Muriel Lilah (Matters) Porter (1877 - 1969)

Biography

Muriel (Matters) Porter was a part of the Suffragette Movement.

Muriel (Matters) Porter is Notable.

Muriel Lilah Matters was an Australian born suffragist, lecturer, journalist, educator, actress and elocutionist,she is best known for her work on behalf of the Women's Freedom League .

Muriel Matters was born in Bowden in Adelaide,^[1] South Australia her parents were John Leonard Matters and Emma Alma Matters née Warburton they had five daughters and five sons Muriel was the third oldest.

In the 1890s Muriel Matters studied music at the University of Adelaide and had begun to act and conduct recitals, in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne with the Robert Brough Company.

Muriel Matters returned to Adelaide and taught elocution while also performing for audiences at halls and saloons.In 1904 she moved to Perth, Western Australia to join her family. She continued to act and her friends told her to further her career she should move to London.In 1905 Muriel left for London, England on the ship Persic she was twenty-eight-year-old.

After Muriel arrived in London she began doing recitals and performed at the Bechstein Hall now named Wigmore Hall. There were so many performers in London it was hard to find work , Muriel began to work as a journalist to bring in a income. She interviewed George Bernard Shaw and the exiled anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin. Muriel Matters also performed at the home of Kropotkin and, after her recital, he challenged her to use her skills for something more useful stating that, Art is not an end of life, but a means. Matters agreed with him and joined the Women's Freedom League (WFL) to fight for women's rights. She would later write that her encounter with Kropotkin, proved to be the lifetime in a moment lived – my entire mental outlook was changed

In 1908 Muriel Matters organised the first Votes for Women ^[2]caravan that toured the South East counties of England from May to October .The caravan tour started in Oxshott travelled through Surrey, Sussex, East Anglia and Kent. The idea behind the tour was to speak about women’s rights and establish new Women's Franchise League branches in the area.Murial and the others involved, such as Charlotte Despard and Amy Hicks, established several branches despite the number of people that ridiculed them , Muriel met Violet Tillard a Quaker in Tunbridge Wells who remained a close friend until Violet died in 1922 due to typhus contracted while helping people in Russia.

Muriel toured Australia twice first in 1910,than in 1922 on her first tour she gave lectures on her experience in England and her fight for womens rights.She spoke in Perth Literary Hall, ^[3] Adelaide Town Hall, Melbourne Princess Theatre and Sydney (King’s Hall) the tour lasted four months, while in Australia Muriel helped Vida Goldstein secure an Australian Senate resolution after the resolution was passed it was sent to Prime Minister Asquith in Britain.Her second tour in 1922 her main concerns were for prison reform, equal pay for equal work and for all women of Great Britain to be granted the vote. Giving lectures in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, her tour was closely followed by the Australian press.

Muriel was married William Arnold Porter, a divorced Bostonian dentist to on 15 October 1914,she became known as Muriel Matters-Porter William and Muriel did not have any children.

Muriel actress , suffragist and education reformer ran as the Labour Party candidate for the seat of Hastings in the General Election of 1924.She ran against the conservative candidate, Lord Eustace Percy. Her policies were a fairer distribution of wealth, work for the unemployed, and equality of the sexes.During the election, Muriel’s younger brother, Leonard Matters, joined her on the campaign but Lord Eustace Percy won and with an increased majority of 9,135 the people were not yet ready for a woman candidate. It wasnt until 1997 that Hastings was claimed by a Labour Party candidate .

After the election Muriel and her husband settled in Hastings . In 1928 the right to vote was granted to all women in Great Britain over the age of 21, they had been granted partial suffrage in 1918, Muriel Matters was fifty one year old, later in life Muriel wrote Letters to the Editor, visited the local library and was involved in the community.Muriel's husband William died in 1949, Muriel died on 17 November 1969 in St. Leonards on Sea nursing home she was ninety-two years old.

Muriel Matters was a prominent suffragist in Britain, even though she was born in Australia, where women already had the vote.

Muriel Matters and an associate, Helen Foxonce chained them to the grille of the Ladies Gallery in the British House of Commons on 28 October 1908. The grille was a piece of ironwork placed in the Ladies Gallery that obscured the women’s view of parliamentary debates. Muriel was technically the first woman to speak in parliament in Britain, shouting “We have listened behind this insulting grille too long!” The police soon seized all the people involved but could not separate Matters and Fox from the Grille. Eventually the Grille was removed completely with the women attached and, once escorted to a nearby committee room, a blacksmith was fetched to detach the women from the ironwork.

Muriel Matters spent one month in prison for this incident she recieved a silver badge by the Womens Freedom League ^[4]. Engraved M.M. October 28 and November 28 1908. The brooch depicts the entrance to Holloway prison.

^[5]Muriel Matters flew over the outskirts of London in an airship with the words “VOTES FOR WOMEN,” on one side and Women’s Freedom League on the other while throwing women’s suffrage flyers in the streets, Edith How-Martyn and Miss Elsie Craig, followed her by car.