Teresa Billington.
Teresa Billington, the daughter of a shipping clerk, was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1877. Teresa had a stormy relationship with her parents. There was constant conflict concerning her disagreement with her parents' strong Roman Catholic views. She later said of her education: "We were taught to be Catholic young ladies on the lines of the education given to our grandmothers. There were no oral lessons, no demonstrations, no analysis or breaking down of problems. We sat quietly in rows of desks, learned from books, and our work was corrected by the nun who was mistress of the moment from the answers at the back of a similar book." Teresa ran away from home as a teenager and for the rest of her life was an outspoken agnostic. Teresa became a pupil-teacher and eventually found work as a schoolteacher in Crumpsall. A fellow member of staff was Alice Schofield. However, Teresa's refused to teach religious instruction and this led to the Manchester Education Committee threatening to sack her. Emmeline Pankhurst, a member of the Manchester Education Committee, was impressed by Teresa's spirit and arranged for her to be transferred to a Jewish school where she would not have to teach religion. With Emmeline Pankhurst's encouragement, Teresa Billington became a member of the Independent Labour Party in Manchester. In 1904 she was appointed as the organiser of the party in the city. Teresa also became involved in trade union issues. She objected to the fact that men received higher wages than women and became secretary of the Manchester Equal Pay Committee. During this period she became friendly with Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper. In 1905 she was asked by Emmeline Pankhurst and James Keir Hardie to become a full-time organiser for the Independent Labour Party. She was only the second to be appointed and the first woman to hold such an appointment. Teresa later explained: "I gave up my teaching, my Equal Pay League work and my activity at the Manchester University Settlement and sacrificed my chance of a science degree to forward the woman's cause through the ILP." She was a great success at her new job. Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy said: "It is to Miss Billington, more than to any other person or persons that the great labour parliamentary victories in the Potteries are due." Teresa joined the Women's Social and Political Union and in 1907 she was asked to become a full-time worker for the organisation in London with Annie Kenney. Within a few months of arriving, Teresa had been arrested and sent to Holloway Prison. That year she also married a socialist, Frederick Lewis Greig (1875-1961), who worked as a manager for a billiard table manufacturer. He was sympathetic to women's rights and agreed to adopt Billington-Greig as their joint name. Teresa, like other suffrages at the time, questioned the way that Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst were running the WSPU. She objected to the way they made decisions without consulting members. Teresa also felt that a small group of wealthy women were beginning to dominate the organisation and in 1907 she left the WSPU with Charlotte Despard and Alice Schofield to form the Women's Freedom League. Teresa Billington-Greig also came into conflict with Margaret Bondfield over the issue of adult suffrage. Billington-Greig argued that women's political organisations should be advocating the "immediate granting of the Parliamentary Franchise to women on the same terms as men in the speediest and most practical way to real democracy". Bondfield took the view that if this happened the Conservatives would gain an advantage over the Labour Party. Bondfield also feared that once middle-class women had the vote, many of the leaders of the WSPU and NUWSS would lose interest in fighting for the political rights of working-class women. In December 1907, a public debate took place between Billington-Greig and Bondfield on this issue. Billington-Greig won the vote that followed the debate by 171 to 139. Teresa Billington-Greig and other members of the Women's Freedom League were often sent to prison after being arrested on demonstrations. However, Billington-Greig and this group completely rejected the increasing violent tactics of the WSPU. In an article that she wrote, Teresa accused Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst of "emotionalism, personal tyranny and fanaticism." She later recalled: "Gradually the movement has lost status as a serious rebellion and become a mere emotional obsession, a conventional campaign for a limited measure of legislation, with militancy as its instrument of publicity and the expression of its hurry. The leaders of the militant movement do not want a revolution; we were mistaken who believed that they did; they would be afraid of one." In 1910 Billington-Greig declared that she intended to "work for women's suffrage independently". This mainly involved her writing books such as The Militant Suffrage Movement (1911), Consumers in Revolt (1912) and Women and the Machine (1913).