Nine more

​The next entry states Helen Briddle arrested on 14 February 1907, charged with obstruction and fined 10 shillings or one week in prison. It is noted that Helen came from Liscard, part of Wallasey town. There the trail goes cold. Other newspapers report a Mrs Ella Briddle rather than a 'Helen', but again no trace has been found.
 
 
The next entry is Annie Briggs, who, when arrested, stated she was born in 1864 in Rochdale and gave her occupation as a housekeeper. The arrest record states that Annie was arrested twice in 1911 and 1913. The official records also state that a Annie Briggs was arrested in 1907. However, it is possible that these are not the same people. Whatever the case, while the charge in 1907 remains unknown, the fine was 20 shillings or fourteen days in prison.
 
Four years later, Annie was charged with throwing a stone at Parliament Chambers in Great Smith Street. She was sentenced to twenty-one days in prison. The next arrest was during April 1913, when she was remanded for a week for malicious damage to thirteen paintings in the Manchester Art gallery. An account of the events and Annie's acquittal can be found at https://radicalmanchester.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/the-suffragette-attack-on-manchester-art-gallery-april-1913/. A picture of Annie can be seen at https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/6891425369. 
 
One of the tactics of the WSPU, from 1907 onwards, was to hold a Women's Parliament at the beginning of each Parliamentary session. The King's Speech was on 12 February 1907, and the following day, the women held their own session followed by a march to the Houses of Parliament to present a petition to the Prime Minister. After speeches, about four hundred women, led by Charlotte Despard, set off for Westminster, where they were greeted by flanks of police determined to halt their progress. The women were not for turning, and they resolutely attempted, repeatedly, to progress. About fourteen women made it to the Lobby, but all were immediately arrested. Another fifty women were arrested outside, including Florence Bright.

​In court, Florence, charged with disorderly conduct, questioned the police constable's evidence, which, to her shock, a second officer substantiated . Florence observed that such testimony was 'dreadful to the dock'. Bringing out the mounted police had been 'dreadful' but being used to horses, Florence testified that she had grabbed the bridle turning the horse from her, at which point she was arrested.  She was sentenced to fourteen days in prison.

Several newspapers reported that Florence was the first authoress to go to prison. By the time of her sentence, she had written The Vision Splendid, published in 1899, and co-written with Robert Machray, a fellow author and for a year the editor of the Daily Mail, the Girl Capitalist and One Pretty Pilgrim's Progress. In 1907, Florence followed her earlier success with the publication of An Outsider's View of the Women's Movement. Ten years later, she gave her name to a promotional advertisement for Sanatogen, writing that a course of the medicine had cured her nervous debility.
 
Florence Katherine Bright was born in 1862; although her middle name was registered at birth as Catherine, she usually spelt it with a 'K'. Her parents were George and Jennie, and she had an elder sister, Eva, who was born in 1860. Their father had served in the Fifth Royal Irish Lancers, followed by a time as a war correspondent for the Times. Although when Eva was born, her baptism record notes George's occupation as a merchant. Nine years later, the 1871 census states his occupation as a public accountant. Florence was educated, at least in part, at boarding school. Her sister, Eva, was reported to have been one of the first women admitted to Newnham College, Cambridge. Both sisters pursued careers as authors and journalists.
 
In 1911 Eva emigrated to Perth, Australia. The sisters collaborated on a play, That Betty,  staged in Australia. Their mother lived, in later life with Florence. Their mother's obituary, February 1924, poignantly records that due to caring obligations, Florence had been able, only, to write a little but intended to resume now. Florence also expressed the hope that That Betty would be staged in London.

The following year, Florence, a vivisectionist, hosted an At Home at the Hall in Temple Fortune, North London, to raise funds for Animal Welfare week. During the event, Florence acted and recited a poem written for her by Eva.
 
Throughout the years, Florence remained in touch with the suffragette movement attending events of the Suffragette Fellowship alongside Edith How-Martyn, with whom it is believed she formed the Suffrage Club. She was amongst the mourners at the funeral of another suffragette, Dora Montefiore.

Eva died in Perth in 1933, survived by four daughters, but her only son had been killed only weeks before the end of the First World War. Florence died in 1943.
 
John Angell James Brindley, named after a nonconformist clergyman and writer, was born, in 1860, to Richard, an independent minister, and Mary. John was born in Bath, Somerset, but by the time he was eleven, the family, including two younger siblings, Ruth and Thomas, had moved St Paul's Road, Islington, North London. By then,their father, Richard, had passed away, probably explaining the move. Ten years later, the family had moved again to Highbury Park, still in Islington. John, aged twenty-one, was employed as a ship owner's clerk, but by 1891, John had established himself up as a painter; the census specifically recording an artist in black and white. He still lived with his mother and brother, but again they have moved, this time to Baalbec Road in Islington.

​John painted landscapes primarily and, up until 1909, exhibited at numerous galleries and ​​exhibitions, including the Royal Academy. and the Goupil Gallery.  He also, in 1893, part illustrated The Tragedy of the Norse Gods by Ruth J Pitt.

In 1899 John married Maud Mary Eadon. Maud, like John, campaigned for suffrage; he was arrested once in 1909, whereas she was arrested five times between 1908 and 1913.
 
Maud was born in 1860, the daughter of Frank and Anna Maria, while the family were living in Carlisle, Cumberland. By the census the following year, her father Frank, a captain in the militia, his wife and baby daughter were lodging with Anna's brother in the Parsonage in Snaith, East Yorkshire. By the 1871 census, the family numbers had swelled with the addition of three sons and a daughter. While Anna and her brood are living in the village of Heslington to the south-east of York, Frank was lodging in Cumbria in connection with his service as a captain of the militia. By 1881 Frank had retired. The family settled in the White House, in the village of Fulford on the outskirts of York. After another decade, the family had moved back to Snaith, the village where both Frank and Anna had been born.
 
Following their marriage, Maud and John settled in Hampstead. On the census return for 1901, both are stated to be artists and painters. Maud's father had always left the occupation blank for his daughters, and, interestingly, marriage legitimised what her father possibly viewed as a genteel hobby, as a profession.  Both Maud and John became members of the Hampstead Art Society and entered their pictures for exhibitions. In one, they both exhibited depictions of Corfe Castle. John's was described as painted 'in a fine decorative manner', and Maud's as 'good direct work.'

©Museum of London Maud Brindley surveillance image commissioned by the Home office for the most dangerous suffragettes. Taken in the exercise yard at Holloway Prison

By 1905, the couple were living at 50 Downshire Hill, Hampstead, and it was there, in 1908, that Maud hosted a meeting of the Hampstead branch of the Women's Freedom League. The principal speaker was Charlotte Despard. In October 1908, Maud was arrested and charged with obstruction in connection with an attempt to present a petition to the Prime Minister at the House of Commons. She was sentenced to one month in prison or a fine. She elected to go to Holloway prison. All the women imprisoned, except Maud, were members of the WSPU. Released on 21 November, the women paraded to the Inns of Court Hotel, where Mrs Pethick Lawrence hosted a breakfast.
 
In June 1909, Maud was arrested for her part in a protest at the Houses of Parliament. It is not clear what sentence she received. It appears that at some point, she moved to the WSPU who enthusiastically reported her organising and speech-making abilities. No details of any arrest of John have been found, and it could be that the records actually should read Mrs J Brindley as Maud was arrested and charged on the date recorded next to J Brindley, and no such entry is recorded against Maud or Maude Brindley. However, John was active. In 1910, Votes for Women reports that he wrote to Asquith stating that his family had always been Liberals, but their breach of promises and failure to give women the vote meant he could no longer give them his vote. John appears on the 1911 census but Maud, like many suffragettes, does not. John is recorded as living in Keat's Lane, Hampstead as a tenant of his mother's.
 
Maud's next arrest was during November 1911 for breaking a window, at the West Strand Telegraph office, valued at £5. She was sentenced to twenty-one days in prison. In January 1913, Maud was charged with window breaking at T Lloyd & Company. Found guilty, she was sentenced to five months imprisonment. The cost of the damage to the windows in Oxford Street was reported as £32. In the dock, Maud observed during a lengthy speech explaining her motives 'What are a few broken windows to a long series of broken promises?' Maud was released in June 1913.
 
In no time, Maud was back campaigning, speaking at a large rally in Hyde Park at the end of August. In June the following year, Maud hosted a meeting of the Hampstead WSPU branch at her mother-in-law's home. Maud was arrested at the end of that month for causing an obstruction by speaking in Notting Hill. A friend, Elsie W Dalgleish, stood surety of forty shillings, which she lost, the next day, as Maud arrived hours late at court. After a heated giving of evidence, Maud was found guilty and fined £10 and bound over to keep the peace; failure to agree would mean seven days in prison.
 
John and Maud moved, at some point, to a cottage in Ightham, Kent, where he died on Christmas Day 1937. Maud died nearly two years later, in November 1939, a resident of the mental asylum in West Malling, Kent.

Last year Jane Reardon wrote and staged a play inspired by the life of Maud.
 
Alice Bristy, according to the official records, was born in 1860 and was unmarried. In 1912, Alice was charged with breaking three windows at Merryweather & Sons Ltd, Bow Street, London, valued at £45 along with Catherine Gatty. Alice was sentenced to four months in Holloway Prison, Catherine to six months. Their sentences commenced on 19 March. Alice appears on the list of women considered unfit for force-feeding and whose sentence would be shortened. No further details regarding Alice have been located.
 
Katherine Broadhurst, known as Kitty, was arrested on 22 November 1911.  Born in November 1868 in Perth, Western Australia, Katherine was the daughter of Charles and Eliza. Charles was a remarkable man, and in 2009 he was recognised as one of Western Australia's one hundred most remarkable citizens. The Museum of Western Australia has a fascinating article on the family. http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/broadhurst
 
Eliza was interested in feminism and appears to have encouraged Katherine. When Charles and Eliza retired, they settled in Bournemouth, on the English south coast, and Katherine moved with them. Before this, Katherine had been a member of the St George's Reading Circle, later called the Karrakatta Club, which championed women's rights. Charles and Eliza named their Bournemouth home, Karrakatta. Eliza died in 1899, and father and daughter after that continued to live together, Charles dying in 1911.
 
A few months later, the record states Kitty was arrested for breaking windows at Charing Cross to the value of £10. She was sentenced to 7 days.
 
Kitty died in 1923.
 
The next entry states Mrs Brooke arrested on 9 July 1909. No further information has been found. 
 
Ellen Brookes is recorded as being arrested on 12 February 1908. According to newspaper reports, her first arrest was actually in March 1907 for disorderly conduct outside the Houses of Parliament. In court, Ellen claimed her behaviour was ‘that it should have been', enquiring whether 'walking quietly along the pavement was disorderly conduct?' Ellen requested that two people be called as witnesses. Permission granted, the hearing was adjourned. Ellen was brought back before the court the following Monday. One witness attested that Ellen had travelled south as a delegate to get into the House of Commons, but she was not 'persistent' in her attempt 'she said nothing, and did nothing.' Another stated that Ellen was not part of a disturbance to which the magistrate enquired whether she knew what one was. Ellen was found guilty and fined 20 shillings or fourteen days imprisonment. Which option Ellen opted for is unknown.
 
Ellen was arrested again, in February 1908, for her part in another attempt to enter the Houses of Parliament to present a petition to the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith. She was sentenced to six weeks in prison.
 
Ellen is variously reported as single or married; from Huddersfield or Honley possibly born in 1885, it has not been possible to ascertain anymore with certainty.