Catherine Tolson

Catherine Tolson (21 August 1890 – 3 March 1924) was an English nurse and suffragette[1] from Ilkley in West Yorkshire active in the Women's Social and Political Union.

In September 1909 she and her older sister Helen Tolson were amongst the suffragettes arrested for breaking glass at White City in Manchester, who all accepted imprisonment in Strangeways Prison rather than pay fines.

He asked: "... under what circumstances Catherine Tolson and two other women suffrage prisoners were turned out from Strangeways Prison about 10 o'clock last Friday evening and driven in a cab to the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union in Oxford-road, and left there on the street, the offices being closed; whether one of the women fainted twice before finding accommodation for the night; whether Miss Tolson did not reach home till 3.30 in the morning, having had to walk from Altrincham to Hale through the fog; whether Miss Tolson's father had arranged with the Governor of the prison that he would meet his daughter and the other two ladies at 8.15 on Saturday morning, the day on which their sentences expired, and had given an undertaking that there would be no demonstration; and for what reason and by "whose instructions was this arrangement departed from?

"[8] In response, Herbert Gladstone, then Secretary of State for the Home Department answered that: "The Governor, acting on the discretion which had been given to him, decided to discharge these prisoners on Friday night.

"[8] Not satisfied with this answer, Keir Hardie stated that Oxford Road, where the women had been released, was one of the lowest streets in Manchester and that Mr Tolson had made no such arrangement with the prison's Governor.

The women proceeded to cause damage by throwing notes attached to stones through the windows of Radcliffe Liberal Club and the local post office.