Metropolitan Police

Charge sheet issued by the Metropolitan Police to the Suffragette Florence Haig. The charge binds her for the sum of £2 to appear at Westminster Court on 1 July 1908 to answer the charge of wilfully obstructing a police constable at Parliament Square on 30/06/1908. This charge refers to Florence's arrest during the suffragette deputation from Caxton Hall to the Houses of Parliament on 30 June 1908. At trial she was found guilty and sentenced to three months in Holloway prison.

Florence Haig (1856-1952) was born in Scotland, the of a barrister. An early recruit to the militant campaign in 1907 she founded, with her sister, a branch of the WSPU in Edinburgh By early 1908 Florence had moved to London to take a greater role in the campaign. She was first arrested in February 1908 having taken part in the 'pantechnicon raid' on the House of Commons for which she was sentenced to 6 weeks imprisonment. This charge sheet refers to her second arrest. In 1910 Florence became the WSPU organiser in Chelsea for the January 1910 general election campaign and Honorary Secretary of the Chelsea Branch of the WSPU. On 1st March 1912 Florence was arrested for breaking the windows of DH Evans in Oxford Street during the WSPU window-smashing campaign. She was sentenced to four months imprisonment during which she endured hunger strike before being released. During the early years of World War I Florence worked as one of the secretaries of the WSPU. In 1928 she was one of the pallbearers at Emmeline Pankhurst's funeral. Away from her suffragette activity Florence was an accomplished portrait painter.