Anna Munro 1881-1965

Anna grew up in Edinburgh daughter of a school master. Her lifelong socialism dated from being brought up in the poverty and squalor of the Edinburgh’s Cowgate. She was an early member of WSPU and became organiser in Dunfirmline after a spell in England. When the split in the WSPU came, she followed Teresa Billington-Greig into the WFL becoming her private secretary in 1907. In Jan 1908 she was imprisoned for 6 weeks for attempting to take part in a deputation to a cabinet minister. A month later she was appointed organising secretary of the Scottish WFL.

Responsible for the WFL campaigns on the Clyde coast every summer. Crowds of Glasgow holidaymakers flocked to Dunoon, Largs and Rothesay where WFL headquarters were set up and suffrage speakers found receptive audiences. Educating the public was a key aim of all societies and the WFL appear to have been particularly good at it. In autumn 1912 she was one of six women who walked the entire Edinburgh to London Women’s march. After that she campaigned mainly in England. She had made it a rule not to reply to letters written by men, but after a meeting near Reading she received a letter from a Sydney Ashram who had been there with his sisters. She assumed he was one of the sisters and agreed to meet. He was a member of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. She married Sydney in 1913.

She campaigned for Women’s rights and remained active in the WFL until it disbanded in 1961. She served as a local magistrate for many years after a leading local landowner correctly predicated that she would be appointed only ‘over his dead body’.

Picture: Glasgow Museums.