Emma Sproson, was a suffragette, then a suffragist, socialist, politician and women's rights activist.
20 Facts About Emma Sproson
1.
2.
Emma Sproson was born Emily Lloyd on 13 April 1867 in West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England.
3.
Emma Sproson was one of seven children of Ann, Johnson, and her husband, John, a builder of canal boats; he was a heavy drinker, and the family lived in extreme poverty.
4.
At the meeting Emma Sproson asked Lord Curzon a question; he refused on the basis that "she was a woman and did not have the vote".
5.
Emma Sproson became a member of the Independent Labour Party around this time and, in August 1896, she married Frank Sproson, a postman and the secretary of the Wolverhampton branch of the ILP; he was supportive of the movement for women's suffrage.
6.
In October 1906 Frank Emma Sproson invited Emmeline Pankhurst of the Women's Social and Political Union to speak at an ILP meeting.
7.
Emma Sproson acted as the Chair for the meeting and Pankhurst stayed overnight at the couple's house.
8.
Emma Sproson joined the WSPU shortly afterwards, and began a letter-writing campaign to local newspapers.
9.
In early-1907 Emma Sproson attended suffrage meetings in London and, on 13 February, she attended a WSPU meeting at Caxton Hall, followed by a march to parliament.
10.
Emma Sproson was sent to Holloway Prison for a month, where she was visited by Christabel Pankhurst, the co-founder of the WSPU.
11.
On her release Emma Sproson attended and spoke at a lunch hosted to celebrate the release of all those imprisoned.
12.
Emma Sproson returned to Wolverhampton, where she and fellow WSPU member Jennie Baines spoke at a public meeting before she went on a WSPU speaking tour of the Black Country.
13.
In late-1907 or early-1908 Emma Sproson, growing increasingly unhappy with the authoritarian manner in which the Pankhursts ran the WSPU, left the organisation and joined the Women's Freedom League, a non-violent suffrage group.
14.
Emma Sproson became branch secretary in Wolverhampton and a member of the National Executive by February 1908.
15.
Emma Sproson was a member of the Women's Tax Resistance League, who refused to pay tax in protest against disenfranchisement; tax resistance was a policy of the WFL.
16.
Emma Sproson went on hunger strike and was reclassified as a political prisoner.
17.
Emma Sproson took no further part in national campaigning, but concentrated instead on local politics.
18.
In 1919 and 1920 Emma Sproson stood in local elections for the Labour Party in the Wolverhampton Park ward, but was unelected.
19.
Emma Sproson successfully defended herself at the local by-election in 1924, but left the Labour Party before the next election in 1927; she stood as an independent candidate but lost.
20.
Emma Sproson's hearing declined in her later years, and she died at home on 22 December 1936.