Radical Roots 

Annie Leigh Browne – pioneering West Country fighter for women’s rights.

Born in the Somerset town of Bridgwater in 1851, the grandaughter of two veterans of the Battle of Trafalgar and daughter of social-reforming Unitarian parents, Browne became active in the struggle for women’s suffrage at a young age in Bristol, befriending Mary Carpenter, Octavia Hill and others. Browne quickly became a leading figure in the campaigns for women’s education, the right to vote, and equality.

In the 1880s, after 25 years of campaigning, she said “I am tired of being told to wait patiently!” Annie lived with her “beloved friend” Mary Stewart Kilgour in London and at Sidmouth, Devon. Annie died in London in 1936 of bronchitis. A lifelong Unitarian, she supported Sidmouth Unitarian Meeting House and left money in her will for a school to be built alongside it.

Find out more about Annie here: https://www.devonhistorysociety.org.uk/browne-miss-annie…/