Suffragettes Delivering 'Human Letters' to Downing Street, 23rd February 1909

'Human Letters to Downing Street'; two Suffragettes outside No.10 attempt to speak to the Prime Minister, 23 February 1909. Daisy Soloman on the left is accompanied by Elspeth McClelland. Soloman's Mother was a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union and was later to be badly injured on a deputation to the House of Commons. McLelland studied architecture at the Polytechnic Architectural School in London and was the only female student amongst 600 males.
The smiling police officer standing beside the Suffragettes is can be identified by the number A336 on his collar as PC George Joseph Bingham (1885-1967). He had joined the Metropolitan Police in 1906 as part of A (Whitehall) Division and was promoted to Sergeant on B (Chelsea) Division in 1915. However, he was dismissed without pension on 3rd August 1919 for taking part in the police strike the previous month and returned to his previous trade as a piano finisher and regulator. In the 1921 census he was unemployed and living with his mother, but by the time of the 1939 Register he had moved to Walthamstow and was in work as a carpenter and joiner.