(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



WOW2: May 2023 – Women Trailblazers and Activists, 5-25 through 5-31 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-05-27  

May 31, 1875 – Rosa May Billinghurst born, British suffragette and women’s rights activist; she survived polio as a child, but had to wear leg irons and use crutches to walk. She became known is the “cripple suffragette” because she campaigned on a modified tricycle. As a young woman, she was active in social work at a Greenwich workhouse, taught Sunday School, and joined the temperance group, Band of Hope. In 1907, she became a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Despite her disability she took part in the WSPU's march to the Royal Albert Hall in June 1908. Billinghurst helped organise the WSPU's response in the Haggerston by-election in July 1908. In 1910, she founded the Greenwich branch of the WSPU. As its first secretary she took part in the 'Black Friday' demonstrations, using her tricycle. Billinghurst would place her crutches on both sides of her tricycle and then charge any opposition. She was arrested after the police had capsized her from her tricycle. Billinghurst knew that she was helpless when this happened but she was quite prepared to take the added publicity to benefit the suffrage cause, but the police also exploited her disability, leaving her in a side street after letting her tyres down and pocketing the valves. She was arrested several more times in the next few years. The Glaswegian suffragette, Janie Allan, apparently worked in partnership with Billinghurst during the window-smashing campaign of March 1912, with Billinghurst apparently hiding a supply of stones under the rug that covered her knees. Her first stint in Holloway Prison was for smashing a window on Henrietta Street during this campaign, for which she was sentenced to one month's hard labour. The prison authorities were confused by this sentence for a disabled woman, and gave her no extra work. On 8 January 1913, she was tried at the Old Bailey and sentenced to eight months in Holloway Prison for damaging letters in a postbox. She subsequently went on hunger strike, and was force-fed along with other suffragettes, but became so ill that she was released two weeks later. She spoke at a public meeting in West Hampstead in March 1913. On 24 May she chained herself to the gates of Buckingham Palace and on 14 June she was dressed in white on her trike in Emily Wilding Davison's funeral procession after she became a martyr to the cause. Billinghurst took part in the mass deputation of suffragettes to petition King George V on 21 May 1914. Though she was not arrested, two policemen deliberately tipped her out of her tricycle, and another suffragette, Charlotte Drake, had to lift her back into it. Billinghurst stopped her activity for women's suffrage after the Qualification of Women Act 1918 gave some women the vote. She later attended Emmeline Pankhurst's funeral and the unveiling of Emmeline's statue in 1930. She died in 1953, leaving her body to science.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/27/2171566/-WOW2-May-2023-Women-Trailblazers-and-Activists-5-25-through-5-31

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/