 Ac feeding everyone. Thanks very much for coming along tonight. My name is Fraréadhorn and the chair of what is officially called the speakers advisory committee on works of art in the House of Commons. a wedyn oeddwn ni'n gweithio y ddechrau. Mae'n gweithio gyd yn gwybod ar hyn oedd y terntri, sy'n gweithio arall, byddwn ni wedi'u gwahanol ar y ddechrau sydd wedi'i gweithio'n gweithio'r cerddurol o'r ddechrau ar gyfer y cerddurol o'r portrwyr o'r ddweud i gweithio'r ddweud. Mae'n gyhoedd y cerddurol a'n gweithio ar broses o'r ddweud. Nid yw'r ddweud y gallwn i i'r gweithio'r gweithio ar gweithio'r gweithio, there's none of you were elected and thankfully that's changed, but there are other things which haven't changed. The decision of the Church of England yesterday was a disappointing reminder of how far we've still got to go. Anyway, this talk is part of the ongoing Parliament in Votes for Women series of talks displays and events that have been initiated by the House of Commons ..a cymdeithasol yn siarad A'r unig y fanydd yn holl gael eu ddweud... ..y fynd i am wahanol i Eimlaen i Dawieson, Cymru. I hwn i nifer o'r parlymyn, ceisio gwneud o'r disbl gyngl e i ddeithas yng Nghoesfyn.. ..a holl yn rhan oedd yn cynnwys. Gwein i ni'n deithun hwn llawer o bod yna mor hanes... ..en i gyd yn thriving a oedd eu ddefnyddio'r ardal yn darparu Llynedig. Felly, yr grwybwyny replaced Ymloedd yn ei gwneud o'r fawr... yw'r ysgolion sydd wedi'i gweithio perffech ar y gawdd. Rwy'n hoffi'n llawer o'r ffordd, ond ei ffordd i'r ffordd yn ysgolion, ac mae'n ffordd yn gweithio yn y ff�lwyr ymlaenol ym Mhwyshwr, ac mae'n ddau'r unigodd yr wyf yn ein fforddau'r ffordd lleol a'r broses yn fawr ymlaenol sydd wedi'u gweithio'r ystafell, ond mae'n ei ddweud. Elisabeth Crawford is our speaker tonight. She's a renowned suffrage historian. Anyone who's any interest in women's suffrage will be familiar with her work. I was given this poem, and I promise you I'm not on commission, but I only saw this today and I've managed to dip into it and find all of the important suffrages from Aberdeen, so I'll take that knowledge back with me. The publications include that invaluable encyclopedic reference guide, and she's also published on the Garrett's, a family who paid a pivotal role in the development of women's rights in Britain. She is extremely generous with her research, as those of you who follow her information-packed blog, Women and her Sphere, will know. I'm delighted that she's agreed to give us this talk tonight on her current research subject, Kate Perry Fry, a worker of the suffrage movement and the daughter of an MP. After the talk from Elisabeth, there will be the opportunity for questions. Well, it's a great pleasure to be here, and I'm very pleased that so many of you have come out on a wet night. But I have to think back to a summer's day on Thursday, the 7th of July 1892, 14-year-old Kate Fry ended her diary entry for the day with, I went to bed at half past one o'clock after the most exciting and pleasing day I have ever gone through, and what had made the day so exciting? Well, as the first sentence of the entry explains, this was Papa's election day for Parliament. Kate Fry, and there she is, that was a photograph taken about 1913 when she was the suffrage organiser, but Kate Fry was a diary writer, and she made her first attempt in 1887 when she was nine and was soon composing entries every day, decade after decade, until October 1958, just two or three months or so before her death at the age of 81. And here's the span of her diary. I mean, you can see that's the first page where she just wrote out a few brief entries for the year, and that's the last one. And she does end on quite a happy note saying, you know, the day got better and she was feeling better, so that was whether she had a stroke, I think probably, very quickly. But you can see the strong writing carrying to the end, and this is a volume of the diary. This one, and she put, she stuck things in. I mean, vast amount of wonderful suffrage ephemera, which I'll be showing you in which it'll be in the book, but she just wrote every day. And because she wasn't confined, she didn't use purpose-made diaries until the middle of the First World War, so she used these big tomes which she carried round the country with her. And that one covers about 18 months. And, I mean, you can see it wasn't just a day or page, it went a considerable length. And I can't claim that Kate was an exceptional woman, although naturally she seemed so to herself, but she did write well in a readable straightforward style with amusing moments of self-awareness. And by luck, her diary and an archive of associative material have survived, and that's a whole other story. But what makes it particularly interesting is that for a time she was chronicling the political life of the day as an insider, an insider of sorts in her teenage years as the ingenious observer of her father, who was liberal MP for North Kensington, and then in her 20s and 30s as an active participant in the women's suffrage movement. And the book that I'm about to publish is called Campaigning for the Vote, and I've edited out of her diary, I've edited all the suffrage entries covering the years just 1911 to 1915. She was involved in the suffrage before, but that was when she was being paid in the London, she was working in London and in the provinces as an organiser for one of the lesser known suffrage societies. And as far as I know, no other diary survives. It gives us such a clear view of an organiser's daily life as she travelled round the Edwardian shares attempting to interest the populace and the cause of women's suffrage. Kate Frye had the benefit of immersion in politics from an early age. For on that day in July 1892, Kate's father Frederick Frye was standing in the general election as the progressive liberal candidate for North Kensington. And she preserved a copy of his election address, there it is, and she preserved that in a scrapbook. And besides the items that I've highlighted that were in his address, he also called for one man, one vote and no man more than one. And for three weeks before the election, Kate had been noting in her diary details of the canvassing that was dominating the Frye household, such as on the 17th of June, did not have any lessons, but folded circulars all the morning. I'm sure these details that the families of MPs are familiar with. And with her mother and sister, she attended many of Frederick Frye's election meetings and she could be a critical observer because at one she wrote, it was crammed and was a splendid meeting. Mr Robson was in the chair and Mr Routledge spoke splendidly. Daddy spoke very badly. Of another, in the evening, we all went to Papa's biggest meeting held at the labric hall. It was packed, 100 standing, Dr Clifford spoke, Dr Horne, Mr Routledge, Mr Roberts, besides Papa and Mr Robson, who took the chair, and a black man. And I've been wondering if that black man, as she says, may have been Dadabi Nouragy, who was Britain's first black MP who was elected at that same election as the MP for Central Finsbury. But she obviously thought it was worth noting his presence, even though she didn't know his name. During the election campaign, Kate was sometimes called upon to do rather more than stuff, envelopes, or decorate the platform for on July the 4th. In the evening, Mother Agnes, that was her sister and I, were sent to try and convert her man who did not like Home Rule for Ireland, though he said he liked Mr Frye in nearly everything else. He wouldn't be converted so he left him. On election day, Kate described how there were heaps of banners and Papa's bills about an equally many of Mr Thompson's sharps, and that was a Conservative candidate. He's making a dreadful struggle for the seat. Mother Agnes and I went to the Central Committee room and Papa went with us in a carriage round to all the polling stations. Never in all my life saw such a sight we were cheered and little children ran after the carriage shouting, vote for Frye. They had Papa's photograph and yellow bills stuck in their caps and all over them. For Orange or at Shades of Yellow, then as now was the liberal colour, and Kate mentions that she and Agnes had special dresses for election day of a sort of yellowish fawn trimmed with black lace and worry. And she wore an orange liberal rosette and here it is. It was preserved in the pages of the diary saying I wore on general election Thursday July the 7th and there it is still as she wore it into her dress. And it's survived. I mean that's 125, 120 years it's survived in the pages of her diary. And Kate then recants how in the evening, decked out in liberal colour, she and her sister were given a ringside view of the declaration. They were taken to Barker store in Kensington High Street where the housekeeper led them right up through the shop up to the showrooms in the front where they opened the windows and put sheets on a sort of parapet for us to sit on where we were almost opposite the town hall. The cheering, shouting and groans were wonderful and went on all the time with great vigour until at last people yelled and hurrahed and shouted in one steady roar calling Frye, Frye, Frye. We all nearly had a fit and we knew it was all right. And so began Frederick Frye's career as a liberal MP. He'd earned the liberal candidature for the relatively new seat of Kensington North by way of membership at first, the Metropolitan Board of Works. He was a vestriman for Kensington and then of his successor the London County Council. And on the LCC he'd been a member of the progressives and in the new parliament in which liberals and their Irish allies had a majority over the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists. He was one of the group of London radical liberal members that included Keir Hardy, John Burns and John Ben, the grandfather of Tony. At that time social reform for the working class was not quite yet identical with the claims of Labour with a small L, though it wouldn't be long before it would be so. But Frye was never to join the Labour Party. He was rather a small time and ultimately unsuccessful capitalist. For in 1871 with a brother-in-law he'd set up in business as a grocer. From small beginnings the firm was called Leverett and Frye. It expanded rapidly. One of the first firms to create a series of shops, a chain of stores. And one of the earliest was at 19 All Saints Road in North Kensington. And here it is as I photographed it. And I mean that it's still there, the shop is, but even the front I should think is the same as it was. It had opened in 1873 and it was in a flat above the shop that in 1878 Kate Frye was born. Her mother was the younger daughter of a Winchester grocer. And it was the fact that one of her mother's oldest sisters had married a partner in the firm of WNA Gilby that was to be a major factor in Kate's life. For Gilby's dominated the wine and spirit market. They owned vineyards in France and imported wine and distilled gin and whisky. And Leverett and Frye grocery shops owed much of their success to their position as agents for Gilby's. That's just Kate Roundabout. In fact it was taken in 1896, but it gives you an idea of what she was like in the years that I'll be speaking about just now. And so in 1892 Frederick Frye took his seat in the House of Commons and he showed his wife and daughters around the Palace of Westminster for the first time a month after his election. And then again in March 1893 when Kate describes how late in the evening after a nine o'clock dinner we went by train and that's from Notting Hill probably. And after looking around the house we went up into the ladies gallery where there was just room enough for us. It was a most interesting and extraordinary debate. First on the payment of members of parliament and then on something to do with army rations. With a conservative party obstructing everything all through the night and morning and using up the time. There were 13 divisions while we were there and we stayed until the end of the house and the house did not break up until ten minutes past five o'clock in the morning. At the end there were only four ladies in the gallery besides ourselves. We got a few biscuits each but the refreshment place was cleared out of everything. I was not a bit tired or sleepy and thoroughly enjoyed it all. The speeches were very hot and rowdy. Now payment of MPs had been one of the planks of the progressives when they were campaigning in 1892. And it was one likely to appeal to a man whose business was certainly it would seem that it was being adversely affected by his being an MP. For it wasn't long after his election that financial difficulties caused Leviton Fry to be formed into a private limited company with Gilbys as the major shareholder. And as a result of this Fry was eventually to lose control of his company. But it was to be another 20 years before MPs were paid. But whatever the reason for being invited to this particular debate it was clear that Kate Fry who was then 15 had very much enjoyed her night in the ladies gallery and was eager to repeat the experience. So later in the year, on September 1, she writes, Mother Agnes and I went to the House of Commons, got there at five o'clock. It was the closure of the third reading of the Home Rule Bill. It was all most exciting and the ladies gallery was crammed. Agnes and I had to go out once for an hour from half past 12 and we sat outside the door of the ladies gallery on a seat there. Then two ladies came out so he went in again. We had something to eat in the ladies room about half past eight. We waited till the end. It was after two o'clock when we got in. And here you can see the page of her scrapbook in which she pasted in her souvenirs of the day. And in the following, the page that follows in the scrapbook, she actually pasted in the voting record of each MP for that debate. And Frederick Fry had of course voted in favour of the Home Rule Bill's third reading. But at the next general election in 1895, despite fighting a strong campaign, and here you can see two of his flyers again preserved by Kate. I do like the one on the left. A lot of thought went into that. Anyway, Fry lost North Kensington to the Conservatives, who in fact got over all control of the House of Commons. However, the family continued to be deeply involved in local politics in North Kensington and Fry became an alderman. And Mrs Fry was president of the North Kensington Women's Liberal Association, regularly holding meetings in the family drawing room, which was now at 25 Arendall Gardens, which was a larger, smarter house with no attached shop into which they'd moved not long after his election. And on occasion, Kate went with her mother to some of these meetings. And she wrote of this one on Friday, the 20th of March, 1896. She attended a North Kensington Women's Liberal Association drawing room meeting to hear Mrs Henry Fawcett lecture on women's suffrage. Mother took the chair. Mrs Fawcett speaks well, but she did not seem to go down very well at the meeting. She is very much a Conservative except on this one subject, which with her way of looking at it isn't very liberal either. Only the lady householders to her votes. You see that won't quite do for us. If they have it at all, they ought to have them as the men do. Altogether, I didn't care for the evening. By 1896, I mean this time, the women's suffrage campaign had already been running for 30 years. Its aim was to achieve for women the same right to a parliamentary vote as that enjoyed by men. And throughout the second half of the 19th century, campaignists had lobbied steadily, have unsuccessfully, using all the constitutional methods at their disposal and forming a succession of societies which developed on an ad hoc basis, which were dynamic, interactive and reactive. And most of the members of these societies were committed in one way or another to the Liberal Party. The Frey family's politics, as Kate's diary shows, was at the radical end of the Liberal spectrum, and Mrs Fawcett's was at the Conservative. At the time of this 1896 meeting, the two liberal extremes, as exemplified in the views of Kate Frey and Mrs Fawcett, were represented by two different suffrage societies, which had formed after a split in 1888, which in part reflected the ffigure in the Liberal Party over Home Rule. In 1897, however, they agreed to harness their resources in order to work together more effectively, and they formed an umbrella organisation called the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which I'll refer to in such a mouthful by the acronym of NUSS. Over the next several years, Kate makes no more mention of women's suffrage, she became increasingly caught up in her devotion to the theatre. For in 1902, she decided to place herself on the other side of the footlights, and she trained at the Ben Grete Academy as another would-be actress, Sybil Thorndyke, was to do the following year, but Kate wasn't actually in the Thorndyke League, although she did get some employment with touring companies and travelled around England, Ireland and Scotland. And during her time on tour, she became engaged to a fellow actor, John Collins. It was to be a very long engagement acting didn't pay, and after three years or so, Kate more or less abandoned the stage and began to spend more time at home. And it was while living at home, I mean, still living in Arundel Gardens then, that in early 1906, she canvassed energetically the general election for North Kensington's successful liberal candidate, H.Y. Stanger. And during the campaign, she met and became friendly with two co-workers who were sisters, Alexandra and Gladys Wright, who rather unusually for Kate's circle were graduates. And on the 26th of April 1906, during a social evening given by her mother North Kensington and Women's Liberal Association, Kate noted that there was a little discussion of what took place in the house last night. The disgraceful disturbance kicked up by some women during the women's suffrage debate. Mrs Stanger had a letter from her husband on the matter, and the Mrs Wrights who came as our guest spoke. It really was awfully comical. No one showed any sense of humour. This is the first mentioned by Kate of what was to become constant during the next few years. The activities of the militant suffragettes, members of the Women's Social and Political Union formed in 1903 by Mrs Emilyne Panchurst. In this instance, members of the WSPU sitting in the ladies' gallery had made a vociferous protest when a resolution which was brought by Keir Hardy in favour of women's suffrage was being talked out. But by the end of 1906, although she was interested in the subject, but probably not convinced by WSPU's militant actions, Kate had joined the Central Society for Women's Suffrage under the umbrella of the NUWSS, and the society was a descendant of the one for which Mrs Fawcett had spoken to her in 1896. In fact, Kate's joining the society was all part of the general interest in suffrage that had been really inspired by the WSPU, but not everybody wanted to be militant. And her society, the Central Society, by 1907 was renamed the London Society for Women's Suffrage just to get that clear because I'll refer to that afterwards. And as the Women's Suffrage campaign became more public, Kate's interest grew, and in February 1907 she took part in the first public procession staged by the NUWSS through the muddy, wintry streets of London, and it became known as the mudmarch for obvious reasons. And she wrote, we were an imposing spectacle all with badges, each section under its own banner. I felt like a martyr of old and walked proudly along. It did seem an extraordinary walk, and it took some time as we went very slowly, on one long, unbroken procession. And these are flyers that are very scarce. I don't think I've ever seen them before. They just got thrown away in the mud, I should imagine, but she preserved them in her diary. Anyway, in the following months, Kate followed the progress of suffrage bills, and this is the one that her own MP, Stanger, brought into the house. And she also attended suffrage drawing room meetings, red palms at fundraising bazaars. That was her speciality. And on occasion delivered leaflets to houses and flats in North Kensington, and here I think of contemporary canvases because she did lament the number of stairs she had to climb up and down, all these mansion blocks of flats. And in the autumn, she stewarded at the annual meeting of the London Society for Women's Suffrage, and at the end of the year, at a particularly disorderly meeting, held at Paddington Bards, where on Mrs Force it was again the speaker, but here medical students from St Mary's Hospital released mice and firecrackers, and as Kate remarked, it was bedlam let loose. Although a member of a constitutional society, in March 1908 Kate was very happy to attend a meeting organised by the militant WSPU. Finally it was all just a little too theatrical, but very wonderful. Danny Kenny interesting me the most. She seems so inspired, quite a second Joan of Arc. I was very pleased not to be missing so wonderful in evening. Can you see that in the site? I'm not sure, but anyway it's again very scarce, I've never seen this leaflet before, but in June the NUSS staged a spectacular summer procession featuring magnificent banners which were designed by one of the new suffrage societies, the Artist Suffrage League, and Kate was very proud to carry on behalf of North Kensington, and you can still see the design for this banner, although the banner itself has disappeared, but the design is held in the women's library. After the long march from the embankment she described how I got in the Arbott Hall about 515 and they started the meeting just as I sank down. I must have owned a feeling completely done when I left the banner. I got cramp in both feet at once and felt a thousand, so I looked into the hall, found the seat of my box for the rights, and Alexander, like an angel, got me a cup of tea. She glared as another girl that looked most awfully charming in Cap and Gann, that the graduates were always remarked in processions. The following year Kate was naturally interested in the new suffrage society that had been formed, the actresses franchise league, which represented women in the theatrical profession. In March 1909, she was introduced to the actress, even more of whom she wrote, she didn't seem to like me much, but I'm used to treating all suffrage women as merely women, not little queens. In the same month she spent her morning standing outside Chanstry Lane Tube with Alexander Wright handing out suffrage leaflets. It was curious work and a bitter wind blew on us, but the men were really quite nice and we had no unpleasant experience. I suppose people are getting used to suffragettes. Later in the year, while living in the country house her family had for years, at least on the River Terms at Bourne End, Kate refused to help the local liberal candidate at the forthcoming general election. I had to explain that as a keen suffragist, I could not do anything to help the present member, Mr Herbert, he is so very anti. But she did come to North Kensington and Islington for signatures for a petition organised by the NUWSS. He was signed by 280,000 male voters and presented to the House of Commons in March 1910, but did nothing to change government policy. It was this understanding that the government would just continue in the state of complacent and transagent that now led the right sisters together with other former members of the London Society for Women's Suffrage to find a new suffrage society, which was rather prosaicly named the new constitutional society for women's suffrage. They explained that the perilousness of the private member in the House of Commons to pass any bill into law, which has not been accepted by the government of the day, renders it absolutely necessary to direct all available force to the conversion or coercion of the government only. For this reason, the NCS has adopted what is known as the anti-government policy. The NCS was in fact carrying out the election policy of the WSPU whose motto was Keep the Liberal Out, but assuring the WSPU's other weapon militancy. By resolving to work against the government, that's the Liberal candidates, it was going further than the current NUSS policy, which was only to do so when the candidate did not include support for women's suffrage in his election address. In April 1910, the NCS opened a London office at Park Mansions Arcade, which ran between Nightsbridge and Brompton Road underneath a newish block of flats. These premises are now incorporated in a large burberry store. For then as now, Nightsbridge was a distinctly shopping area and was not one favoured by any other suffrage societies, all of which were now positioned in business areas. Over the years, the NCS expanded its Nightsbridge offices, but never opened branch offices in towns outside London, as did the other suffrage societies. All its branches operated from the homes of its members. In February 1910, members of the House of Commons have formed what was termed the Consiliation Committee to prepare a private member's suffrage conciliation bill. After the bill passed its first reading in June, the WSPU and other societies mounted yet another spectacular procession through London to give maximum publicity to the campaign. This time, to her delight, Kate March with the actresses. Everyone was interested in us, and sympathisers to the cause called out well done actresses. But in November, the hopes of the suffrage campaigners were dashed when at a meeting in Caxton Hall, members of the WSPU and sympathisers heard the news that with the two houses locked in the battle for supremacy, Parliament must be dissolved. This meant the conciliation bill would be killed. In retaliation, the WSPU immediately ended its truce and prepared to resume militant tactics. In groups of ten, a deputation of 300 women set out from Caxton Hall for Parliament, and they encountered violence in Parliament Square such as they'd never previously come across. This day has gone down in suffrage history as Black Friday. Kate was there. This is the flyer that she preserved in her diary. You can see how roughly printed. Again, I've never seen one of those. She wrote a very long, very detailed description of the day. Again, as an observer rather than an active participant, but she describes how I first reached the wall of the moat at the angle so I could see the door plainly, and Mrs Pankhurst and the elderly lady, that was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, sister of Milizen Fforset. Then I saw policemen breaking up the little standards held by a group of women. All deputations passed along and ugly rushes, and ever the crowd grew. It was the most horrible experience. I've rarely been in anything more unpleasant. It was ghastly, and the laughter and hideous remarks of the men, so-called gentlemen, even if the correctly attired top-hatted kind was truly awful. Her lengthy description was not written with hindsight or with an eye to posterity. I can be taken as a true enough account of the proceedings. As a result of what she witnessed, Kate resigned from the NUSS and joined the WSPU, but she did remain a sympathiser rather than an activist, and in the campaign leading up to the second general election of that year, that's 2010, two elections in 1910, volunteered to work for the NCS with her friends, the Wright sisters. At the same time as all this was going on, the Frey family finances were now so parlous, that the Frey had lost control of the company, and they were deeply in debt. It was necessary to give up living in London and retreat to Bourne End. A very early entry in Kate's 1911 diary made the position clear. Monday 2 January. It was a real black Monday. We discussed and discussed our affairs for hours, and we seem in a more terrible way than I thought. A most haplest muddle, that's debts and only about £400 a year for us all to live on. It hardly seems possible. Frey had resigned as a director of Leverett and Frey and was making desperate attempts to raise money, and Kate trailed round theatrical agencies and theatres seeking stage work, but all to no avail. But then in early March was very much relieved to be offered paid employment by the new constitutional society for women's suffrage. From now until mid-1915, she was a paid organiser for the society. She didn't have any training, but as we've seen, she was accustomed to canvassing at elections, and her experience of theatrical touring had prepared her for the itinerant aspect of the new employment and the lodgings. The salary of £2 a week was the rate that was paid to organisers from other suffrage societies. So in March 1911, Kate was sent off to Norfolk. Now it's never explained why the society thought that the small will be a thriving market town of East Deerim should be one of the main centres of their propaganda efforts. But it was to there that Kate was first sent, and to there that she returned on numerous occasions for quite lengthy periods of time. And she also spent time in Essex villages in Lerstof, Folkstone, Hyde, Rhyw, Redding, and many small towns in between, living in Diggs, cheap by gel with other borders, Vickers, school teachers, even a budding international pianist, all of whose quaintness is, as she would term it, she confided to her diary. Now the role of the organiser was to stage meetings in drawing rooms and public halls, and these are flyers that she got printed for the first two very first meetings she organised. Meetings on village greens, places of seaside piers, she had to find suitable chairman for the meetings which was always a problem, had to welcome and find accommodation for the speakers, and had to put up with her foibles, and by her account they certainly did have some. Despite Kate's best attempts at canvassing, some meetings were disastrously ill attended and attracting the ire of the visiting speaker, and some meetings were sublimely surreal. For instance, in June 1912 she welcomed to East Deerim the Reverend Hugh Chapman, chaplain of the Royal Chapel of the Savoy, who was a recent convert to suffrage. He'd sweet-talked her on a previous occasion, and now when she met at the station she wrote, he'd class me by the hand and arm, telling me he'd come for the pleasure of seeing me, the journey had been nothing but the reward of seeing me at the end. And then she left Chapman it is a tell and she went back to the hall when the meeting was being held. I must say I felt a little light-headed, the greeting had absolutely gone to my head. I hobbed up and down stairs till 8.30. A clergyman and party had driven up at eight o'clock. I missed the Davidson from Stuckey, a friend had missed the Chapmans, and they'd gone off to fetch him. I lived on thorns until his arrival. They brought him in the motor. I found some seats for his friends in the front row. A most frivolous clergyman with a frivolous wife and a beyond all hooping frivolous young lady dressed in for the stage, the whole party seemed quite mad. I heard Mr Chapman telling the audience how he admired Ms Fry and how he had come to speak for me, a woman of heart and brain and altogether the right sort. He spoke of his ideal mother and the ideal woman as if he had last found her so no wonder people looked at me. He went on to speak magnificently as one inspired. It was a tremendous success for despite Kate's long term engagement to John Collins she always had a soft spot for a man such as Hugh Chapman who had a way with words and these were the perils of an organiser's life. But as a side note we can see how perspicacious Kate's judgement of character was for 20 years later that Mr Davidson, the most frivolous clergyman from Stuckey was defrocked having been found guilty on charges of immorality and penniless he took to the public entertainment circuit as Daniel in the Lion's Den the end coming at Skagnes when the lion turned. But most meetings were not so electric and Kate was pleased from the daily grind of the organiser's life as punctuated by the short sharp thrill of the by-election such as one that was held at Reading in November 1930 which was a particularly rowdy example and the rowdiness was perpetrated in public by the audience and in private by her visiting speakers on one occasion Kate wrote on her diary that one of these speakers Mrs Merrill of all Mayor refused to chair a meeting she was sick of the NCS she shouted out that she and Miss McGowan another member of the NCS organising staff shared tears of rage were violently rude to one another and walked away to capitol when Kate did get a semblance of a meeting underway she describes how the free cinematograph displayed by the Daily Mail started its funny series of pictures the crowd was dense but all turned to the pictures Miss McGowan and Miss Merrill of all Mayor both went off to London on the 944 trains such a relief to get them both out of Reading and a few days later on Guy Fawkes night she describes another outdoor meeting oh it was so rowdy the hooligans with squibs and crackers and tin trumpets and rattles oh it was a noise I did have a task for the boys it managed them fairly well I had a horrid wad if something soft and squashy striped me in the mouth but I just took my handkerchief and wiped it off and I could see the crowd was with me the boys however never got a squib under my skirts I walked away in time well it was exciting but for the most part life was not so stimulating long days were spent in the sum pot thankless task of knocking on doors and trying to interest householders in or as Kate wrote one day in February 1914 in Reading Canvas Cavisham wrote in the morning and balled at people in their doorways as the trams clanged past although not involved in militancy Kate felt its effect people turned against suffrage as the WSPU campaign increased inferosity for instance in December 1912 while trying to organise meetings in Dover she mentions I went out to see Miss Robinson whose uncle was going to give a suffrage party now went owing to the letter box demonstration this refers to the fact that a few days earlier WSPU members had destroyed thousands of pieces of mail by pouring acid tar etc into post boxes in London and other cities around the country but though she took no part in militancy Kate was swept along by its more theatrical aspects and on Monday 9th of June 1913 while at Deerham she noted the death of Emily Wilding Davison the woman who threw herself in front of the king's horse at the Derby and on the next Saturday she hurried up to London having bought a black hat and arranged for a black coat and skirt to be sent to lodgings and from there with her fiancys she set out to follow Emily Wilding Davison's funeral procession we walked right down Buckingham Palace Road and joined in the procession at the end it was really most wonderful the organised part groups of women in black with white lilies in white and in purple and lots of clergymen and special sort of poor bear as each side of the coffin she comments on the crowd oh what a quantity of people filled the windows and pavements in Bloonsbury near Kings Cross the procession lost all semblance of a procession one crowded process everyone was moving we found ourselves in Kings Cross station we went on the platform and there was the train the carriage for the coffin and finding a seat sank down and did not move until the train left lots of the processionists were in the train which was taking the body to Northumberland for internment and another huge procession tomorrow I was so tired I felt completely done we found our way to the refreshment room and there were several of the poor bearers having tea now Kate's diary never fails to deliver such inconsequential details among the theatrical set pieces and it's these that I feel strengthen the diary's veracity and Kate carried on working for the NCS from now mainly based in London laterally as a society secretary the need for paid employment to become more urgent than ever as the fries were finally forced to give up their born and home and sell off most of their possessions and move into rented rooms and in early 1940 after this Frederick Fry died the outbreak of war seems from the evidence of her diary to have taken Kate unawares as it presumably did most of the population still caught up in the suffrage struggle and she was canvassing all around London at the time it's only around the 25th of July that she begins to mention what she terms European complications and barely three weeks later the NCS like other suffrage societies have put its campaigning on hold and turned its attention to the war effort Kate's role was as an organiser of a work room set up in the night's bridge office to give employment to dress makers put out of work as the demand for women's clothing went into a dramatic or be a temporary decline the thinking was that of course if they didn't have employment these poor women they might end up on the streets and they were doing their bit at this time she was living in one rented room in Pimlico and was well placed to describe war time London for instance went down beside the LCC dock station and saw the Belgian refugee camp in Hudson's depository furniture depository that is poor souls they do look miserable boy scouts on guard and ladies and officials in and out lots of company of soldiers about everywhere bands playing bayonets gleaming finally the prospect of life in a rented room combined with the fact that John now an officer was for once reasonably well paid and he looked rather handsome in khaki decided Kate that after and it was Kate who decided that after an 11 year engagement they should now marry and the wedding took place in January 1915 on her 37th birthday John then went back to his army training in Kate Keridon working in the NCS office and in July 1915 came her final active participation in the suffrage movement on a wet Saturday in July she took part in the right to work march organised by Mrs Panchurst at Lloyd George's behest to encourage women to enter munition factories but soon afterwards Kate succumbed to an unexplained illness and resigned from the NCS however she did maintain an interest in suffrage and on the 7th of February 1918 wrote on her diary a day of excitement it felt like someone's birthday a personal affair but in truth it was the birthday of a great new era saw the daily telegraph for the announcement of the passing into law of the franchise bill and votes for women and in fact the NCS had played a very active part in the negotiations that resulted in women over 30 being included in the franchise but then it's work darn it disbanded and Kate was present at it's final meeting but much to her regret she had no immediate opportunity to use this hard one vote for when the general election was called she was living in a house close to born and owned by a gilby aunt and here the local MP served him back by the Lord Lord George Bonalaw coupon he wasn't opposed so there was no contest however she was delighted by the writing of Askwith and as she says his wretched set of followers when she did come to cast her first vote it was at a general election in 1924 it was back in north Kensington where she and John were renting a flat and she wrote polling day election seemed somehow in my blood I don't feel at all comfortable where they are going on at 130 after the free library and labric grove to vote for Mr Percy Gates much relish in voting but little in recording a vote for Mr Gates it is a straight fight this year conservative in labour and Gates was the conservative candidates and two years later Kate and John watched and John took snapshots off and these are very rare I've never seen other photographs of these one last suffrage match the equal rights procession which was part of the campaign to persuade the government to give votes for women at 21 and for peerresses in their own right to be given a seat voice and vote in the House of Lords and Kate wrote and she was quite delightful I mean she's so even just shortly before her death Mrs Pankhurst is so idiosyncratic I mean you pick her out there she is standing and two years later Kate placed a newspaper cutting about Mrs Pankhurst's death in the front of that year's diary and on Monday June the 18th 1928 describes going to St John's Church Smith Square had no ticket but being very early before 10 I was let up in the gallery of the church and sat over the chancell in front of Mrs Pankhurst coffin the flowers are marvellous, most beautiful a wonderful service but very sad sad in itself and to see and feel as all so old and grey and ill a bust of Brompton cemetery an enormous crowd there followed the coffin and saw the end then got away and Kate made no mention two weeks later of the passing on the 2nd of July 1928 of the representation of the people equal franchise act that finally gave votes to women on the same terms as men a chapter in her life had closed thanks very much Elizabeth that was excellent we'll look forward to the publication have you got a date for that? yes it's 15th of January too late for Christmas but good enough for birthdays we've got a few minutes for questions and Emily sorry not Emily, I'm thinking of Pankhurst Melanie as the microphone hi there can you tell me how you came across these diaries and how you found them? yes it is an interesting story and it's all thanks to the women's library in fact what happened was it's 2008, I can't remember 2009 I got an email one Friday afternoon from Anna Kisby who was leaving the women's library to have a baby and she just said you might be interested in these diaries which are in a cellar running with wet in north London that people had got in touch people who owned the diaries had got in touch with the library a few years before and Anna had been deputed to investigate and she looked at a major report and it being considered now this volume I bought it along because it's in good condition but their boxes and boxes I mean as I say they cover her own life and they've been kept in they were running wet I mean literally running wet they've been I mean there is a history I've managed to trace more or less but the people who had the diaries had no connection with Kate Fry I think somebody had been a house clearance person and cleared them out and I didn't know what to do with them and they just sat them and in fact it was the son of this person so it was a great way removed so the library turned them down regretfully I think just simply because of conservation they couldn't it would just be too expensive and some of them I mean there were some photographs couldn't keep they were falling apart and some of the diaries the later ones from the 40s and 50s are quite badly damaged but anyway it was wearing my book dealer because that's another thing I do side that I bought them but then one side got them home and set them all out and dried them all round not terribly expertly I'm sure a conservationist would probably have her kittens I then started reading them and got hooked and just realised how valuable all this information was I mean I don't know as I say of any other diary that covers all this material in such such detail I mean usually suffrage diaries deal with prison and all the high points but this is the day today life and you see what it's like organising and fixed thanks any other questions mawn don't be shy no that I don't think it was particularly from lack of choice I mean from choice but I don't know they had no money I mean anyway lived her husband after he got an emce during the war she was very pleased of that and then went back to being an assistant stage manager and very little money and lived very frugally yes oh thank you what about her sister Agnes did she become she went on the mud march but most of the time she was too seedy always feeling very seedy at one point in the twenties when they lived in they had a flat in north Kensington as I said they lived in otherwise it was at a place above born and Burgess hill which is tiny for village the back of beyond but it was gilby country so they had a sort of grace and favour house there and Agnes and her mother lived there as well but they had a flat in north Kensington and their doctor for a while was Dr Ethel Bentham LCC MP as well and Labour and it was quite interesting because occasionally gives a betum her reports obviously pull yourself together a lot of the time but Agnes she was very worried because Dr Bentham had said that she couldn't hold out any hope for Agnes unless she had some occupation I mean once once it became obvious she wasn't going to get married and the family money had all gone she just gave up brilliant she died in the 30s she just sort of drifted into death as far as I tell but I don't think in particular you know yes but it's an interesting story in itself brilliant beginning to sound as though there's a film in there isn't it anyone else want to ok if there aren't any other questions can I once again thank Elizabeth for her contribution it's been a fascinating evening I look forward to the book being published and in the meantime those of you who are interested when you you can walk the central lobby to see the permanent women and boat display most of you who are in the house will be familiar with that and I'm told as well as walking the footsteps of the women who fought for the boat as shown on the map in the leaflet there is that display and we will be organising the arts committee will be organising a display later in next year to commemorate the death of Emily Wilding-Davidson and her scarf that she wore is actually part of the when she was killed is actually part of the exhibition that you can see there so thank you everyone very much for coming along I'm told it by magic that