Florence Balgarnie

Balgarnie was elected to the Scarborough School Board in 1883.^[6] It was here that Balgarnie developed her skills as a speaker. In her native town, she aroused high anticipations for her future career. Since coming to London, in 1884,^[5] or 1886, temperance was the subject which interested her the most, and the one on which she spoke with the greatest frequency. It was around 1884 that, with some fear, Balgarnie first began public speaking, but it became a source of pleasure. A great temperance meeting at Derby, Derbyshire, England during a general election,^[which?] found her addressing several thousand people in the open air. It was to her "a crowded hour of glorious life"; and it was characteristic of her power of repartee that a dissident in the crowd who set himself to interrupt Balgarnie's speech became converted to her view.^[4] In 1885, she also addressed crowds at Brigg, Gainsborough, Grantham, Horncastle, Louth, and Sleaford in Lincolnshire.^[7]

By 1889, she became the secretary of the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage,^[6] but this position was given up to become the organising secretary, under Lady Henry Somerset, of the British Women's Temperance Association in 1893.^[8] Balgarnie held this appointment till 1895, and thereafter made time for speaking and writing on behalf of temperance and other causes.^[4] Balgarnie was the author of A plea for the appointment of police matrons at police stations (1894).^[9]

In 1902, in Washington, D.C., she represented the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) at the First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.^[5] She was also affiliated with the International Arbitration & Peace Association, the British Anti-lynching League,^[1] the London Anti-lynching Committee,^[10] the Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors, Personal Rights Association, Moral Reform Union, and the Men and Women's Club. She was a co-founder of the executive committee of the People's Suffrage Federation.^[11] She was later fired from employment at Women's Signal for her exposure of issues in the WCTU's stance on state colour lines, before being supported by Frederick Douglass' widow Helen Pitts Douglass in her stance.^[12]

She died in Florence, Italy,^[13] on 25 March 1928,^[1] aged 71, and was buried at Cimitero degli Allori, in Florence.

• Florence Balgarnie (1907). "The Women's Suffrage Movement in the Nineteenth Century". The Case for Women's Suffrage: 22–41. Wikidata Q107121322.

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Balgarnie, Florence (1894). A Plea for the Appointment of Police Matrons (Public domain ed.). White Ribbon Company for the National British Women's Temperance Association.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Cassell limited (1896). The Quiver (Public domain ed.). Cassell limited.

• Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. ISBN 1-135-43402-6.
• Crawford, Elizabeth (15 April 2013). The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-01062-0.