Helen Fraser

Background

Fraser was born in Leeds, Yorkshire to Scottish parents, James Fraser (1856–1908) and Christina Sutherland. She was one of ten children. Her father began work as a tailor's cutter, moving from Caithness to Edinburgh to Leeds, before finally settling in Glasgow when Helen was a child. There, he opened a wholesale clothing firm. She was educated at Queen's Park Higher Grade School, Glasgow. She opened a studio in Glasgow that specialised in black and white illustration work, embroidery and painting. In June 1908, Votes for Women, the newspaper of the Women's Social and Political Union reported that she had given up her art work to become an organiser for them. She was also an honorary treasurer of the Glasgow branch.

Her family was progressive politically, believing that conditions for workers should be improved. As a middle class young woman in Glasgow, her life involved dances and balls, theatre, raising money for charity, playing tennis, and visiting poor families in the city.

Political career in suffrage movement

She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) after hearing Teresa Billington speak in Glasgow. She travelled to England to help the WSPU campaign at the 1906 Huddersfield by-election. She became Treasurer of the Glasgow WSPU and a WSPU Scottish Organiser, one of the fifty-eight funded branches in the UK. On 20 December 1906, with Flora Drummond, Fraser and three others attempted to enter the Stranger's Lobby in the Parliament, and after a skirmish Drummond was arrested.

Although suffragettes tended towards more direct action, and law-abiding suffragists preferred more legal, democratic means, they both took the opportunity of national and local elections to raise awareness of the cause of votes for women. They supported candidates who wanted to extend the franchise, and spoke against candidates who did not support it.

In 1907, Fraser organised the WSPU campaign, using press publicity handbills about the experiences of the demonstrators, which read: 'CRUSHED BY THE MOUNTED POLICE AGAINST THE RAILINGS OF THE ABBEY, AND TRAMPLED UNDER THEIR HORSES HOOFS'. Fraser had the help of Mary Phillips in East Fife and during the 1907 Aberdeen South by-election she met Adela Pankhurst with whom she remained close friends throughout her life.

Her sister Annie, along with Maggie Moffatt, became one of the first Scottish suffragettes to be arrested.

During that early period, when suffragette tactics consisted of trying to reach the House of Commons, and in the first arrests when speaking in the lobby, my sister Anne was the first Scotswoman arrested. She had gone to London a day or two before. Called by my father to come downstairs, I found him with the Glasgow Herald open before him with a banner headline in the centre page: “Glasgow Councillor’s daughter arrested”. He said, “did you know about this.” I replied, “I knew she was going to a meeting but I did not know anything else. He looked at me under his brows in the way we regarded as serious and I oozed out of the room. He came home in the evening quite reconciled to it, and when Anne came home after fourteen cold days in Holloway Prison he took her to a municipal reception saying to her, “Put on your prettiest dress and come with me.” She looked charming and he introduced her all round as “My prisoner daughter”.

Political career, from 1914 onward

During the First World War, she worked as a Commissioner for the National War Saving Committee, in the course of which she personally set up 109 local War Savings Committees in England and Wales. She was seconded to the Board of Agriculture to persuade women to work on the land. In 1917, at the suggestion of Millicent Fawcett, she was included by the UK Government as part of the official British War Mission to the US, to speak about Britain's war effort. She travelled through 40 states and spoke 332 times in 312 days. She also had a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson. In 1918, upon her return to Britain, her book of the tour Women and War Work was published.

In 1918, when women gained the right to stand as parliamentary candidates, she turned her attention to the campaign to elect women as Members of Parliament. She spoke in Cardiff on behalf of the Joint Committee for Getting Women into Parliament. She did not contest the 1918 general election. She took an active role in the affairs of a number of organisations; she was a member of the Executive Committee, of the NUWSS successor organisation the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, she was a member of the Common Interests Committee of the English-Speaking Union, she was involved in the Reunion of British War Missions in USA, she was a member of the Council for the Representation of Women in the League of Nations and she was a Member of the British Institute of International Affairs.

Her efforts during the war and after had come to the attention of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and she joined his National Liberal organisation. In 1922, she was the first woman to be adopted in Scotland as an official prospective parliamentary candidate when she was selected as National Liberal candidate for the Govan Division of Glasgow for the 1922 general election. She was one of only three women candidates (all Liberals) to contest the general election in Scotland. Govan was a safe Labour seat and she was not expected to win. Fraser was a prominent member of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage (GWSAWS). She had the GWSAWS backing to stand in Govan on the platform of the Liberal manifesto. This platform included the establishment of widows' pensions and an equal franchise for women. During her campaign she criticised her male Labour party opponent's "appropriation of our feminist ideals and policies."

In 1923 she went to Paris, France to attend the conference of the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship as a delegate of the NUWSS.

Suffragette Reunion

In February 1933 Fraser attended a suffragette reunion at the domicile of Mrs Dugdale Duval. Fraser's sister Anne was present, as were suffrage pioneers Mrs How Martyn and Mrs Graham Moffat, and Rachel Barrett and Mary Phillips; both of whom had been WSPU organisers.

Personal life and political activities in Australia

While living in London, Fraser was in contact with an old friend named James Moyes who had emigrated to Australia. His wife had died, and he asked Fraser to marry him several times before she accepted. She emigrated to Sydney in 1939. She later became the President of Women for Canberra, an organisation established to get more women to stand for election to the Australian Parliament

Late in her life she wrote an autobiography, entitled A Woman in a Man's World, which was published in 1971. Fraser died in Australia in 1979.

Archives

The Mitchell Library in Glasgow has a collection of material sent to them by Helen Fraser (by then known by her married name, Moyes). She sent the small collection of items, which includes some letters, newspaper cuttings, and copy of her autobiography, in 1978. Aware of the importance of preserving the story of participation in the women's movement, she said she wanted Glasgow to "have something" of her.

In 2018, the National Library of Scotland received a diary belonging to Fraser, which had been found in a recycling centre in Ulladulla, Australia. Also within the collection are some personal letters, correspondence and notes.

Oral History

Brian Harrison recorded 3 oral history interviews with Fraser, in January, August and September 1975, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews. The interviews have been made available using the name Helen Moyes. Fraser talks about her family, and their support for women's suffrage, her involvement with the NUWSS as well as the WSPU, and the differences between the two organisations, as well as time in Wales, Scotland, France, the USA and Australia.

Thumbnail Sketch and Cartoon

In 1928, The Tatler published a cartoon headed "A gathering of intelligentsia" featuring Helen, alongside Sir Ernest Benn, Sir Hugh Bell, Lord Leverhulme, Sir Robert Horne, Miss Lister and Lord Knebworth

Also in 1928, The Sphere featured her as one of nine people in its "Thumbnails: a pictorial Who's Who of people in the public eye".

Publications

Women and War Work by Helen Fraser 1918

A Woman in a Man's World by Helen Moyes 1971