The Reading Observer also reported her as sending a message: I must confess that at first I did shrink from taking any definite step in this matter of women's suffrage until I realised the cowardice of letting others fight for a position one would be ready enough to step into when the fighting was over[6] In 1907, Sutton was to propose a vote of thanks to Millicent Fawcett at the end of a turbulent meeting, during which Mrs Fawcett had been constantly interrupted, by a rowdy element of young men at the back of the hall shouting out, or making noises with hooters, and although present, the police had not intervened.

'[7] Sutton headed a group of 70 suffragists from Reading (including working women, teachers, nurses, doctors and members of the Primrose League)[8] who joined the London NUWSS Suffrage March on 13 June 1908 to the Albert Hall.

[9] It was reported that the Reading banner was one of the largest,[8] decorated with the five female heads from the city coat of arms[10][11] as part of the vast procession of 10,000 participants.

[12] In November 1908, following an anti-suffragist event by Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., Sutton spoke at a public meeting which had attracted hecklers, even when she claimed that the women's suffrage movement was based on religious principles, in a Christian 'ideal of a social state, every member of the body must do its part and every part must be healthy and sound if the body corporate was to perform the functions for which it was created' (based on 1 Corinthians12:12–26).

[13] A year later at Tilehurst, Sutton and suffragist speakers were heckled by young men creating a commotion, with musical instruments, shouting and someone released a mouse into the crowd as she stood up to speak, the resulting mayhem disrupted her throughout.

In speaking against suffragette 'stoning' she reminded them that 'men in Bristol did £14,000 of damage at the time of the Reform Bill' and told the hecklers to 'Put that in your pipes and smoke it!".

[14] Speaking in Basingstoke[15] and in Bath, Sutton asked for women to have an equal place in civic society, reflecting "the best civic life based on the best religious life" and supported the stance of Dr Mary Morris, Bath's first woman inspector of schools and fellow suffragist.

[16] By 1910, when the editor of The Common Cause (the NUWSS newspaper), Helena Swanwick attended their meeting, Sutton said that the calm and persistent influence of their society was gaining support for the right of women to vote.

[19] In 1912, Sutton wrote to local MP and Solicitor (Attorney) General Sir Rufus Isaac as reported in The London Standard referring to the 'Swedish model' of enfranchising householders and their wives.

[26] Prior to the 1913 by-elections, Sutton was holding open air meetings, growing in attendance and 'everywhere friendly and sympathetic' after the pilgrimage visit, and reported ' a complete change of feeling on the suffrage question being reported to have taken place amongst factory hands in the last twelve months.

[31]  Sweated labour and the ‘grinding of the faces of the poor’ was the subject of a talk she gave to the Christian Social Union in Reading in 1908.

[34] At the Reading Women's Suffrage Society Annual Meeting in 1915, Sutton not only reported on the popularity of the organisation's nursery provision, but that 1,314 meals were provided to hungry children in association with the National Relief Fund.

[38] When awarded the Freedom of Reading in 1954, her many years as member and later chairman of the committee responsible for the care of the 'mentally defective' was formally acknowledged.

[39] Her involvement had started in 1914, when she was appointed to a committee set up by Reading Council in response to the Mental Deficiency Act passed by Parliament the preceding year.

[46] While speaking in the Metropole Assembly Rooms in Hastings six years later, she noted that there had been two women police in Reading at the start of the war who has been the ‘best friends of the girls and the men stationed in the town'[41] Sutton served on the Reading Watch Committee continuously for thirty years.