The letters Emily Davison wrote during the month of November, 1911, immediately before her
decision to initiate a campaign to set fire to Post Office Boxes, seem to suggest an embattled
mentality. Often the letters are brief and to the point, as the one below, firing off a rebuttal
to a Mr. Geeson who apparently suggests the whole Woman Suffrage Movement could give up
its funding (women, after all, do do volunteer work) to more meritorious causes. Obviously
his ‘sweetly pretty girls’ phrase piqued Davison’s annoyance. The second letter calls attention
to the difference between municipal franchise and the parliamentary franchise, by rebutting
Anti objections to municipalities taking a position in favor of the current proposed woman
suffrage act. Davison herself, and her family as well, had close ties with Scotland, especially
Aberdeenshire, so it is not surprising that she would be attentive to where various Scottish
cities stood on the matter of the bill.
November 10, 1911, The Standard, “Funds of Suffragists”
Sir, — In extracts from letters Mr. A. Geeson asks why suffragists collect thousands of
pounds at meetings which they use for ‘paying salaries’ and organizing processions
of ‘sweetly pretty girls,’ when they might use them to help excellent charities and
similar institutions. Mr. Geeson has surely not seriously reflected when he made such a
suggestion. To apply suffragist funds to other purposes than those for which they were
raised would, if described in plain or in legal language, be termed by a very ugly word.
EMILY WILDING DAVISON