Amy Sanderson (suffragette)

Amy Sanderson
File:Sanderson, Amy1907 (23070257666).jpg Sanderson in 1907
Born	Amy Reid 1876
Organisation	Women's Freedom League and Women's Social and Political Union and delegate to 1908 & 1923 International Alliance of Women
Known for	suffragette activism and women's rights
Relatives	one of six siblings
Awards	Holloway brooch

Amy Sanderson née Reid (1876-1931), was a Scottish suffragette, national executive committee member of the Women's Freedom League, who was imprisoned twice. She was key speaker at the 1912 Hyde Park women's rally, after marching from Edinburgh to London, and, with Charlotte Despard and Teresa Billington-Greig, was a British delegate to the 1908 and 1923 international women's congresses.

Family life

Born Amy Reid in 1876 in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire to father James Reid (born 1838) a spirits cellarsman (or hotel keeper) from Kincardine, Perthshire and mother Janet Reid née Kerr, also born 1838, from Glasgow. Her grandfather was a Chartist. By the 1881 Census, the Reids were living at 94 Muir Street, Dalziel, Lanarkshire. Amy Reid was one of six siblings, five older than her: Mary W. Reid born 1860, Elizabeth Reid (a shopwoman) born 1862, Andrew Reid (a chemist's assistant) born 1864, Bertha Reid born 1876 and a younger brother James F. Reid born 1876. The family had English boarders: the Horsman family (Charles Horsman, Ellen Horsman -both comedians - and their 13 year old daughter Ellen Maud ), Harry Thomas (also a comedian), and Mary Fortescue described as a 55 year old widow annuitant.

She married James Sanderson, a wireworker journeyman, on 10 August 1901 at Trinity Congregational Church, Glasgow.

Amy Sanderson died in 1931.

Suffrage activism

Sanderson joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1906 and was arrested at the 'Women's Parliament' militant protest at the House of Commons in 1907. She started speaking at events in Scotland on behalf of WPSU. In October 1907, she joined the break-away Women's Freedom League (WLF) and served on its national executive committee for three years. Sanderson was asked by the headquarters to go urgently to Aberdeen and wrote to Caroline Phillips the local organiser, due to differences in opinion on tactics.

In February 1908, Sanderson was arrested a second time and imprisoned for a month in Holloway Prison in London, with others in a small militant group who had accosted Prime Minister H.H. Asquith at his home in Cavendish Square. She was given a Holloway brooch designed by Sylvia Pankhurst for being imprisoned for the cause of women's votes.

In 1908, she went to Dunfermline where she spoke along with Anna Munro, Mrs Donaldson and Mrs Duguid to an audience who were said to be 'most sympathetic and attentive, expressing entire approval of the militant tactics.' Sanderson also spoke at Kilmarnock and in the Prince of Wales Halls, a large venue in Glasgow, where she was introduced by Miss Husband of Dundee. Sanderson (and again Anna Munro) shared some of the details of their prison experiences and she particularly emphasised the need for prison reform as something that women should vote for (once they had won the vote). She also shared part of a hymn the women had sung in the prison:

'The tall trees in the greenwood,

The meadows where we play,

The rushes by the water,

We gather every day,

In Holloway!'

In June 1908, Sanderson was with Theresa Billington-Greig, and Charlotte Despard as delegates in Amsterdam at the 4th Conference of the International Suffrage Alliance, where she spoke of the negative attitude of the British government, and of the middle class women, which led to the Alliance voting to hold its next meeting in London.

During 1909, Sanderson's role was in organising the Yorkshire and Durham branches and as a touring platform speaker, with upcoming public events widely publicised and commented on in the local press,  and then reported to members in WFL news The Vote. She had a successful three day speaking tour of Manchester, where M. E. Manning reported that 'Mrs Sanderson's eloquence carried all before it, and in each case the meeting was almost unanimous in its support.' Sanderson's later Scottish tour included Forfar, where she had lived for a time, and Stonehaven where she went with Anna Munro and said it was a 'hotbed of Liberalism'. At an open-air meeting in Hartlepool, she held the crowd's attention for 90minutes, explaining the arguments for women's suffrage and for equal pay for equal work. She was reported as saying that female factory workers and teachers are paid less than men for the same or better quality of work. Sanderson debunked the popular arguments of the anti-suffrage case, including that suffragettes are all 'old maids' when in fact most were married women, who had ' the best husbands in the world, or else we could not be suffragettes. A woman who was used as a doormat or a slave could not be a suffragette, because she was afraid to call her soul her own.'

Sanderson's speaking tour in 1910 included a drawing room meeting in Sunderland and a public meeting in South Shields with Alice Schofield Coates and speaking at the WFL branch in Harrow and at the founding of an Eccles Branch. At a mass rally in Trafalgar Square on 3 April 1910, Sanderson was one of the main speakers focussing on 'politics', with fellow activists Muriel Matters and Emma Sproson; at an open air meeting in Regent's Park where she was reported to have 'held the crowd as much by her earnestness as by her logical arguments'. Later that year she was writing in The Vote strongly criticising the Labour Party before the next election, for ''a curious mixture of earnest championship, lukewarm support, indifference and hostility'. Referring to the party's duty to working class women, Sanderson said:

'Surely the women who have fought so determinedly during the last four years, who have been reviled and abused, imprisoned and tortured for asking simple justice, have a claim on a party that champions sweated workers, 82 per cent of whom are women.'

The 1910 WFL Conference report refers to the active engagement of the provincial and Scottish representatives; Sanderson is pictured with the National Executive Committee and WFL President Mrs Despard at Caxton Hall. Sanderson's speech there was wider than women's suffrage, talking about work opportunities and quoting the police force in Indiana, USA who had female patrol beat officers, a point which was supported by chair, Archdeacon Escreet. She also spoke up for joint male/female administration of all kinds of laws, in the best interest of society, and about the risks of a 'personality' culture.

In March 1912, Sanderson had returned to activism after a period of illness, and spoke at the WFL Conference which sent congratulations to women's organizations in Washington and California on their achievements of votes for women, the previous year.

In October 1912, she was involved in the 'Brown March' from Edinburgh to London, speaking to the group passing through York, where they had gathered signatures from 36 out of 48 councillors to a petition for votes for women. Sanderson then joined the women's groups from all over the country gathering in their thousands in Hyde Park, where she was one of the leading speakers at the mass rally.

When World War One began, suffragette prisoners, including Sanderson, were pardoned by the British government in return for stopping their militancy.

A decade after founding of WFL, the organisation looked back at its troubled beginnings as a split from WSPU and thanked its first executive committee.

International delegate

In May 1923, Sanderson was again a delegate at the Congress of the International Suffrage Alliance this time in Rome, Italy where women had no voting rights at all. The Congress was opened by Mussolini, whom she reported to be so impressed by the scope of the international event and the women's procession that he 'promised, if he is in power next year, to give the municipal vote to the women of Italy'.' The brief report of her talk to the Edinburgh Branch of WFL commented 'Even a Dictator is not sure of himself in these days, apparently.' and said Sanderson was a 'valuable' addition to the branch.

Images

Sanderson was photographed in prison by the police (image is in the Museum of London) and her 1907 posed photograph, wearing the Holloway brooch was used in publicity postcards for WSPU. (Note: one of these cards was advertised for sale in 2017 for £130+VAT, and by auctioneers Rogers Jones in 2019, for an estimated £100–£160).

See also

• Feminism in the United Kingdom
• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• List of women's rights activists
• List of women's rights organizations
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Women's suffrage organizations

External links

• Police photo of Amy Sanderson 1907-8 [1]