Mary Gawthorpe

Mary Eleanor Gawthorpe (1881-1973), Organiser and member of the National Committee of the WSPU from 1907-1910. The portrait depicts Mary wearing her Holloway prison badge, first issued in 1909. Such portrait postcards were issued by the WSPU to raise the profile of the Suffragette leaders and to raise funds for the campaign.
Mary was born in Leeds into a working-class family, her Father being a leather worker. Aged 13 Mary became a pupil teacher and was also a talented mezzo-soprano winning a scholarship to the Leeds School of Music. By the age of 20 Mary was also politically active in the Leeds area and joined the WSPU in 1906, after a visit to London. By October 1906 Mary was a full time salaried member of the National Committee of the Women's Social & Political Union and subsequently, from 1908, WSPU Chief Organiser for the Lancashire area with a brief to organise large meetings in the northern cities including a successful rally at Heaton Park, Manchester that attracted a crowd of over 150,000. A highly intelligent and popular speaker, despite poor health she travelled around the country speaking at meetings and was arrested four times for militancy, her first arrest being in October 1906 for demonstrating outside Parliament soon after joining the WSPU. Following her second arrest in 1907 for demonstrating during the First Women's Parliament Mary's trial was adjourned due to ill health and soon after she was operated on by Louisa Garrett for appendicitis. In 1910 Mary was forced to give up her demanding Organiser role due to continuing ill health. Although Mary resigned from the WSPU a year later she remained politically active. In February 1912 she served her final term of imprisonment with hunger and thirst strike for breaking a window at the Home Office in protest against the force-feeding of William Ball but was released within 36 hours due to poor health.