
Disclaimer: This is my honest opinion based on the review copy sent by the publisherr.

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There are the well-known faces of the UK's suffragette movement in the late 19th/early 20th centuries such as the Pankhursts, Emily Wilding Davison, & Annie Kenney, but there were many more women who campaigned beside them. One of them was Edith Rigby, controversial, spirited, opinionated, kind, compassionate, & loyal. Born in Preston, Edith founded the Preston branch of the Women's Social and Political Union, & was imprisoned & braved the hunger strikes to campaign for women to have the right to vote.

This was an informative read about a woman I had never heard of before. Edith was definitely a fascinating woman & was a vital part of the campaign. Apparently there is comparatively small amounts of evidence about her beliefs & works, therefore some of the chapters moved onto other related subjects, such as how the female members of the Royal Family felt about the suffrage movement, etc. It was also interesting to read a more detailed view on the men who supported women's suffrage, as they can sometimes be forgotten about. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Edith & her fellow suffragettes.

Thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Pen & Sword, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

A truly incredible book that tells the story of a suffragette: Edith. With insight, honesty, compassion, this is a really interesting book that is sure to be a hit for anyone interested in history.

This read like a well researched essay . Interesting but not particularly scintillating I’m afraid.. A good introductory text to the Suffragette movement perhaps .

I enjoy social history and I’m interested in the suffragette movement and how it’s shaped today’s society. Edith Rigby is one of the lesser known individuals and Beverly Adams research from seemingly very limited source material is amazing. Edith wanted more than domesticity and despite marrying a Doctor and perhaps enjoying the benefits of a more comfortable life, her own experiences and background drew her to the cause of women’s suffrage and she became actively involved.

Any protest movement will give rise to criticism and there was a outcry about the use of arson to make a point. It’s easy to imagine the frustration of a movement which was making painfully slow progress and there’s no definitive answer to the arson issue, but a number of instances are detailed for the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Overall, the book fell a little flat. I found the style rather dull; sometimes it reads like a student essay. Some scenes are imagined, with conversation and actions which are possibly true, but reads like fiction and it jarred. It feels mean to be critical when such a lot of effort has gone in to a worthwhile subject, but with, perhaps, sharper editing, the structure could be improved. Maybe it has in the final edition; I received an ARC. I hope that in the final edition a reference to Snowdon, the Welsh mountain, has been corrected from Snowden in the text I read.

My thanks to the publisher for granting my wish to read this title.

This is an interesting biography which tells the story of Edith Rigby sympathetically, but analyses the role of the militant suffragettes, and whether their acts of vandalism and violence were justified. Edith didn't want to just play the role of middle-class housewife, because she grew up amongst mill workers and the poor in Preston, even though she came from a well-off family, and she wanted to help them. She established a school for working-class girls, which was extremely popular, but the role of suffragette was made for her. Edith campaigned for the cause, but she felt that it wasn't getting anywhere, so she started committing violent acts. She committed arson, and she was found guilty of an attempted bomb attack in Liverpool. She also threw black pudding at an MP! She went to jail several times, enduring force feeding, and going on hunger strike.

Charles, Edith's husband, who was a well-respected doctor, supported her all through this, even writing letters about her plight to the papers. Although very long-suffering, he got a bit upset if he had trouble getting meals after a day at the surgery. Edith disappeared a few times for reasonably long periods, which he found difficult. At one stage, she worked as a maid at an upper-class house for a week!

This biography includes a chapter on the role of men who supported the cause. They have had short shrift before now, so I was pleased to see a discussion of their role. The book also includes a summary of women's rights until the present day.

I enjoyed this book. Although I don't agree with Edith's militancy, she seems to have been very likeable, and I liked learning about another suffragette.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Beverley Adams, The Rebel Suffragette The Life of Edith Rigby, Pen & Sword History 2021.

Thank you NetGalley and Pen & Sword History for this uncorrected proof for review.

I was drawn to this book by the title as I had not heard of Edith Rigby and was interested in what Beverley Adams believed made her a rebel suffragette. I had thought of all the women involved in fighting for the women’s vote as rebels, after all, they were seeking to undermine the political power men exerted (well, some men) through the ballot box, and ultimately in parliament. However, I soon realised that Adams was indeed right to describe Edith Rigby as a rebel, denoting her as special in her adoption of the cause for women’s voting rights, and others she espoused. I also regret having been in Preston for a conference and not realising that in that city there were remnants of a history that I would have been thrilled to learn.

Beverley Adams acknowledges that there is limited information about Edith Rigby and has accordingly set her story in the context of general suffragette and suffragist history, the context of Preston and its industrial environment, World Wars 1 and 2, and Edith Rigby’s activities after the women’s vote was achieved. The material she has is not only absorbing, but also dramatic in parts, providing a story of the way in which her family reacted to her activism, including her husband’s steadfast support, and although acknowledging and describing well known activists, does not give them centre stage. Edith Rigby’s story becomes part of the history of the time, weaving women’s responses to women’s activism on their behalf, wider historical events, and domestic concerns in a thoroughly engaging narrative.

The story is told in an informal manner, and at times suffers from this informality with phrasing that could be improved and some errors. As this is an uncorrected proof, I have not taken these into account when awarding a star rating. Rather, I have concentrated on the way in which the informality and speculation, the writer’s engagement with the topic and her surmise about various of Rigby’s reactions to events have enhanced the narrative. This is the book offers so much to people beginning their journey to understand the context and history of women’s fight for the vote in Britain. Although I believe this is the most important feature a book of this nature can offer, it is also a useful adjunct to other reading, in particular as it introduces a relatively unknown woman to the historical list of names with which some are so familiar. Beverley Adams is right in referring to her disappointment that Edith Rigby’s name does not appear amongst those listed at the base of the Millicent Fawcett statue erected in London in 2018.

Edith Rigby’s background is middle class, she was the daughter of a doctor, her brother became a doctor, and her husband was a doctor. Although her family was middle class, they lived in a poor part of Preston providing what was to become an important influence on Edith’s life, first-hand knowledge of what it meant not to be middle class. Her father’s commitment to the community around them was instructive, and Edith’s behaviour, eventually to her father’s distress, reflected her grounding in concern about equal rights.

Edith’s life story, as told by Beverley Adams, becomes that of a woman who cares little for public opinion, is committed beyond thought for herself, to improving women’s lives through fighting for the vote, encouraging them into education, organising meetings for them to engage with other women, and in short, ensuring that women were offered the same opportunities their fathers, husbands, brothers, and male friends enjoyed. None of this was easy, and some of the material about suffragettes' imprisonment is brutal. The disappointments they suffered are palpable, made even more so under Adams' hand.

There is an index and a further reading list. In addition, there is a useful debate and discussion about the way in which the suffragettes used violence to achieve their aims. This is a strong depiction of one woman who fought for British women’s voting rights, as well as a briefly observed, but useful, political, and economic history of the time.

I liked it quite a lot. It was wonderful as a story but I don't know if people who read it as a biography would be satisfied. The author dwells too much on the big background of the Edith Rigby and not on her life/work.
No matter, people who are interesting in the suffrage movement will find a fierce character in Edith Rigby.

The good things:
* It's always good to have another woman featured in a history book! And I mean that very seriously. Minor men have had tomes devoted to them. To have an individual suffragette whose name is not Pankhurst (not that I don't love a Pankhurst) get a book is AWESOME.

* I love suffrage history in all its guises and having a book that's about circumstances outside of London - or Manchester - is great.


These things are big and important. The negative things are generally smaller, so although there are more they are basically balanced in my mind. But these are important things to note, I think:


The negative things
* There are some really annoying editorial aspects. Partly this is about commas instead of semi colons, which I think must be from the editor becuase I’ve seen the same thing in other books from this publisher. It irks the editor in me.

* There’s a chapter about “Men and the Media”, which has basically nothing to do with the suffragette in question. If the author had placed her in a wider context more often, then this might almost have made sense a chapter - but even then I’d be dubious. This chapter had no place in this biography. And nor did the chapter about the relationship between the royal family and the suffrage question - it was completely out of place.

* The title. Almost by definition if you were a suffragette you were a rebel, and Edith did nothing that was rebelling against the WSPU general vibe. So the title is click bait at best.

* One of the historian’s problems with writing such a biography is the dearth of resources. There’s a fine line to be walked in between theorising from thorough research, and making vague suppositions about things like, in this case, the relationship between wife and husband.

* A couple of specific irritants: the idea that women went in hunger strike to be classed as political prisoners becuase then they’d get better perks, rather than becuase of a real political reason, is just insulting. Also, the author suggests that the whole WSPU and Pankhursts ditched campaigning in WW1, when actually Sylvia Pankhurst was disowned by her mother and sister for doing the opposite.

Finally, I found the discussion about whether 21st century can or should condone the militancy of the suffragettes quite lacking in depth. It was more a series of questions than a rigorous interrogation of the place of violence in political campaigning. And it didn’t really need to be included - there’s no need to pass judgement on the subject of your biography.

Overall I think this is a really worthwhile biography - Edith was clearly a fascinating woman and I greatly appreciated being able to learn about her place in the suffrage movement. I've seen the picture of her being removed from the gates of Parliament and had no idea who she was! It's not perfect, but it's a good addition to the suffrage library.

As the descendant of a suffragette I was excited to read The Rebel Suffragette which tells the story of Emily Rigby.

This was a heavy read which had more to do with the plight of suffragette in general with surprisingly little on Emily, although she is mentioned it's more as an opening before going of in a tangent.

The first 20% of the book doesn't mention her at all but instead details the suffragette story we all know and can learn in Google.