At the May 1912 meeting of the Pinner (
The Pinner Prisoners were Mrs Janie Torrero and Madame de Roxe
Mrs Janie Terrero, Secretary of Pinner WSPU of Rockstone House, Pinner (who’s husband was at the Pinner WSPU meeting) had written from her Holloway prison cell a letter to the local WSPU branch detailing “the horrors of the hunger strikes and force feeding” in terms both dramatic and affecting according to the local newspaper.
At the same meeting the speaker Mrs Penn Gaskell stated
“The Clarion call of Christabel (Pankhurst) and others like it was in their ears and she hoped they were awakened and revolting at last”. The other speaker being Miss Wyley recently released from Aylesbury prison
At Uxbridge the WSPU organiser was Miss Clara Giveen
A meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was held at Hayes on
A letter from Marion Cunningham to Mrs Pankhurst was found in the house of Miss Annie Kenney’s house was read out at during an Old Bailey case
“I applaud your courage and perfectly believe in militancy. Nothing else can succeed but many of your union cannot agree with you…..Isolated cases involve much agony to the perpetrators and little or no damage to the government. Whatever is done now must be something big, something done by all members, some careful night attack where all women get off scot free if possible. Why not a gigantic raid on pillar-boxes with specially made Indian rubber bags filled with staining acids – say sulphuric hydrogen, I am a volunteer for that “
The WSPU also organised a huge suffragette meeting with Mrs Emmeline Pethwick Lawrence as speaker at Uxbridge town hall on
“It was not the Government who brought about great reforms. Neither the liberal or the conservative government would have given old age pensions or workmen’s compensation, unless the people had exacted it for themselves
they did not care for the few propertied women but they did care and were working for the great masses of women who were earning their own livings. Was it reasonable to suppose that they would spend their time, lives and money and make all the sacrifices they did for the sake of a few propertied women. No, their one great aim was to see that the women in the industrial world..."
Also active locally was the non violent National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) headed by Miss Katherine Raleigh,
The
A local branch of the Womens Tax Resistance League (linked to the WSPU on the principle of "No vote - No tax"). was established with Miss Katherine Raleigh and, Mrs Budding, Mrs Parkes and Miss Lees, who’s meeting at West Drayton village green in 1912 was attacked by thugs as was another Suffragette meeting at Harefield.
Michael Walker