Miss Florence Margaret Davenport Hill

Other sources: https://www.parliament.uk/1866
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866?1928 (2001); Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey (2006)

Database linked sources: https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/activity/3214/how-effective-was-the-votes-for-women-campaign-in-bristol

Family information: Father Matthew Davenport Hill publicly endorsed female suffrage in 1844 during election campaigning in Hull. Her sisters Rosamund and Joanna also campaigned for women's suffrage.

Additional Information: Florence subscribed to the Enfranchisement of Women Committee (EWC) in 1866?7, and became a member of the Bristol and West of England society for Women's Suffrage and of the Central Committee of the NSWS (CCNSWS), joining its executive committee in 1893. She organised an appeal to the House of Commons in 1895 to collect women's signatures from all over the country, building upon previous attempts by gathering 257,796 signatures. It was presented in Westminster Hall in 1896, but failed to make a difference, like other appeals before it. In 1906?7, she subscribed to the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and its successor, the London Society for Women's Suffrage, having moved to London from Bristol. In 1913, the NUWSS pilgrimage, which travelled around the country, was taken through her back garden so that she could support it despite being frail and then over 80 years old.

Other Suffrage Activities: Florence was elected as a Poor Law Guardian four times between 1881 and 1884 in St Pancras, London. She was a member in the 1880s and 1890s of the Oxford Women's Liberal Association ? the only political organisation at that time to hold meetings about women's suffrage. She was elected to the council of Hampstead Liberal Association in 1885. In 1889 she took over her uncle's position in Hampstead, London. Upon her death, she left monies to a number of causes, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), the Women's Local Goverment Society and the London Medical School for Women.