Miss Flatman & Mrs Martel

Ada Flatman and Alma Martel, official full time organisers of the Women's Social and Political Union. By February 1909 the WSPU employed 30 organizers throughout the country. Appointed from WSPU headquarters organisers were paid £2.00 per week, the average for a woman clerk working in a business house at that time. Organisers were expected to travel extensively and moved from district to district organising local branches, WSPU shops, meetings, fund raising events, election campaigns, the hiring of halls, dealings with printers, the police and the local press. WSPU headquarters instructed organisers to avoid incidents that may attract imprisonment. They were required to 'stay at their posts' and leave acts of 'guerilla warfare' to the career activists, who were considered more expendable.