16 Facts About Agnes Husband

Agnes Husband was one of Dundee's first female councillors and was a suffragette.

Agnes Husband was awarded Freedom of the City at the age of 74 and has a plaque to her memory in the Dundee City Chambers and a portrait by Alec Grieve is in the McManus Galleries and Museum.

Agnes Husband was born in Tayport, the daughter of a shipmaster John Husband and Agnes Lamond or Lomand.

Agnes Husband became involved in her forties in socialism and the Labour party, standing unsuccessfully for election to the School Board in 1897.

Agnes Husband attended over 80 meetings in a year serving on four committees.

In 1905 Agnes Husband won a place on the School Board too and promoted providing meals, books, and nursery education to poor children in the city.

Agnes Husband promoted the humanising effect of women who have 'a keener insight, and a more humane ideal into the problem involved' if they only had the 'courage and conviction' to put themselves forward to serve on key municipal boards.

In 1908, Agnes Husband introduced suffragette ex-prisoners Anna Munro and Amy Sanderson, whom she knew personally, to a large gathering in the Prince of Wales Halls, in Glasgow to share their prison experiences, when Sanderson said that prison reform was something that women should use their vote for, once it was won.

In 1909 Agnes Husband had taken on a national role in the movement for women's suffrage.

Agnes Husband attended and was able to give a first hand report on the demonstration which took place at Westminster but this was not reported in the local press.

In 1910, Agnes Husband was one of the Scottish delegates to the WFL annual conference and pictured with eight others in The Vote, WFL's newsletter.

In 1912, Agnes Husband attended the Seventh Annual Conference of the Women's Freedom League and is pictured greeting WFL President Mrs Despard.

Agnes Husband was then re-elected as WFL branch president in May 1914, and membership had grown and held local events eliciting sympathetic support at dinner-hour and factory gate talks, including at Invergowrie Paper Mills, and outside the Old Grammar School by WFL Scottish organiser Ada Broughton and others.

Agnes Husband supported and encouraged her younger sisters to become involved.

Agnes Husband has a blue plaque on the City Chambers, Dundee, and a portrait by Angus Grieve in the McManus Galleries and Museums.

In 2008, Agnes Husband was one of the twenty-five women included in the book 'Dundee Women's Trail: Twenty-five footsteps over four centuries'.