Short Pioneer Presentation on Jessy Greenwood 

By kind permission of Minister Jenny Peacock

 

Jessy was born 8th November 1860 and died 6th February 1958 aged 97.   She was born in Lincolnshire but spent most of her life around the Hebden Bridge area of Yorkshire.  Like many early Spiritualists Jessy had belonged to the Unitarian Church but something within the Lyceum and Spiritualists movements attracted her and she made the move. And we should be forever grateful to have her as a Pioneer of Spiritualism.

 

One of the things that Lyceumists tend to remember about Jessy Greenwood is the fact that she was the first lady President of the British Spiritualists’ Lyceum Union but if you ask what the year was most would not know.

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The year was 1898 which was also the year the Souvenir medal was struck to commemorate the jubilee of Modern Spiritualism. Jessy’s silver medal was presented to Geo. A. Mack of the Lyceum Central Committee a few years before her passing and in his 1958 tribute to Jessy he said, “it is among my many souvenirs”.

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Today Jessy Greenwood’s medal is incorporated into the Lyceum Union’s Vice President’s insignia. (Images of Insignia below)

 

History shows that Jessy Greenwood was no slacker when it came to hard work and dedication, she was not one to stand in the shadows while her husband William Greenwood worked hard for both the British Spiritualists’ Lyceum Union and the Spiritualists’ National Federation which was to become the Spiritualists’ National Union. If you take a look at the SNU Memorandum of Association you will find William Greenwood was one of the seven subscribers who wished to form a company and Jessy Greenwood was his witness. (Click on attached file below)

 

In the November of 1903 Jessy and William founded the Hebden Bridge Spiritualist Church above the Co op. On its first anniversary they started a Lyceum, and the Sowerby Bridge Lyceum closed for the day and walked to Hebden Bridge in the morning to give assistance to the new Lyceum”.  Sadly, William Greenwood passed in 1905 but unlike many women of that time Jessy did not fade into obscurity mourning her loss.

 

Jessy Greenwood was more than a pioneer of Spiritualism in all its aspects she was one of the pioneers that fought for the rights for women to hold civil office.  The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 came into force at the end of 1919 and Jessy Greenwood became the first woman magistrate in her borough in 1921. Lesley Price of Psypioneer stated “Her appointment as a magistrate was very significant. A trance medium as a magistrate!”. Her work up to 1921 included first lady member of the Hebden Bridge Council, Old Age Pensioners Committee clerk, the only woman to hold a similar position in the country, a director of the Hebden Bridge co-op society, president of the local Co-op women’s guild and Secondary School Governor. She had been active in all democratic and education movements in the district, but she still continued with her work for the SLU and SNU. She was on the Todmorden Boards of Guardians and was one of the foremost workers to set up a home for destitute children at MANKINHOLES.

 

In 1923 she had another first by becoming the president of the SNU.  Jessy was also a Minister of the SNU and when Castleford Spiritualist Church celebrated its 21st birthday she was the speaker.

 

For most of her adult life Jessy Greenwood served spirit both incarnate and discarnate as a schoolteacher, public servant and Spiritualist, she embraced the Seven Principles and implemented them in her life. She should be an inspiration to all who feel that many doors are closed to them.

 

The suffragettes were doing their thing for women’s votes when Jessy was a young woman; she was 59 years old when an act of parliament freed women so she could take up a civil office and 90 years old when the Fraudulent Mediums Act freed her religion.

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Jessy Greenwood was a legend in her own lifetime and a true pioneer.

 

Other images below - Images of Jessy from the Girls’ Own Corner section of the 1915 BSLU Banner, Hebden Bridge Urban District Council Chairwoman 1925, a cutting from a 1954 local newspaper and the tribute by Geo A Mack extracted from the SLU Banner 1958.

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