Helen Fraser

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Helen Miller Fraser, later Moyes (14 September 1881 – 2 December 1979), was a Scottish suffragist, feminist, educationalist and Liberal Party politician who later emigrated to Australia.

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. 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.

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'.

In 1907, Janie Allan, being inspired by Fraser and Theresa Billington-Greig speaking about suffragette activity and organised a large WSPU meeting in St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow. During the Montrose burghs by-election in April 1908, as organising secretary for the WSPU, she was "heckled at considerable length". In 1908, Fraser attended the 'monster meeting' Women's Sunday and wrote to Isabel Seymour that it was 'successful but not entirely satisfactory'. Fraser estimated half a million people attended (a number supported by The Times estimates) but said that at three of the speaker platforms 'there was much rowdyism' and said 'it seemed to me that the mass of people were simply curious - not opposed- simply indifferent. Her action in moving a vote of no confidence in the Government at a public meeting where Mr Haldane was speaking in Rutherglan in 1908 led to her being ejected from the hall. Dr Marion Gilchrist joined Fraser in opening a suffrage campaign in the Christian Institute in Glasgow in the same year, and at a meeting in Motherwell also in 1908 Fraser spoke alongside Mrs Pankhurst and Mrs Pethick Lawrence.

In 1909, she conducted what the 'Dundee Courier ' described as the 'longest continuous tour ever undertaken in Scotland to propagate women's suffrage', The article lists twenty-one different towns that were only part of the tour. Bridgend in Wales saw Fraser contrast the anomalies in men's votes being amended by Parliament whereas what she described as 'the greatest anomaly there was, was the injustice of excluding women from all rights of citizenship because they were women'

Chrystal MacMillan, Dr Elsie Inglis were just two of those who supported Fraser at the 1911 Glasgow (Tradeston) By-election in an event organised by the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage.

In 1912, she spoke at a meeting in Cambridge organised by the Cambridge Women's Suffrage Association, held during a course of University Extension Lectures.

Rotten eggs were thrown at Helen after a meeting in Baltinglass (Ireland) in 1913. The meeting had taken place under the auspices of the Irish Women's Reform League. In contrast, Fraser's reception in Belfast was 'cordial', and the reporter reported applause being accorded to her a number of times during her talk; the event on this occasion being organised by the Irish Women's Suffrage Federation.

In 1915, she acted as temporary Honorary Secretary of the Penarth Women's Suffrage Society. 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 1918, upon her return to Britain, her book of the tour Women and War Work was published. 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. but the Conservative candidate Walter Elliot was a friend, and she knew that she could poll enough votes to cause him to lose the seat, so she refused and gave up the idea of a career in politics. In 1925, she left the Liberal Party, and joined the Unionist Party. She cited her reasons in a letter published in the Glasgow Herald, those being the perceived lack of challenge to what she saw as the "tyranny of combinations and unions", which she felt should have been the intention of the party, dedicated as it was to the protection of individual rights against tyrannies.

Fraser then moved to London, where she was elected to London Borough Council as the representative for Earl's Court and was also earning money from freelance articles on women's issues. She became the managing director of British Booklet Matches (1928), which was based in Upton Park. An Edinburgh Evening News photograph shows Fraser with "approximately 10,000,000 matches."

In 1931 Fraser attended the International Congress of Business and Professional Women, which was held in Vienna. She contributed to the discussions on unemployment, stating that the problem was not so much over-production as under-consumption. . Fraser was the International Chairman of the Federation which had organised the Congress.

She was elected to Kensington Borough Council, sitting as a member for seven years.

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 Fraser died in Australia in 1979.

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.

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