Miss Mary Eleanor Gawthorpe

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/22358671834/in/photostream/
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999)

Database linked sources: https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3208/working-class-women-in-the-suffrage-movement

Family information: Father a tanner and honorary secretary of the local Conservative Party.

Additional Information: Mary's first role in the women's suffrage movement was as an executive committee member of Leeds Suffrage Society, which was part of the larger law-abiding NUWSS. She met and worked with members of the WSPU from about 1905 but did not join until 1906, after moving from Leeds to London. She became an organiser and member of the WSPU's committee. Soon after, she was arrested and imprisoned for two months in Holloway for her part in a demonstration outside Parliament, timed to coincide with its opening in October. Mary became a much-sought-after speaker on account of her enthusiasm and booming voice (she was a trained opera singer) and she travelled up and down the country giving talks. She settled for a while as chief organiser for the WSPU in Lancashire, but suffered from ill health and retired in autumn 1910. In 1911, she resigned from the WSPU and became co-editor of a feminist magazine, The Freewoman. She resigned as co-editor in 1912, when the magazine was critical of the Pankhursts, and resumed her militancy. She was arrested in spring that year for breaking a window at the Home Office in protest at the horrendous treatment in prison of working class man and Men's Political Union (MPU) member William Ball (see William Ball). She was held on remand but was let out after starting a hunger and thirst strike.

Other Suffrage Activities: Mary joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in about 1904 and, by 1906, had become vice president of the Leeds branch. She was also active in the National Union of Teachers. She was an organiser for the Women's Labour League and this was likely why she delayed joining the WSPU, who had moved away from the Labour Party. Once the vote was partially obtained for women in 1918, Mary turned her attention back to the cause of working class people but had by then emigrated to the USA. So it was there that she became involved with the National Consumers League (where shoppers used their spending power to influence businesses and thus government) and campaigns for a minimum wage, and took up work as an educational director for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.