Inside History: Protest. Revolt & Reform
For our next issue we take a closer look at the theme of Protest from the events of Peterloo to the fall of the Berlin. Inside we cover a whole range of historical protests and the individuals who led the charge for change. This issues includes: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, The Suffragettes, Billie Holiday and the role music has played in protests, The Civil Rights Movement, Protest and Sport, We are the People: The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Bloody Sunday at Trafalgar Square, and much much more.
For our next issue we take a closer look at the theme of Protest from the events of Peterloo to the fall of the Berlin. Inside we cover a whole range of historical protests and the individuals who led the charge for change. This issues includes:
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, The Suffragettes, Billie Holiday and the role music has played in protests, The Civil Rights Movement, Protest and Sport, We are the People: The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Bloody Sunday at Trafalgar Square, and much much more.
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FIGHTING TO VOTE
If There Is A Will,
There Is A Way
THE DEFIANT
DISABLED
SUFFRAGETTE
Defiance is often associated with the Suffragette movement. However, as
Olivia Smith explains, there was one in particular who stood out from the
others. Confined to a wheelchair, Rosa May Billinghurst, would never let
her disability prevent her from joining the cause.
“If women don’t count, neither shall they be
counted”. Calls for a boycott from the Suffragettes
the night before the 1911 census, which resulted in
a demonstration in Parliament Square. In the midst
of this demonstration of stone throwing, street lamp
breaking and an attempt to get into the House of
Parliament , one suffragette was doing all she could
to defy the authorities. Carefully placing crutches on
the sides of her tricycle, “again and again drove her
hand-tricycle” at the police. Hanging on the back of
her tricycle, in the Suffragette green, white and
purple, was a banner reading ‘Votes for Women’.
Arrested for these actions, and sent for five days
imprisonment, this didn’t come close to stopping
her. This is Rosa May Billinghurst, the defiant
disabled Suffragette.
Rosa ‘May’ Billinghurst (although she preferred to be
called May), was a London girl through and through
being born in Lewisham in 1875. As a child Rosa
contracted polio, which subsequently left her unable
to walk, unless when wearing leg-irons, using
crutches or wheeling around on her modified
tricycle. This left her branded ‘the cripple suffragette’
by the press and peers. Rosa was fortunate to come
from a middle class family that provided her with a
governess, as her disability limited her opportunities
to attend school or university.
34 INSIDE HISTORY
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