Janie Allan
| Janie Allan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Jane Allan 28 March 1868 Glasgow |
| Died | 29 April 1968 (aged 100) |
| Nationality | British |
| Years active | 1902–1914 |
| Known for | Women's rights activism |
Jane "Janie" Allan (28 March 1868 – 29 April 1968) was a leading Scottish activist in the militant suffragette movement of the early 20th century.
Janie Allan was born into the wealthy Glasgow family that owned the Allan Line shipping company. Her grandfather, Alexander Allan, founded the firm in 1819, and by the time that her father – the youngest of Alexander Allan's five sons, also named Alexander – took over the running of the company's Glasgow operations, the line had many vessels, additional offices in Liverpool and Montreal, and had wrested the Royal Mail's North American contract away from the Cunard line.
In common with many of her family, Allan held socialist political views. She was an early member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and she edited a column covering women's suffrage issues for the socialist newspaper Forward.
In May 1902, Allan was instrumental in re-founding the Glasgow branch of the National Society for Women's Suffrage as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage (GWSAWS), and was a member of its executive committee. She was a significant financial supporter, and as one of the GWSAWS vice-presidents she took up a position on the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) committee in 1903, in order to represent the association following their affiliation.
In 1906, Allan was among the audience when Teresa Billington (who had been arrested and jailed following a protest in London earlier in the year) toured Scotland, although the GWSAWS themselves refused to invite Billington to speak, and in December of that year she attended a lecture by Helen Fraser as she expounded the militant principles of the newly formed Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In 1907, concerned that the non-violent GWSAWS was not being as effective as it should have been, Allan resigned from their executive committee and joined the WSPU, although she maintained her subscription to GWSAWS until 1909.
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