Lila Clunas

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Local history time! Happy birthday to Lila Clunas (1876 – 1968) who was a Scottish suffragette and Labour party councillor, remembered as one of Dundee’s leading suffragettes.

Maggie Eliza Clunas was born in Glasgow on 10 August 1876. She trained to be a teacher in Edinburgh and then moved to Dundee to take up a post at a primary school.

In 1906, she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and then the Women's Freedom League (WFL), serving as the secretary of the Dundee branch between 1908 –1912. Her sisters Elsie and Jessie Clunas were also members of the WFL, with Elsie serving as treasurer until 1913.

Her political activities included deputations, heckling and writing in the press. In 1908 she was expelled from an election meeting for Winston Churchill. In 1909, she was a member of a 9-woman delegation to the House of Commons. During a WSPU deputation at the end of June, she was arrested while presenting a petition to Prime Minister Asquith, although it has been suggested that she attempted to punch him. She was charged with obstruction and was sentenced to three weeks in prison. She was imprisoned in the London Holloway Prison, the first Dundee suffragette to be held there. She went on hunger strike, and was released early, "on consideration of all the circumstances and as an act of clemency".

On 11th September 1912, Clunas tried to get into the hall in Dundee where Winston Churchill was about to give a speech, but she was denied entry. She then instead fastened a card on her chest and went to the Post Office and asked to be posted by express mail to the prime minister's residence (LOL). In 1909, two other suffragettes had tried the same strategy, and London post offices were told not to accept such actions. However, this instruction had not reached north of the border and so she was actually delivered. However, the venue refused to accept the delivery, so she was unsuccessful at gaining entry. Still a boss move though.

In 1914 she was ejected from a labour meeting, and this led to a split between the suffragettes and the Dundee Labour Party. However, in 1943 she was elected as a Labour Party Councillor in the Dundee City Council, and served until 1964, taking a keen interest in education. She passed away on 29 December 1968.

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