At 7.30 on Tuesday evening, the time advertised indiscriminately in chalk upon the pavement, for a suffragists meeting, attracted only a handful of spectators, in the vicinity of the improvised platform – a lorry – placed on the unlighted space between the Police Station and Sessions House. The ladies conducting the meeting were: Mrs Bouvier (London), Miss Mabel Capper (Manchester) and Miss Horn (Preston). They quickly received that the location was too secluded and the lady from Manchester requested several men to wheel the lorry under the big lamp on the west side of the Post Office…

At first the audience was sympathetic, but at intervals a number of irresponsible youths gave vent to a variety of the latest pantomime gags and a potato, the one solitary missile fired, struck the lorry and bounded off in splinters. For the most part, however, the crowd was quiet and listened with respect to the eloquent arguments of the ladies…

Miss Capper urged the claims of women and spoke strongly against the legislation that had threatened to throw 200,000 barmaids out of employment. If the public houses were too degraded for women, their presence would tend to raise the moral tone.

P. C. Kings, who had a discoloured eye, said Leslie Hall  struck him on the face and in the chest, while Mabel Capper kicked him several times on the legs. Capper said she was not aware that she had kicked the constable. She was sorry it was him, and she wished it had been Mr Asquith. They were both remanded until Wednesday.

Laura Ainsworth, who appeared with one eye bandaged and the other discoloured, was charged with throwing a stone and attempting to storm a barrier with an axe. She complained that on Monday night she and other Suffragettes were exposed to the violence of the mob of youths outside Winston Green Gaol, and were refused police protection.

Leslie Hall and Mabel Capper were charged with assaulting the police and smashing cell windows. They admitted fighting with the police, but said they were roughly treated.

The magistrates fined Laura Ainsworth 10s and costs of fourteen days; Leslie Hall and Mabel Capper were sentenced to one month in second division. Patricia Woodlock was ordered to pay a fine of 40s , the alternative being one month's hard labour; while Mary Leigh and Charlotte Marsh were sentenced to three months' and two months' hard labour respectively for assaulting the police, and for damaging the building were ordered to pay a fine of 40s and in addition the amount of the damage, or a month, the terms to run consecutively.

The women made a demonstration in the dock. Mary Leigh shouting: "We sentence the men who go to the next political meeting to death. There is no surrender."

Miss Whurrie, the only one of the defendants who were discharged, was rearrested for breaking a window in court.

Everyone in South-West Manchester have heard of the arrival of the Suffragettes, and the WSPU Committee Room is an object of the keenest interest. A special debt of gratitude is due to Miss Mabel Capper, the Misses Tolson, Misses A. and J. Rose, Miss C. Smith, and Miss Owen, and to the Manchester teachers who have given up their short holiday to help forward the movement.

The Manchester branch of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage is to conduct a campaign during the next month or so in the Parliamentary division of West Salford. The main object will be to bring the real meaning of the Conciliation Bill home to the constituents of Sir George Agnew, who has the unfortunate distinction of providing that divisions with the only Anti-Suffrage member of Parliament in Manchester and Salford. The opening meeting took place on Thursday, September 14th , at 8 o'clock on the ground near the reservoir in Longworthy Road, Seedly. The speakers were Miss Mabel Clapper (WSPU). And Messers F. Stanton Barnes, George Clany and W. Bently Capper junior (all of the Men's League).

Mary Leigh and Mabel Capper have long been among the most reckless members of the suffragist movement. They were two of a large band who visited Birmingham in September, 1909, and were arrested with others on charge arising out of a desperate and well-organised attempt to storm Bingley Hall where Mr Asquith was speaking to an audience of ten thousand.

Leigh and another, eluding the vigilance of the police, climbed on to the roof  of an adjoining factory, from which she threw ginger beer bottles, slates, and other missiles on the glass roof of Bingley Hall, and into the street when the Premier was passing in a motor car. While awaiting his appearance the women amused themselves by throwing projectiles at the crowd in the street and the police, several officers being struck.

A policeman who climbed on the roof – a hazardous undertaking – found Leigh with her boots off, jumping about like a cat, as he described it, and armed with an axe used for the purpose of ripping slates from the roof: "Come on up at your peril," the women shouted to the officers, who were struck several times before effecting an arrest.

Mr T. M. Healy, KC, appeared for all the prisoners except Mrs Leigh, who conducted her own case, and addressed the jury at considerable length on the woman's suffrage movement, pointing out that women had tried constitutional methods, which had failed, and contending that the case against her had not been proved. The judge referred to her as "a very remarkable lady of great talents" …

In his fine and impassioned speech for the defence of Miss Gladys Evans, he (Tim Healey) was rankly contemptuous of the trifling quantity of the damage to a couple of curtains, a carpet, and two chairs, only in comparison with the vaster outrages committed by the forerunners of the present-day electors, but with a greater and still more powerful emphasis, in comparison with the daily and hourly destruction of women's and children's lives in the cities of our civilisation.

Magnificent as was the plea of Mr Healy, the dramatic feature of the day was undoubtedly Mrs Leigh's defence of her case. Slight and frail in outward appearance, spontaneous and alert in manner, she seemed strangely out of place among the burly officials and dull routine of a court of justice. Her masterly cross-examination was so searching as seriously to baffle several witnesses and confuse their evidence on the point of identification, so that the jury found themselves unable to agree that she actually was one of the persons who fired the Theatre Royal. Her speech to the Court was a heroic effort. It was not rhetoric, nor careful arrangements of arguments and telling points, nor even eloquence, that moved the hearts so strongly of all who gazed upon her pleading countenance as she laboured to reiterate the long tale of injustice and evasion meted out to the women who asked for the removal of the disqualification of their sex, and the equally long tale of the steadily successful attainment by men of their political objects in England and Ireland by the sole means of agitation by violence. The pathos of her passionate determination to persevere in her efforts to the emancipation of her womanhood moved the judge himself and many other with deep emotion. Her courage was an amazement even to women who have felt most deeply the things we have at heart.

When the medical report was received by the Prison Board regarding the grave condition of Mrs Leigh's health, a consultation took place, the Attorney-General being called in. After a long consultation the Board, with the approval of the Attorney-General, recommended her release, and the Lords Junction of the Privy Council, in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, made the necessary order.

The release took place at 6.30 pm. It was the intention to have her removed to the Mater Hospital, but she was conveyed in a cab by two lady friends to a private residence. She is in a state of almost complete collapse, and a specialist will be called in today.

Miss Gladys Evans, her fellow-prisoner, who is also being forcibly fed, was examined likewise, but as her condition has not become so far debilitated, no order was made in respect of her. In Mrs. Leigh's case, she had acquired the power of vomiting the food as soon as administered, and her debilitation was due to the consequent starvation. 

We are promised a dramatic treat at the Royal Court Theatre on the Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, October 8, 9, 11, and 15, 16, and 18, when Mr Leigh Lovel and Miss Octavia Kenmore, whose names are associated chiefly with the production of Ipsen's plays, will give two plays of unusual interest to women. We have been allowed to glance through the pages of "Arabella" by Mr George Reston Malloch, and have read enough to convince ourselves that it may well be described as a "feminist play". How Arabella attains her economic independence we need not tell here; those who are able to go to the matinees at the Court Theatre on one of the dates mentioned will be able to see for themselves how the problem works out. "Arabella" will be preceded by a short play entitled "Number 13", by Miss Mabel Capper. We understand that a contingent of the WSPU will come up from Manchester to see it.

Miss Mabel Capper is the author of a new one-act play, The Betrothal of No. 13, produced at a matinee at the Court Theatre, Sloane Street, this week, under the management of Mr Leigh Lovel and Miss Octavia Kenmore. It is described by its author as a tragedy, and deals with working-class life, having for its theme and stigma of imprisonment, through the heroine has been found guilty on a false charge. The play has been spoken of a very promising work. Miss Capper is a native of Manchester, and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union. Despite her youth she has for five years been working for the cause of women's political enfranchisement.

Mabel Henrietta Capper was born on 23 rd June, 1888 at Chorlton-on-Medlock , Lancashire, a residential suburb of Manchester. Her parents were Elizabeth Jane Crews (1862-1940), who had previously been employed as a cashier, and William Bently Capper (1852-1924), who is described on census returns and Mabel's baptism register entry as a "Dry Salter" or "Drysalter". [NOTE: A ‘Dry Salter' / "Drysalter" / "Dry-Salter" was a dealer in a range of chemical products, including  glue, gums, oils, soap, varnish, paints, dyes and colourings. They might also supply salt, spices or chemicals for preserving food and sometimes also sold pickles, sauces, cured or dried meat and other preserved foodstuffs and related food items. Being a ‘Dry Salter' salter might be combined with trading as a chemist/druggist or as an ironmonger/hardware merchant.] In the 1885 edition of Kelly's ‘Directory of Chemists and Druggists and the chemical industries', William Bentley ( sic ) Capper is listed as a ‘Drysalter' at 21 Oxford Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Lancashire . He is listed under ‘Drysalters' and not under the heading of ‘Chemists & Druggists'.

William Bently Capper was born in Manchester, Lancashire, in 1852. [He was baptised "William Bently Capper" at St Matthew's Church, Manchester, on 18th July 1852. It was Thomas Rothwell Bently, the rector of St. Matthew's Church who baptised William.]

William Bently Capper married Elizabeth Jane Crews (born 1862, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Lancashire) in 1888 [Marriage registered in the Chorlton district of Lancashire during the 2 nd Quarter of 1888].

This union produced two children: Mabel Henrietta Capper, born on 23rd June, 1888 at Chorlton-on-Medlock , Lancashire. William Bently Capper junior, born on 22nd June, 1890 at Chorlton-on-Medlock, Lancashire.

William Bently Capper senior and his family are recorded at 21 Oxford Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, Lancashire, in the 1891 and 1901 Census. At the time of the 1881 census, William Bently Capper (28) is described as a "Drysalter". On the 1891 Census return William Bently Capper (38) is recorded as a "Drysalter " (Employer). On the 1901 Census return William Bently Capper (48) gives his occupation as " Theatrical Dry Stores, Oil & Color (sic. - Colour) Merchant", "Employer", "working at home".

On the 1911 Census Form, William Bently Capper (58) of 21 Oxford Road, Manchester, gives his occupation as " Drug Stores & Drysalter ". William Capper states he is married but does not enter details of his wife or children. I presume Mabel Henrietta Capper and her mother, Mrs Elizabeth Jane Capper were protesting against the 1911 census.

William Bently Capper senior of 21 Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester died on 8th January 1924 leaving effects valued at £833 . Mabel's mother, Mrs Elizabeth Jane Capper (nee Crews) died at Oak Hill Cottages, The Sands, Farnham, Surrey on 22nd January 1940 leaving effects valued at £1,098 .

Mabel Henrietta Capper (born 23rd June 1888, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, Lancashire – died 1st September 1966, St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex).

In 1921 [Registered 2 nd Quarter 1921) at Hampstead, North London, Mabel Henrietta Capper married Thomas Cecil Chisholm (born 23rd July 1887, Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland), the only child of John Christie Chisholm (born c. 1863), a solicitor and Provost of Dalkeith, and Jean E. Anderson , the first woman Provost of Dalkeith. At the time of the 1911 Census, Thomas Cecil Chisholm was boarding at an apartment house in Bournemouth . On the 1911 Census form Thomas Cecil Chisholm , aged 23, gives his profession as "Journalist, Acting Editor ".

In 1933, Mabel Henrietta Capper was residing at Binton Corner, Farnham, Surrey. [Mabel's mother, Mrs Elizabeth Jane Capper was residing in Farnham at the time of her death in 1940].

At the time of the 1939 National Register, Thomas Cecil Chisholm and his wife Mabel Henrietta Chisholm were residing at ‘Hindwood' , Farnham, Surrey . They remained at this address until about 1946.

Thomas Cecil Chisholm is described on the 1939 Register as a "Journalist, Editor" and the occupation of his wife, Mrs Mabel Henrietta Chisholm is recorded as " unpaid domestic duties ".

By 1956, Thomas Cecil Chisholm and Mabel Henrietta Chisholm were living at Windrush Cottage, Warren Road, Fairlight, near Hastings, Sussex . This was the home address of Thomas Cecil Chisholm when he died on 24 th November 1961, but his death took place at ‘Oaklands', Old Roar Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex. Thomas Cecil Chisholm left effects valued at £27,957.

Mrs Mabel Henrietta Chisholm died on 1st September 1966 at the age of 78. She died at 63 Pevensey Road, St Leonards-on-Sea . Her effects were valued at £7, 227.