Conscription disturbance at the Brisbane School of Arts

A plebiscite was held in 1916 in Australia to introduce conscription in order to bolster recruitment rates for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), which was deployed in Europe fighting in the Great War.

When Prime Minister Billy Hughes was decisively re-elected at the 1917 general election, proposing to hold a second plebiscite on the question of conscription, tensions began to flare in the community between supporters and opponents.

[2] In the chaos, Thorp managed to reach the platform in order to try and read out her amendment, but she was again set upon, thrown to the floor,[5] and punched, scratched and kicked.

[1] The outnumbered WPA members were eventually thrown out of the hall, and after a brief delay for a rendition of the national anthem by the women present, the meeting was continued, only to be disrupted a second time when Thorp arrived with a police officer.

A week after the event, Thorp wrote to a friend in Melbourne advising that she was "giving up peace work", and deferring leadership of the WPA in Queensland to fellow activist Kathleen Hotson.