Gertrude Harding

Gertrude Menzies Harding (1889-1977) was a suffragette born on a farm in rural Canada. She migrated to London, England in 1912. Once there she quickly joined militant suffragette movement, being one of only a handful of Canadian women to do so. Harding was known as one of the highest-ranking and longest-lasting members of the Women's Social and Political Union.

Early years Harding was born in 1889, the last of seven children on a farm in Welsford, New Brunswick, Canada. Her sketches of the time show her escaping housework to hunt, fish and camp alone in the woods, with a pet raccoon as companion. When Harding was 18 years old, a doctor pronounced that she had a heart murmur, considered a serious condition at the time. She was pleased to be invited to travel to Hawaii as companion to her older sister Nellie Waterhouse and family. Eventually she was asked to teach sewing classes to local women and to care for a boy crippled by polio; her time in Hawaii sparked an interest in working with the poor.

Suffragette career In 1912 Harding was invited to join the Waterhouse family in London, England, where Dr. Ernest Waterhouse had business interests. Within days, Harding witnessed her first poster parade of women carrying placards with slogans such as "Votes for Women" and "No Taxation without Representation". Drawn to the cause (which had begun 47 years earlier), she was soon a paid Women's Social and Political Union organizer, financially independent. She moved out on her own for the first time.

Harding’s first big ‘job’ was to stage a midnight attack on rare orchids with comrade Lilian Lenton at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew (Lilian soon became a daring arsonist for the cause).

Gert Harding started working on the newspaper, The Suffragette, when Headquarters at Lincoln's Inn was raided by Scotland Yard and the paper driven underground. Of greatest note in her career with the WSPU is that Harding was asked to 'head up' the secret bodyguard of women assigned to protect their leader, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, from constant rearrest by Scotland Yard during the Cat and Mouse Act. The bodyguard learned jujitsu from Edith Garrud and carried Indian clubs. Despite this, the women were typically heavily outnumbered by the police and frequently suffered injuries including contusions, broken bones, dislocated joints and concussions. Their best successes against bobbies and Scotland Yard detectives came from outwitting them, using disguises, decoys and other forms of subterfuge. On two occasions, a decoy 'Mrs Pankhurst' was arrested, allowing the real Mrs Pankhurst to escape undetected.

The press release written by Mrs Pankhurst upon her rearrest by Scotland Yard, during funeral for Emily Davison. Telegram received by Gert Harding at the WSPU headquarters with news of Mrs Pankhurst's prison sentence, July 3, 1913.

In 1914, Harding became editor of The Suffragette newspaper.

When War broke out, Harding remained as part of the skeletal staff of the WSPU, remaining loyal to the Pankhursts in their allegiance to the British Government during the war effort. Harding was private secretary to Christabel Pankhurst when Christabel was exiled in Paris (1915). The Suffragette newspaper was renamed Britannia, and Harding edited this for five months into 1915. published With All Her Might; the Life of Gertrude Harding, Militant Suffragette, which includes the contents of Gert's scrapbook.

Portrayals Harding is portrayed in Ann Bertram's play The Good Fight, the story of suffragette Grace Roe performed by Theatre Unbound.

Harding and her sister (Nellie Waterhouse) are also portrayed, with latitude and name changes, in Peter Hilton's fanciful play Mrs Garrud's Dojo. The play, written for and performed by The Lady Cavalier Theatre Company of New York, includes the character of Edith Garrud, who trained the Bodyguard in jujitsu.

Harding partially inspired the fictional character Persephone Wright in the graphic novel trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons (2015) and appears under her own name as a supporting character in the spin-off novellas The Second-Story Girl and The Isle of Dogs.

Harding is portrayed by Kat Dennings in an episode of Drunk History entitled "Civil Rights" (2018) and by Scottie Caldwell in the independent documentary No Man Shall Protect Us: The Hidden History of the Suffragette Bodyguards (2018).