Teresa Billington-Greig
Teresa Billington-Greig (born October 15, 1877 in Preston , Lancashire ; died October 21, 1964 in London ) was a British suffragette who helped create the Women's Freedom League . She left another women's suffrage organization - the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) - because she found their leadership team to be too autocratic.
Life
School teacher
Teresa Billington-Greig was born in Preston (Lancashire) in 1877 and grew up in a drapery family in Blackburn . She was strictly Roman Catholic , so her parents were very upset when Teresa became agnostic in adolescence . Since she had finished her school career without a degree, she was supposed to do an apprenticeship in hat making. But she ran away from home and took evening classes to become a teacher. She worked as a teacher in a Roman Catholic school in Manchester and studied at Manchester University in her spare time until her agnosticism made this impossible. She then moved to the Municipal Education School Service, where her religious beliefs brought her into conflict with employers. But through the "Education Committee" there she made the acquaintance of Emmeline Pankhurst in 1993 , who found her a job in a Jewish school where she had no religious instruction. That year she also became a member and organizer of the Independent Labor Party . In April 1904, she was the founder and honorary secretary of the Manchester branch of the "Equal Pay League" within the "National Union of Teachers" (National Teachers' Union).
Member of the WSPU
In 1904 the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) made her one of their traveling speakers. She was sent to London with Annie Kenney to found a local organization that eventually became the headquarters of the WSPU. All of this was done on a tight financial basis. The following year she was asked to become the second full-time organizer for Keir Hardie and his work in the Labor Party . During this time she did public relations work and organized demonstrations as well as setting up the group's new national headquarters in London.
In June 1906, during a tumult outside HH Asquith's estate, Billington-Greig was arrested and later sentenced to a fine or two months in Holloway Prison . She was the first suffragette to be sent to jail despite the fine being paid by an anonymous Daily Mirror reader . Later that same month of June 1906 she was sent to reorganize the WSPU in Scotland. She influenced Janie Allan among many others . And there in Scotland she married Frederick Lewis in 1907. They agreed to use the common name Billington-Lewis. The growing differences with the Pankhursts led to her resignation as a paid WSPU organizer, although she remained a member of the Union until October 1907.
Women's Freedom League
In October 1907 Mrs. Pankhurst canceled the constitution and took over the regiment in the WSPU together with her daughter Christabel Pankhurst . Several prominent members left the WSPU; this included Billington-Greig, Edith How-Martyn and Charlotte Despard , who set out to found the Women's Freedom League (WFL) on the basis of democratic organizational principles . Billington-Greig was originally appointed National Honorary Organizing Secretary of the WFL. But she resigned once more from this post in 1910 when the WFL began a new militant campaign after the Conciliation Bill failed.
She did not immediately join another organization, but continued to write and make speaking commitments; these were activities that she continued throughout her life. She also looked after her daughter Fiona, who was born in December 1915, and supported her husband in his billiard table company. Your only organizational activity until 1937 was in the field of sport. Then she rejoined the Woman's Freedom League to work for their Women's Electoral Committee. After the Second World War it became the group "Women for Westminster" (Women for Westminster, the lower house), for which she continued to work. As a result, she took part in the "Conference on the Feminine Point of View" (1947-1951) and after 1958 she was a member of the Six Point Group while she wrote her report on the women's suffrage movement.
Critical Writings
She had a keen interest in the history of the women's suffrage movement; In addition to her writing on this subject, she put together many biographies. Some of these were created as necrologists for the Manchester Guardian . Her writings on the 'women's cause' include (but somewhat critical of it) 'The Militant Suffrage Movement', published in 1911. Her critical articles on the politics of the women's suffrage movement include 'Feminism and Politics,' published in 1911 in the Contemporary Review , in which she wrote, "There is no feminist organization and no feminist program. And though the first is not essential, the second is." (German: There is no feminist organization and no feminist program. And since the former is not essential, the latter is even more so. ). She voiced similar criticism in an unpublished document, "The Feminist Revolt: An Alternate Policy", in which she claims that "[t] he militant movement has kept to a straight narrow way and read it should touch life it has cloaked itself with artifice and hypocrisy. " (German: The militant movement stuck to a straight, narrow path and so that it did not want to come into contact with life, it enveloped itself with tricks and hypocrisy. ). Instead of the militant methods that were common (attacks on private property, for example), she recommended that electoral activists try new tactics: “On one matter [a] protest could be made within the Police Court, on another outside, in public meetings and the public press ... Strikes and boycotts could be employed on new feminist lines. "(German: A protest could be made within the court for one thing, outside the court for another, such as at public gatherings and in the public press. Strike events and boycotts could be carried out according to new feminist ideas. )
She wrote countless articles for a variety of magazines. Her interest was wide and she was involved in a large number of women's organizations. She had strict views on a variety of subjects of general interest, but most importantly, gender equality in upbringing and education, as well as in marriage.
She died of cancer on October 21, 1964, at the age of 87, in the South London Hospital for Women. Her biographer wrote:
"She had retained her feminist principles throughout. While believing that the unity of all women through their womanly activities, above all as consumers, was the way forward, she never ceased to believe in the power of women through independent organization to make cultural change. "
(German: She kept her feminist principles. On the one hand, she believed that the unity of all women through their female activities, despite all consumption, was the way forward, on the other hand, she never stopped believing that it was in the power of women to bring about cultural change through independent organizations. )
Recognition after death
Her name and picture (and those of 58 other supporters of women's suffrage) are on the base of the Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square , London, which was unveiled in late 2018.
See also
Archives
Teresa Billington-Greig's archives are kept in the Women's Library, part of the Library of the London School of Economics.
Web links
- Spartacus article on Teresa Billington-Greig Retrieved April 12, 2019
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d Teresa Billington-Greig (en) . In: Spartacus Educational .
- ^ Carol McPhee, Ann FitzGerald, Fiona Billington-Greig: The Non-Violent Militant: Selected Writings of Teresa Billington-Greig . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1987, p. 4.
- ^ Teresa Billington-Greig ( en )
- ^ McPhee, Fitzgerald, and Billington-Greig, The Non-Violent Militant, p. 21st
- ^ McPhee, Fitzgerald, and Billington-Greig, The Non-Violent Militant, p. 226
- ^ McPhee, Fitzgerald, and Billington-Greig, The Non-Violent Militant, p. 244
- ^ McPhee, Fitzgerald, and Billington-Greig, The Non-Violent Militant, p. 245
- ↑ Historic statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett unveiled in Parliament Square . Gov.uk. April 24, 2018. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
- ↑ Alexandra Topping: First statue of a woman in Parliament Square unveiled . In: The Guardian , April 24, 2018.
- ↑ Millicent Fawcett statue unveiling: the women and men whose names will be on the plinth . iNews. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
- ↑ 7TBG
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Billington-Greig, Teresa |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British suffragette and suffrage activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 15, 1877 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Preston , Lancashire |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 21, 1964 |
| Place of death | London |