[3] Although they lived in poverty, and were largely home educated due to working from a young age, both their parents encouraged them to read and debate.

Kenney began working in the cotton mill as a card room hand,[2] but later became a teacher as did two other girls.

[3] Kenney joined the suffragettes, following leading activists, her sisters Annie and Jessie of the Women's Social and Political Union ( WSPU) Kenney offered refuge or rest for women released following imprisonment, hunger strike and force-feeding, under the Cat and Mouse Act, where she and her sister Caroline (Kitty) ran a Montessori school, at Tower Cressy,[4] Campden Hill, from around 1915.

[3] The grand house had been acquired by the Pankhursts, including using money from the WSPU surplus funds to be fitted out for an adoption home and nursery, causing some controversy.

They retired as joint principals in 1929 (by which time the school had grown to 170 students and 24 staff on the faculty) and then taught in Philadelphia before settling in California.