MURIEL MATTERS

 

Recently as in this year I have been reading some Australian history books the last one I finished was titled “Miss Muriel Matter”.

So I have decided to write a post on a few of them starting with Muriel Matters. She was born 12 November 1877, Bowden in South Australia and died on the 17 November 1969 in Saint Leonards in the United Kingdom.

Muriel Lilah Matters was an Australian-born suffragist, lecturer, journalist, educator, actress and elocutionist. Based in Britain from 1905 until her death, Matters is best known for her work on behalf of the Women's Freedom League at the height of the militant struggle to enfranchise women in the United Kingdom.

In 1908 Muriel became the first woman to speak in the British House of Commons. But she hadn't been invited to speak. Instead, she chained herself to the grille that obscured women's views of proceedings at London's Houses of Parliament and addressed the assembled politicians

Matters spent a year in Wales advocating votes for women and held meetings in Dublin. In 1909 she flew over London in an airship inscribed 'Votes

for Women', scattering handbills over parliament.