Katherine Mary Harley

Katherine Mary Harley (3 May 1855 – 7 March 1917) was a suffragist. In 1913 she proposed and organised the Great Pilgrimage on behalf of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. During the First World War she helped to found and organise the Women's Emergency Corps. Early and mid-life: 1855–1914 Katherine Harley was born in Kent, England, on 3 May 1855, the youngest of six daughters of Margaret French, Eccles, and her husband John Tracy William French, a Royal Navy commander from Ireland. Katherine's siblings included an elder sister, Charlotte (later Charlotte Despard, born in 1844) and John (later 1st Earl of Ypres, born in 1852). Katherine's father died before she was born, and her mother was confined to an asylum by 1867; she was raised by relatives. She married on 8 January 1877 Colonel George Ernest Harley, CB, of Condover House, Shropshire, an officer in The Buffs, with whom she had one son and two daughters. Her husband died on 22 July 1907 aged 62. In 1910 Harley joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), and became the honorary treasurer of the Midland Region. She was made president of the Shropshire branch of the NUWSS in 1913. She was also a member of the Church League for Women's Suffrage. In 1913 she proposed, and organised, the Great Pilgrimage. The pilgrimage was a march along six routes to converge on Hyde Park, London, where there would be a rally. The march took place between 18 June and 26 July 1913.