Muriel Matters
Muriel Lilah Matters also known as Muriel Porter or Muriel Matters-Porter, was an Australian-born British political activist, suffragist, educator, actress and elocutionist who immigrated from Australia to the United Kingdom in 1905 and remained until her death in 1969. 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.
Early life
Muriel Matters was born in the inner Adelaide suburb of Bowden in the then Province of South Australia, the third of seven children, including brother Leonard Matters, to Methodist parents, Emma Alma Warburton and John Leonard Matters. Matters' father, John Leonard Matters was an agricultural agent, merchant, cabinetmaker and a Councillor on the Port Augusta Council which saw the family living in many locations in South Australia, including Port Augusta and a number of Adelaide suburbs, before the family immigrated to Perth in Western Australia in the early 1900s.Education and early influences
In 1894, the Parliament of South Australia passed world first legislation granting South Australian women the right to vote and stand for parliament on the same terms as men in the Province, meaning Matters was eligible to vote from 1898, unlike her contemporaries in other parts of British Empire, including other Australian Colonies or the United Kingdom, likely infliencing her later activity in the British suffrage movement. According to former South Australian Member of Parliament, Frances Bedford, at the age of 14, while attending elocution classes as a child, Matters' was introduced to the works of two 19th-century literary figures, American poet Walt Whitman and the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, author of A Doll's House, with both figures heavily influencing Matters' political ideology.Matters studied music at the University of Adelaide, obtaining first and second-class examination results in subjects including, Theory of Music, Pianoforte.
Early career
In the late 1890s, Matters began a career as an actor, musician and conductor in concert recitals with the Robert Brough Company, with concerts in a number of Australian capital cities, including Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. In 1901, Matters returned to a permanent base in Adelaide to teaching elocution and regularly performed for audiences at numerous halls and salons across South Australia.In 1904, Matters followed her parents and other family members who had relocated to Perth in Western Australia, where she continued her acting and was encouraged by friends in the industry to further her career in London.
Move to London
In August 1905, Matters departed Albany in Western Australia following the advice of friends and colleagues who had encouraged her to pursue a career in London. Matters arrived in London on 6 October 1905 via the SS Persic passenger liner.Conversion to the suffrage cause
When Matters arrived in London, she began giving recitals intermittently and eventually performed at the Bechstein Hall. However, recital work in London was difficult to acquire due to a surplus of performers, and Matters undertook occasional work as a journalist for income. She is known to have interviewed George Bernard Shaw and the exiled anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin. Matters eventually performed at the home of Kropotkin and, after her recital, he challenged her to use her skills for something more useful stating that, "Art is not an end of life, but a means." Matters agreed with his assessment and soon became involved with the Women's Freedom League.She later wrote that her encounter with Kropotkin "proved to be the lifetime in a moment lived – my entire mental outlook was changed." The WFL was led by Charlotte Despard and was set up to be more democratic than the Pankhurst-led Women's Social and Political Union suffragettes. Matters accompanied Maud Arncliffe Sennet to an event at which Milicent Fawcett was debating the support for women's militancy. Sennett wrote in the press that Matters had not been forced into silence.
Work with the Women's Freedom League
Caravan tour of 1908
In early May through to mid-October 1908, Matters was "Organiser in Charge" of the first "Votes for Women" caravan that toured the south-east counties of England. The caravan tour began in Oxshott and passed through Surrey, Sussex, East Anglia and Kent. The purpose of the tour was to speak about women's enfranchisement and to establish new WFL branches in the regions. Despite the occasional heckler, Matters and the others involved, such as Charlotte Despard and Amy Hicks, were successful in achieving those aims and established several branches. In Tunbridge Wells, Matters met a young Quaker named Violet Tillard who remained a close acquaintance until Tillard's death in 1922, due to typhus contracted while helping people in famine-ravaged Russia.Grille incident
The Grille Incident occurred on the night of 28 October 1908, the WFL conducted simultaneous protests at the British Houses of Parliament. It was held outside St Stephen's Entrance, the Old Prison Yard and in the House of Commons. The purpose was to raise attention to the struggle of women and to remove the "grille", a piece of ironwork placed in the Ladies' Gallery that obscured their view of parliamentary proceedings. Matters was at the heart of the protest over that symbol of women's oppression. She and an associate, Helen Fox, both chained themselves to the grille of the Ladies' Gallery and Matters began loudly proclaiming the benefits of enfranchisement directly to the elected MPs.Although not noted in Hansard, the official record of proceedings in the House of Commons, Matters' pronouncements were, technically, the first speech by a woman in the British Parliament.
Meanwhile, Violet Tillard lowered a proclamation to the politicians below using pieces of string, and a man from the Stranger's Gallery threw handbills onto the floor of Parliament. The police soon seized all the people involved but could not separate Matters and Fox from the grille. Eventually the grille was removed with the women attached and, after being taken to a nearby committee room, a blacksmith was fetched to detach the women from the ironwork. Not charged over the incident, Matters and the other women involved were soon released near St Stephen's Entrance, where they rejoined other members of the WFL who were still protesting. It was there that Matters was arrested on a "trumped-up charge of obstruction", trying to rush the Parliament's lobby.
The following day, 14 women and one man were tried at the Westminster Police Court. Matters was found guilty of wilfully obstructing London Police and was sentenced to one month imprisonment to be served at Holloway Gaol. Emily Duval was arrested, together with her teenage daughter Barbara. They had both been with Matters when she chained herself to the grille. Emily paid her fine, and 17 year old Barbara Duval was released after she said that she would not get involved in any further protests until she was 21.
Airship flight
The Balloon Raid airship flight took place on Tuesday 16 February 1909, during the royal procession of King Edward VII's official opened Parliament for the coming year. As a part of the occasion, there was a procession to the Houses of Parliament led by the King. To gain attention and to promote the suffrage cause, Matters decided to hire a small dirigible owned by Percival G. Spencer, intending to shower the King and the Houses of Parliament with WFL pamphlets. However, due to adverse wind conditions and the rudimentary motor powering the airship, she never made it to the Palace of Westminster. Instead, Matters, beginning at Hendon airfields, hugged the outskirts of London flying over Wormwood Scrubs, Kensington, Tooting and finally landing in Coulsdon with the trip lasting an hour and a half in total.With the airship emblazoned with "Votes for Women" on one side and "Women's Freedom League" on the other, it rose to a height of. Matters scattered of handbills promoting the WFL's cause and leading members of the league, Edith How-Martyn and Elsie Craig, pursued her by car. Her flight made headlines around the world.
1910: First lecture tour of Australia
Before sailing to Australia, Matters and fellow suffragette Violet Tillard, helped the Women's Freedom League campaign in Liverpool from January to April 1910, and she spoke with Amy Sanderson and Emma Sproson at a mass gathering in Trafalgar Square in April. From May to July 1910, Matters gave lectures focused on her experiences in Britain agitating for change. In the four-month tour, she spoke in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Giving three talks in each city she advocated for prison reform, equal pay for equal work and for the vote to be granted to the women of Great Britain. Accompanied by Violet Tillard on the tour, Matters presented the audience with illustrations related to the movement and donned a facsimile of her prison dress. From the newspaper reports surrounding her visit it is evident that she played to sizeable audiences and that her performances were littered with laughter and applause.At the conclusion of the lecture tour, Matters helped Vida Goldstein secure an Australian Senate resolution that outlined the country's positive experiences with women's suffrage. The resolution was passed and sent to Prime Minister Asquith in Britain.