Mr Laurence Housman

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw259185/Laurence-Housman?LinkID=mp02291&search=sas&sText=laurence+housman&role=sit&rNo=2
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999); Elizabeth Oakley, Inseparable Siblings: A portrait of Clemence and Laurence Housman (2009); Laurence Housman, The Unexpected Years (1937)

Database linked sources: https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3220/laurence-housman
https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3228/men-in-the-suffrage-movement

Family information: Brother to Clemence Housman, a suffrage campaigner, and to A E Housman, a famous poet.

Additional Information: Laurence gave a donation to the WSPU in 1908 and that year designed a banner for the Kensington branch of the WSPU, worked on by his sister Clemence Housman. In his autobiography, written in the 1930s, Laurence claimed to have been converted to the suffrage cause having heard leading suffrage speakers, including WSPU leader Emmeline Pankhurst. However, his sister's support for the suffrage movement was surely a strong influence, as the two were very close and remained so throughout their lives. Laurence became an important figure in the suffrage movement because of his varied creative abilities. He was a prominent figure for the Suffrage Atelier (SA), a suffrage art organisation to which he and his sister contributed designs and which used their garden studio as a workshop. Laurence also acted as a speaker for the SA on occasion. Public speaking was a talent he discovered when taking part in the women's suffrage movement and he was very soon in constant demand. Laurence was also a talented writer and playwright and he wrote many articles, plays and poems for the cause, which were often witty, including, in 1910, 'Women This, and Women That' and 'The Physical Force Fallacy', which challenged a popular anti-suffrage argument that as women could not fight on the front line in the event of war, they should not be able to vote. However, this, it was reasoned, would have ruled out many men who had the vote, not least many members of the government who were too old to fight. Laurence's plays, such as 'Alice in Ganderland', were staged by the Actresses Franchise League (AFL) and he often wrote articles for the suffrage press. Laurence was also instrumental in formulating the idea for the suffrage boycott of the goverment population census survey in 1911. This was an illegal but passive act of civil disobedience in protest at women's exclusion from the vote. Laurence was a member of the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement (MPU) and was on the executive committee of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage (MLWS). He was also a supporter of the National Political League (NPL) and the United Suffragists (US) in 1914. That year was the only time he was arrested, for taking part in a demonstration with other male protestors. Laurence was only detained for a few hours before being released, which he put down to his being a man rather than a woman.

Other Suffrage Activities: Laurence was a gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal. He worked on behalf of and was a supporter and campaigner for a change in the law and attitude towards homosexuality. He became closely involved with the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology when it formed in 1914 to campaign for changes in sexual attitudes. The First World War also prompted Laurence to become a pacifist, and as late as the 1950s he was an active supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He also, in 1919, joined the Independent Labour Party and, on occasion, described himself as a 'socialist'.