Amy Sanderson (suffragette)

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 neé Kerr also born 1838 from Glasgow. 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 chemists 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 13 year old child Ellen Maud Horsman) and Harry Thomas also a comedian, and Mary Fortescue described as a 55 year old widow annuitant.[4]

She married James Sanderson, a wireworker journeyman on 10 August 1901 at Trinity Congregational Church, Glasgow.[5]

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 executive committee for three years,[6] speaking at events across the country. 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.[7]

In February 1908, Sanderson was arrested a second time and imprisoned for a month in Holloway Prison in London, with a small militant group who accosted Prime Minister H.H. Asquith at his home in Cavendish Square.[1] She was given a Holloway brooch designed by Sylvia Pankhurst for being imprisoned for the cause of women's votes.[8]

Amy Sanderson 1907

Holloway brooch

In 1908, she went to Dunfermline where she spoke along with Anna Munro, Mrs Donaldson and Mrs Duguid to an audience who was said to be 'most sympathetic and attentive, expressing entire approval of the militant tactics.'[9] And 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. She emphasised the need for prison reform as something 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!'[9]

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.[2] During 1909, Sanderson was convening votes for women meetings in Yorkshire and across the country,[8] including in Forfar, where she lived for a time.[10] She visited Stonehaven with Anna Munro and said it was a 'hotbed of Liberalism'.[11] Sanderson also wrote articles in the WFL newspaper The Vote,[12] for example in 1910, strongly criticising the Labour Party before the next election, for 'a curious mixture of earnest championship, lukewarm support, indifference and hostility', referring to party's duty to the working class women:

'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.'[13]

In March 1912, Sanderson 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 the previous year.[14] In October 1912, she was in the 'Brown march' from Edinburgh to London joining women from all over the country to gather in their thousands in Hyde Park, where she was one of the leading speakers at the rally.[15] [1]

When World War One began, the suffragette prisoners, including Sanderson were pardoned by the British government in return for stopping their militancy.[16]

In May 1923, Sanderson was a delegate at the Congress of the International Suffrage Alliance 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 on this event to the Edinburgh Branch of WFL commented 'Even a Dictator is not sure of himself in these days, apparently.' Sanderson was considered a 'valuable' addition to the branch.[3]

Sanderson was photographed in prison by the police (image in the Museum of London) [17] and a 1907 posed photograph of her wearing the Holloway brooch was used in publicity postcards for WSPU.[8]

(Note: one of these cards was put up for sale in 2017 for £130+VAT,[8] and by auctioneers Rogers Jones in 2019, for £100–£160).

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