[5] When Balls was in her very early teens her mother took her to a women's suffrage meeting addressed by Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.
[5] As part of her work to gain female suffrage, Balls toured the North East of England addressing meetings.
She was often confronted by angry crowds, but exhibited considerable sang froid when quarrymen threw rocks at her, picking up the stones to take home and add to her rockery.
[5] She arrested three times during her campaigning work,[9] and admitted later in life to undertaking an arson attack in May 1913 on Brandling House in Gosforth Park.
[1] In 1909, when Winston Churchill, at the time Home Secretary, visited Newcastle, she challenged him over his opposition to giving women the vote and disrupted his speech at the city's Assembly Rooms.
[10] On 19 November 1910, she was part of a group of 300 suffragettes who gathered in Caxton Hall in London and tried to force their way into the House of Commons to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister.
[11] All charges were dropped for those arrested as Winston Churchill felt "on this occasion no public advantage would be gained by proceeding with the prosecution" and he did not want the women to be made martyrs for their cause.
[1] In 1928 Balls was the Chairman of the North East Coast Branch of the Electrical Association for Women (EAW) and stayed involved for 50 years.
[15] She stood for election again in 1946, as an independent candidate in the Dockray ward of Tynemouth, a slum area, and this time was not only successful but unseated a former mayor.
[17] On 25 January 1957, Balls read the lesson at the memorial service for Dame Caroline Haslett at St Martins in the Field, having worked closely with her for over 20 years in the EAW.
[22] A blue plaque was unveiled in her honour at 36 King Edward Road, Tynemouth, her home from 1902 to 1936 on 8 March 2022, with members of her family in attendance.
[4][15][23][24] The Museum of London hold five postcards previously owned by Norah Balls, showing key suffragette moments, including one of Balls herself modelling The Suffragette Look, "the white frock with regalia and colours" of a sash in purple, green and white proclaiming "Votes for Women", introduced by the WSPU in June 1908.