Alice Morrissey

Alice Morrissey (died in 1912) was a British Catholic, socialist leader and suffragette activist from Liverpool, who was imprisoned in the campaign for women's right to vote.

[2] Morrissey co-founded the Liverpool WSPU branch, alongside fellow Liverpool-born activist Mabel Florence Labouchere, and was imprisoned twice for suffragette activism.

[3] In 1906, Morrissey was among the women protesting and heckling during a speech by the then Liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to an audience of around 6,000 at the Sun Hall.

[2] Morrissey and Patricia Woodlock also held large open outdoor meetings, but were less often invited to the more elite 'at home' drawing room discussions amongst middle-class women of WSPU.

[2] But in Liverpool the two movements sometimes held joint protest events and their local leaders appeared to recognise the individual women's rights to hold opinions for both causes.

[4] Other Catholic women activists locally included Florence Barry[1] daughter of a Persian Austrian merchant,[3][7]Bertha Quinn a clothing worker of Leeds,[5] Violet Bryant a nurse of Newcastle,[5] and even an Augustinian nun, Mother Mary Frances of St Augustine's Priory girls school in Ealing, who chained herself to railings and broke windows, and was imprisoned for the cause.

[4] By 1919, Elsabeth Christitch was given a Vatican Papal audience with Benedict XV the head of the Catholic faith, who was reported as having said '‘we should like to see women electors everywhere’.

[3] Morrissey's first arrest was at Belle Vue Manchester June 1906, when she and her husband were heckling at a Liberal rally,[3] and this was treated sympathetically by the socialist press.