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

Suffragettes delivering 'human letters' to Downing Street, 23rd February 1909. The Suffragettes, Daisy Soloman on the left and Elspeth McClelland on the right carry posters informing Prime Minister Asquith of a planned deputation to the House of Commons taking place later that week. Daisy 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 police officer standing on the left of the image 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.