Anna Munro

Anna was born in Glasgow, on 4 October 1881, to Margaret Ann MacVean, and Evan Macdonald Munro, a school master; following her mother's death in 1892 she moved to Dunfermline where she was cared for by an uncle and aunt.[1] She became involved with the Wesleyan Methodist Sisters of the People in London working with the poor. She then joined the Women's Social and Political Union and founded a branch in Dunfermline in 1906.[2] In 1907 a row between the membership and the Pankhursts led to a split in the WSPU and as a result the more democratic Women's Freedom League was formed and Munro was elected to be the Secretary of the WFL Scottish Council.[3] She was briefly imprisoned in 1908 for her protesting, and participated in the protests around the 1911 Census, which the suffragettes boycotted.[2]

She married Sidney Ashman in 1913, and though she legally took the surname Munro-Ashman she was still known as Anna Munro in her work, and she continued to be active working for women's rights throughout her life. She was also a socialist and temperance campaigner.[2] The Munro-Ashman's lived in Reading, but them moved to Thatcham where Anna was one of the first parish councillors in 1919 and they raised a family at Park Farm.[4]

On 11 September 1962, she died in Padworth, Berkshire.[2] Homes in Thatcham are to be named Munro because she was one of the first two women Parish councillors in Thatcham.[4] In 2018 the Glasgow Women's Library commissioned Lucie Hearn to create a short film about Anna Munro to celebrate 100 years since some women got the vote.[5]

• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

• The Women's Library Special Collections Catalogue, London Metropolitan University, NA1541, accessed 13 December 2011.
• Elizabeth Crawford, "Anna Gillies Macdonald Munro", in The women's suffrage movement: a reference guide, 1866-1928, Routledge, 2001, pp 430–431.