Thorley Smith
English political candidate (1873-1940)
Thorley Smith (1873 - 1940) was Britain's first Parliamentary candidate to stand on a platform of women's suffrage. He stood in the 1906 general election in Wigan, Lancashire. He lost to the Conservative candidate, but polled more votes than the Liberal.
He replaced Hubert Sweeney, who had been the Women's Suffrage candidate-elect from 1904 to 1905. Sweeney, a Headmaster for London's Hackney School Board, a trainee barrister and a member of the London Ethical Society, had been chosen by a committee of the North of England Society for Women's Suffrage. The Lancashire and Cheshire Women Textile and Other Workers Representation Committee was a group of suffragists, not suffragettes associated with the Pankhurts' Women's Social and Political Union.
Hubert Sweeney's campaign
Hubert Sweeney's Wigan campaign began in January 1904. The organisation and publicising of his candidature was undertaken by a group of suffragist working women of the female-led Wigan and District Weavers, Winders, Reelers and Beamers Association. The union was, at this time, independent of the male-led Amalgamated Weavers Association. The committee had been founded in 1903, and its president was Fairhurst (née Silcock).
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