Miss Browne’s Pluck: A Suffragette in North

In 1907 twenty-six year old Millicent Price, who lived in Letchworth Garden City, joined the Women’s Social and Political Union, the suffrage organisation founded in 1903 by Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst.

Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928, Founder WSPU

The WSPU used militant methods in the pursuit of its goal to win votes for women from a reluctant Liberal government.

The aftermath of a suffragette window-smashing raid

These ranged from heckling MPs, deputations to the House of Commons, window breaking, damaging the contents of letter boxes, interrupting church services, and in the later stages of the campaign, arson and other destructive acts.

Millicent herself was never involved in the more violent forms of militancy. Like many other women, she left the WSPU as militancy intensified. But in 1909 she was still working for the 1

WSPU, attending meetings, going on demonstrations, speaking, and organising activities in Letchworth. And, like many other suffrage workers, she travelled around the country to give help wherever it was needed.

I am currently writing a biography of Millicent Browne (later Millicent Price), and in this talk I’m going to give a flavour of what suffrage campaigning was like for WSPU organisers like Millicent by looking at one of her local campaigns.

Travelling around organising, speaking and protesting was a life that took its toll on the women involved. Trains were late, luggage lost, accommodation dirty and uncomfortable, meals snatched at odd times, and the schedule of meetings was relentless, with hardly any time to rest. Often organisers were helped by local supporters, but sometimes they had to manage it all themselves. Sometimes, too, volunteers were unreliable – as Millicent was to discover. Overwork led to exhaustion and illness, which could be especially miserable if you were on your own in an unfamiliar place. What was more, as we’ll see, the local political background could create specific difficulties.

Some of the organisers were employed and paid by the WSPU, but many were, like Millicent, volunteers who had to pay their own way. They also had to manage the work alongside other commitments such as family or job. In fact, Millicent had to turn down an offer of a full-time paid post with the WSPU because she lived with her mother and couldn’t leave her. Millicent was a teacher who spent her school holidays working for the cause, so she had to make sure she was back for the start of term.

In 1909 Millicent was sent to by her friend and WSPU organiser Mary Gawthorpe to help make preparations for the campaign there.

Mary Gawthorpe (1881–1973), WSPU Organiser

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Holiday resorts were favourite settings for campaigns and all of the main suffrage societies sent workers to busy resorts. The WSPU urged its followers to volunteer to “spend their holiday…in holiday centres…paying their own expenses, and giving as much time as possible towards helping with the campaign” (Votes for Women, 23 July 1909). In North Wales, Rhyl, , and were amongst the most popular centres.

The WSPU had another reason for descending on North Wales. David Lloyd George’s North Wales constituency was Caernarfon Boroughs, consisting of Caernarfon, Bangor, , Nefyn, Pwllheli and Criccieth. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal government, Lloyd George was a high profile target of WSPU militancy. He had already had a great deal of attention from suffragettes.

David Lloyd George (1863–1945)

One of these incidents took place in June 1909 when he was speaking at the Welsh National Eisteddfod at the Albert Hall in London.

He was interrupted and heckled in Welsh and English, and a number of women were thrown out of the meeting. This episode was to have repercussions for Millicent and her colleagues in North Wales. Not only was Lloyd George immensely popular in his constituency, but this and incidents at later Eisteddfodau were seen as insults to the Welsh nation. As Lloyd George put it in September 1910, “When people go to their places of worship and disturb their services in the interest of woman suffrage, and go to their national festival and disturb that, they create a quite unnecessary prejudice in the minds of the Welsh people against their cause.” (The Times, 28 September 1910)

When Mary Gawthorpe spoke in Conwy a few weeks before her campaign with Millicent, she was interrupted by young men singing the Welsh national anthem, cheering David Lloyd George, and demanding to know why suffragettes had targeted the Eisteddfod in London. The men grew so unruly that the meeting had to be abandoned. A mob followed Mary to the railway station, but she managed to get away unharmed. The WSPU was left to pay the costs of damage, including wrecked furniture, in the hall in Conwy. 3

Mary had planned to return to North Wales in August, and at the end of July Millicent was sent to Llandudno ahead of her to help organise her campaign.

Millicent had a nightmare journey because she was suffering from terrible period pains. When she reached Llandudno, she went to see the local organiser whose name and address she had been given, but found that she was very little help and could not even recommend a place to stay.

Not knowing where she was to spend the night, Millicent left the house. Although it was outside licensing hours, she managed to persuade a publican’s wife to let her have a glass of gin and hot water. Somewhat restored, she remembered a guest house she had stayed in on a previous holiday. She managed to find it, only to discover that it was full. However, the owner let her sleep in an armchair, and the next day she found a room in a boarding house.

Having secured accommodation, Millicent’s next task was to organise indoor and outdoor meetings. This meant finding and hiring venues, obtaining any relevant permissions, for example if speaking on the sea front, and publicising the meetings. Millicent also had to sell as many copies of the suffragette newspaper Votes for Women as she could.

Millicent set up a meeting at the Prince’s Theatre in Llandudno for 28 July 1909 and had posters printed to advertise it. Unfortunately, the theatre management had heard about the disturbances at recent suffrage meetings and, concerned about damage to the property, cancelled the booking.

As if that didn’t make things difficult enough, when Mary arrived she told Millicent the lodgings in Llandudno were too expensive. Millicent was sent ahead to Rhyl to organise meetings there, with instructions to make sure the rooms she found were cheaper.

Indeed, Millicent did seem to be struggling to make ends meet. She had spent all her own money and by now was having to borrow.

In Rhyl she also lost track of one of the women who was supposed to be helping her. She had not replied to Millicent’s letter, and it seemed she had changed her lodgings without letting Millicent know.

With the help of another volunteer, Millicent arranged a meeting in Rhyl Town Hall. She held a meeting on the beach to help publicise it. While she was speaking, a man waved a dead cat at her and shouted obscenities.

On top of all this, the repercussions of the Eisteddfod rumbled on. Millicent chaired the meeting in Rhyl Town Hall where Mary Gawthorpe was constantly interrupted by more protests about the London Eisteddfod, and noisy local Liberals cheered whenever David Lloyd George was mentioned.

While Mary stayed in Rhyl, Millicent and some companions went to Colwyn Bay to hold a meeting on the beach there. Here the crowd became so threatening that Millicent had to run for safety. The Promenade wall was too high for her to climb, but a group of sympathisers standing on the edge hauled her up and she continued her speech from the top of the wall. Then someone tried to push her off: she was saved in the nick of time by a local man who 4

grabbed hold of her. At the end of her talk she faced the usual questions about the Eisteddfod. The meeting ended in a fist fight between a local heckler and one of the holidaymakers.

The next day Millicent was with Mary in Llandudno where they addressed crowds on the sea front. This was in defiance of the local council, which had refused permission for the meeting. Here, again, Mary was grilled about the Eisteddfod, but otherwise the meeting passed off reasonably well.

Mary still had work to do in the area, but this was the end of Millicent’s North Wales campaign as she was due back in Letchworth. She had coped with period pains, venue cancellations, shortage of funds, and the threat of violence. During her speech at Rhyl Town Hall, Mary had acknowledged her efforts. Referring to the cancellation of the Llandudno meeting by the Prince’s Theatre management, she remarked, “Miss Browne made all arrangements for that meeting, but just because of the fear of consequences the engagement was cancelled by the proprietor…It was a testimony to Miss Browne’s pluck under such circumstances that she decided to come on to Rhyl.” Rhyl Record and Advertiser, 7 August 1909.

Millicent’s name is listed in the Suffragette Roll of Honour compiled in 1950

As Millicent Browne’s experiences show, pluck was something a WSPU organiser needed if she was to cope with the stresses and strains of a local suffrage campaign.

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About the author:-

Lucienne Boyce is an award-winning historical novelist and women’s suffrage historian. Her books include The Bristol Suffragettes (2013) and a collection of short essays, The Road to Representation: Essays on the Women’s Suffrage Campaign (2017; ebook free to newsletter subscribers). Novels set in the eighteenth century are To The Fair Land (2012); and the Dan Foster Mysteries.

She is on the steering committee of the West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network.

She is currently writing a biography of suffrage campaigner Millicent Price (née Browne), and working on the next Dan Foster Mystery. Find out more at www.lucienneboyce.com

Social Media:-

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www.lucienneboyce.com

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Picture Credits:-

Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst: The Women’s Library Collection on Flickr; No Known Copyright Restrictions Suffragette Window Smashing Raid: The Women’s Library Collection on Flickr; No Known Copyright Restrictions Mary Gawthorpe: The Women’s Library Collection on Flickr; No Known Copyright Restrictions Llandudno : Pixabay, Free for Commercial Use David Lloyd George: author’s private collection A Suffragette Procession: The Women’s Library Collection on Flickr; No Known Copyright Restrictions Bryn Awelon: author’s private collection The Suffragette Roll of Honour: The Women’s Library Collection on Flickr; No Known Copyright Restrictions

© Lucienne Boyce 2021

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