Edith Rigby was born into Preston's professional classes yet spent her life fighting for the rights of working women. Her militant suffragette activism reached its peak in July 1913 when she set fire to a soap magnate's holiday home on the West Pennine Moors, causing Β£20,000 worth of damage.
A Preston Upbringing
Edith Rayner entered the world on 18 October 1872 in Preston, Lancashire. She was one of seven children born to Dr Alexander Clement Rayner, a local surgeon whose patients came largely from the town's working classes. This early exposure to economic inequality shaped her political consciousness. Her brother, Dr Arthur Rayner, would later found the X-Ray Department at Preston Royal Infirmary.
After attending Penrhos College in North Wales, she married Dr Charles Rigby in 1893, just before her twenty-first birthday. The couple settled at 28 Winckley Square, where Edith would live for more than three decades and where a blue plaque now commemorates her legacy.
Education and Early Activism
In 1899, Rigby founded St Peter's School on Brook Street in Preston. The night school offered mill workers and working-class girls the opportunity to continue their education beyond the statutory leaving age of eleven. It was a practical response to the limited prospects facing young women in Edwardian Lancashire.
She joined the Independent Labour Party in 1905 and formed a Preston branch of the Women's Labour League the following year. Her suffragette activism began in earnest in 1907 when she established the Preston branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), serving as its secretary.
Militancy and Imprisonment
Rigby's commitment to the cause deepened rapidly. In 1908, she marched on the Houses of Parliament alongside Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst. Police arrested her with fifty-six other women; she received a one-month prison sentence. The following year, she was arrested for obstruction during Winston Churchill's visit to Preston. Her father paid the fine, claiming she had fallen into "bad company."
These early arrests marked only the beginning. Rigby would be imprisoned seven times in total. She participated in hunger strikes and endured force-feeding, experiences that earned her the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal "for Valour."
The Rivington Pike Arson
On 7 July 1913, Rigby claimed responsibility for one of the most dramatic suffragette arson attacks in the North West. She set fire to a bungalow near Rivington Pike on the West Pennine Moors. The property belonged to Sir William Lever, later Lord Leverhulme, whose Port Sunlight soap empire had made him one of Britain's wealthiest industrialists.
The damage totalled Β£20,000. The bungalow contained valuable paintings and served as a holiday retreat.
In court, Rigby directly addressed Lever's position: "I want to ask Sir William Lever whether he thinks his property on Rivington Pike is more valuable as one of his superfluous houses occasionally opened to people, or as a beacon lighted to King and Country to see here are some intolerable grievances for women."
The attack came just two days after she planted a bomb at the Liverpool Cotton Exchange on 5 July 1913. The court noted that "no great damage had been done by the explosion," but the cumulative offences earned her a nine-month prison sentence with hard labour.
Life at Winckley Square
Number 28 Winckley Square served as more than a family home. Rigby hosted WSPU meetings there and entertained visiting suffragette leaders. The house stood at the centre of Preston's professional district, yet Rigby used it to advance causes that challenged the social order.
She became known locally for her unconventional behaviour. According to some accounts, she was the first woman in Preston to own a bicycle. She later adopted masculine clothing and kept her hair short, choices that set her apart from Edwardian conventions.
Later Years and Legacy
During the First World War, Rigby purchased Marigold Cottage near Preston and devoted herself to food production for the war effort. She followed the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian philosopher who founded Anthroposophy. She became a vegetarian and maintained an unconventional household, keeping animals and bees.
In 1926, following her husband's death, she moved to Llanrhos in North Wales. She died there on 23 July 1950 from Parkinson's disease and was cremated. Her ashes were buried with her husband in Preston Old Cemetery.
Remembering Rigby Today
The blue plaque at 28 Winckley Square records her significance to Preston, though it incorrectly gives her death year as 1948. She remains one of the town's most celebrated daughters, a middle-class woman who identified with working-class mill girls and was willing to risk imprisonment and social ostracism for the right to vote.
Her arson attack on Lever's bungalow stands as one of the most spectacular acts of militant suffragette protest in Lancashire history. The incident raises enduring questions about the limits of legitimate protest and the price of political exclusion.
