History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Eager to spread their message of ‘Votes for Women’, the Woman’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) took prompt action after finding out that it was possible to post ‘human letters’. It arranged with a Daily Mirror photographer and reporter to wait outside 10 Downing Street on 23 February 1909. That day Daisy Solomon and Elspeth McClelland were ‘posted’ for 3d from the Strand Post Office to 10 Downing Street. A messenger boy called A S Palmer accompanied them as they walked from the Strand to the front door of Number 10. They were refused entrance to see Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, but the messenger was allowed inside. The women waited on the pavement, saying ‘they must be delivered as the postage had been paid’. The boy emerged, accompanied by a government official who dismissed the ladies’ argument, saying that they would be returned as ‘dead letters’, in other words they were undeliverable. Daisy and Elspeth left, to walk to the WSPU head office in Clement’s Inn. When the Dail...