Russia with fellow suffragette Lilian Lenton, an experience which would make her a lifelong anti-Communist. Keighley by-election In March 1918, the Liberal MP for Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Sir Swire Smith, died, causing a by-election. Although women over thirty had gained the vote in 1918, there was some doubt as to whether women were eligible to stand for parliament. Boyle made known her intention to stand as a candidate for the WFL at Keighley and, if refused, to take the matter to the courts for a definitive ruling. After some legal consideration, the returning officer stated that he was prepared to accept her nomination, thus establishing an important precedent for women candidates. However, he ruled her nomination papers invalid on other grounds: one of the signatories to her nomination was not on the electoral roll and another lived outside the constituency. While Boyle did not, therefore, appear on the ballot paper, she claimed a moral victory for women's suffrage rights. The Law Lords were asked to consider the matter and concluded that the Great Reform Act 1832 had specifically banned women from standing as parliamentary candidates. The Representation of the People Act passed earlier in the year, did not change that. Parliament hurriedly passed the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 in time to enable women to stand in the general election of December 1918. The act ran to only 27 operative words: "A woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected to or sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons House of Parliament", and is the shortest UK statute. Post-war After 1918, Boyle remained active in a number of important women's organisations. She campaigned or addressed meetings on behalf of the National Union of Women Teachers, the Women's Election Committee, the Open Door Council (which aimed to remove protective barriers that restricted women's employment opportunities) and also organisations concerned with the welfare of women and children in developing countries. She was particularly active in the Save the Children Fund (SCF), and in 1921 she went to the USSR to work in an SCF famine relief programme. She used her position in the SCF to raise the issue of sex slavery and trafficking of women for prostitution. She made many speeches as a SCF representative and wrote frequent articles for SCF publications as well as the book What is Slavery? An