Sarah Reddish

Sarah Reddish (3 October 1849 – 19 February 1928) was a British trade unionist and suffragette, who was active in the co-operative movement.

A supporter of women running for local elections as a springboard to gaining national voting rights, she ran for office on the Bolton School Board and was successful in her second attempt in 1899.

[2] Leaving school at age eleven, Reddish began working at home, winding silk for her mother and neighbour's weavings.

As a proponent of women holding local offices, believing that would help in their claim for the larger vote, she ran as a member of the Bolton School Board[1] in 1897 but was defeated.

[1] In 1903, Reddish became a founding member of the Lancashire and Cheshire Women Textile and Other Workers Representation Committee,[1] along with Selina Cooper, Sarah Dickenson,[16] Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper.

[5] The group, for which she would later serve as treasurer, was formed evaluate parliamentary candidates and select those who would fight for voting rights of women workers.

[19] Later that same year, she went to Ghent and Brussels to study child care initiatives being launched in Belgium and upon her return, established the School for Mothers in Bolton.

[1] Reddish died on 19 February 1928 at Townleys Hospital of Farnworth, Lancashire[1] and was buried in the Heaton Cemetery on Bolton Wood Road.

[10] Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.