MONDAY marks the 100th anniversary of one of Bolton’s most notorious historical events when suffragette Edith Rigby burned down the Rivington home of Lord Leverhulme. Dr Maurice Halton has carried out research and asks was she an incendiary or a self publicist?

ALMOST 100 years ago, in the early hours of July 8, 1913, people’s attention was captured by a growing, flickering light emanating from just below Rivington Pike on the slopes of the West Pennine Moors.

Soon, it had become apparent that a large fire was burning in the grounds of Sir William Lever’s exotic estate, and as the night wore on, it became clear that the blaze was signalling the destruction of Roynton Cottage, one of the many luxurious houses belonging to Bolton’s so-called ‘Soap Baronet’.

According to press reports published later that day, this was no accident, but rather a deliberate act of arson perpetrated by ‘suffragists’ – members of an organisation agitating for the right of women to vote in public elections.

This opinion was seemingly confirmed two days later when Edith Rigby, a renowned local activist in the cause of women’s suffrage and the wife of a respectable Preston GP, made a surprising statement before the magistrates at Liverpool Police Court.

After pleading guilty to a charge of causing an explosion in the Liverpool Cotton Exchange on the previous Saturday evening, Edith brusquely claimed sole responsibility for the Rivington fire.

Although she was neither charged nor convicted with any crime in connection with it, her name quickly became synonymous with the burning of Roynton Cottage. Unfortunately, however, the available evidence casts doubt on her complicity in the fire, and even questions her responsibility for the Liverpool incident.

Edith DERISIVELY labelled “suffragettes”, from around the mid 1860s, a growing number of women, mainly from the middle and upper classes, campaigned for the enfranchisement of women.

Their efforts met with stubborn resistance from the British establishment, a situation that led to radicalisation and militancy, not least among the women of Lancashire. Typical of these, Edith Rigby, née Rayner, was born at 1 Pole Street, off Church Street, in Preston, on October 18 1872.

Well educated, she attended Preston High School from 1883 to 1885, and studied at Penrhos College in north Wales from 1885 to 1890.

Just before her 21st in 1893, she married Dr Charles Rigby, and they set up home at number 28 Winckley Square, Preston.

Tall, golden-haired and blue-eyed, she soon acquired a reputation as a rebel and an activist.

By instinct a socialist, Edith was an early member of the emerging Independent Labour Party (ILP), a vigorous camp-aigner for the underprivileged and an advocate for improved working conditions in Lancashire’s cotton mills.

In 1906, she became secretary of the Preston, St Anne’s and District branch of the Women's Social and Political Union, a splinter group of the relatively moderate National Society for Women's Suffrage.

The WSPU was formed in 1903 in Manchester by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who soon demonstrated a readiness to take direct, militant action in order to bring their message to the attention of the public.

Edith’s attachment to the particularly militant group that surrounded Christabel led to several clashes with the authorities and ultimately to her arrest and imprisonment.

In March 1912, following a coordinated attack on the shop windows of several of London’s commercial centres, Christabel fled to France after learning that she was to be arrested.

From there, according to many chroniclers, she ordered her followers to begin the firebombing of substantial properties, especially houses belonging to prominent members of the government.

A series of arson attacks followed, but most of these were little more than symbolic gestures resulting in only minor damage, with many of the would-be incendiaries being seized before the fires were started.

By early 1913, however, suffragist paraphernalia found near fires at railway stations, cricket pavilions, football stadiums, racecourses, golf courses and the like was regarded by the press as proof-positive of WSPU involvement.

Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that Edith’s declaration of guilt was readily accepted by both press and public. Significantly, however, it does not seem to have convinced the police.

Roynton Cottage BY 1913, Roynton Cottage had developed from the relatively functional, though spacious and stylish, prefabricated “shooting box with tiled roof” erected just after the turn of the century, into a large, many-bedroomed, two-storeyed country mansion.

Sumptuously furnished, its main weakness was that the building itself was constructed from North American pitch pine, a timber whose high resin content it makes it water resistant and particularly flammable.

Set among 18 hectares of terraced gardens etched into the southern flank of the West Pennine Moors, it was surrounded by a stout metal fence and its approaches were guarded by three substantial lodges, each of which was occupied by a trusted retainer and his family.

The fire THE destruction was both swift and total.

Press reports indicate that the fire began at about midnight, and by one o’clock, the flames were visible from various locations in the valley below the moor.

Oddly, although at least two people contacted the fire brigades at Horwich and Chorley, neither service seems to have made any effort to attend.