Miss Jessie Cunningham Methven
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Single
Born: 1856
Died: 1917
Place of birth: Leith, Midlothian, Scotland
Main Suffrage Society: NUWSS
Other Societies: ENWSS; CNSWS; WSPU
Arrest Record: Yes
Recorded Entries: 1
Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999); L Leneman, A Guid Cause: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Scotland (1991)
Additional Information: Jessie had become active in the suffrage movement in the 1890s. She was secretary of the Edinburgh National Society of Women's Suffrage (ENSWS), in 1895 was a member of the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage (CNSWS), and was the ENSWS representative on the NUWSS committee. It was as an 'Independent Socialist' that she first gave her support to the WSPU in 1906, and to militant tactics. She supported the WSPU and its male 'wing', the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement (MPU), by sending money. In 1911, she joined the protests over the 'torpedoing' of the Conciliation Bill, and was sentenced to ten days in prison after breaking a window at the Home Office.