25 Facts About Teresa Billington-Greig

Teresa Billington-Greig was a British suffragette who was one of the founders of the Women's Freedom League in 1907.

Teresa Billington-Greig's publications include The Militant Suffrage Movement, which contained criticism of suffragettes' tactics, and The Consumer in Revolt, which explored links between consumerism and feminism.

Teresa Billington-Greig's archives are held at the Women's Library at the London School of Economics.

Teresa Billington-Greig Mary Billington was born in Preston, Lancashire, on 15 October 1876.

Teresa Billington-Greig was a keen reader and writer of poetry and essays, selling stories to a Roman Catholic magazine.

Teresa Billington-Greig approached her grandfather for a job at his department store, which he refused, and it was agreed in the family that she would stay with her uncle, George Wilson, and his family in Manchester.

Teresa Billington-Greig took night classes there, and qualified to become a teacher.

Teresa Billington-Greig taught at a Roman Catholic school in Manchester, studying at the University of Manchester Settlement in her spare time.

Teresa Billington-Greig went to London as a speaker, together with Annie Kenney, whom she had inspired with her "sledgehammer of logic and cold reason".

Teresa Billington-Greig refused to recognise the authority of the magistrates' court as women had played no part in defining the laws that it operated by.

Teresa Billington-Greig became the first suffragette to be incarcerated in Holloway Prison.

Teresa Billington-Greig then travelled to Scotland, in order to organise the WSPU's activism there.

Teresa Billington-Greig persuaded me to take the chair at her next open air meeting to the surprise, and amusement, of our suburbanites.

Teresa Billington-Greig met Frederick Lewis Greig in Scotland, and married him on 8 February 1907, in Glasgow.

Teresa Billington-Greig resigned from the WFL in December 1910 as she felt that the membership was overly influenced by militant tactics, such as "raids" on Parliament organised by the Pankhursts.

Teresa Billington-Greig believed the Pankhursts were focused on suffrage at the expense of securing wider freedoms for women.

Teresa Billington-Greig's work was widely read and discussed in the United States.

Teresa Billington-Greig compiled suffragette biographies as well as writing on the movement's general history.

In "The Truth about the White Slave Traffic", published in 1913 in The English Review, Teresa Billington-Greig debunked a number of stories about the "white slave trade" that had been propgated in support of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912, and found that the actual number of cases of procurement in the UK was very low.

Teresa Billington-Greig re-joined the Woman's Freedom League in 1937, and continued to be involved when after World War II it became known as Women for Westminster.

Teresa Billington-Greig was a member of the Six Point Group, and was meanwhile working on a history of the suffrage movement.

In 1915, and again in 1923, Teresa Billington-Greig substituted for her husband at the billiard company where he was a manager, and in 1936 she worked briefly as an organiser for the Business and Professional Women's Club.

Teresa Billington-Greig died of cancer on 21 October 1964 in London.

Teresa Billington-Greig's archives are held at the Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics.

Teresa Billington-Greig herself was disappointed with the scale of her accomplishments.