1-192-453 - © Museum of London/Heritage-Images

Nellie Alma Martel, c1908. Organizer and member of the London and National Committees of the WSPU. Her experience of the Australian women's suffrage campaign, and of being a voter, were fully exploited by the suffragette leadership and in 1906, their imprint, The Woman's Press, published her pamphlet, The Women's Vote in Australia, which went into several editions before the outbreak of the first World War. Nellie was one of the first suffragette organisers in London and as such travelled widely and was particularly busy during by-election campaigns. In 1906 she and twenty other suffragettes took part in a 'raid' on the House of Commons, determined to see the Liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. He refused to see them and, in protest, they stood on chairs and refused to leave the building. Nellie and nine others were arrested and charged with using 'violent and abusive language'. In court the next day she 'shouted and gesticulated' and claimed that as an enfranchised woman in Australia she had the right to enter the lobby of the House of Commons. She was sentenced to two months in Holloway Gaol. Refusing to move, she and the others had to be forced out of the dock. Two years later, in 1908, she was badly assaulted during a by-election campaign.