in Jewish school. In the same year, Billington joined the Independent Labour Party and became an organiser for them. In April 1904, she founded the Manchester branch of the Equal Pay League of the National Union of Teachers and became honorary secretary. Women's Social and Political Union Billington was appointed by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) as a travelling speaker in 1904. She went to London as a speaker, together with Annie Kenney, whom she had inspired with her "sledgehammer of logic and cold reason". Together they worked on increasing support for the movement. In 1905, Keir Hardie asked to her become the second full-time organiser for the WSPU's activities with the Labour Party. Billington organised publicity and demonstrations, including on 25 April 1906, unveiling a 'Votes for Women' banner from the Ladies Gallery during the debate in the House of Commons to jeers and shouts. In June 1906, Billington was arrested in a fracas outside of the Chancellor of the Exchequer H. H. Asquith's home and accused of striking and kicking a police officer who arrested her. Billington claimed that the police officer had grabbed her aggressively, causing her bruises, and an inflammation to her throat. She refused to recognise the authority of the magistrates' court as women had played no part in defining the laws that it operated by. She was sentenced to a fine of £10 or two months in prison, and refused to pay the fine or have it paid for her. She became the first suffragette to be incarcerated in Holloway Prison. However, against her wishes, she was released within days after her fine was paid anonymously. Later in June 1906, Billington helped the WSPU in their canvassing against the Liberal Party candidate in the 1906 Huddersfield by-election with Emmeline Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, impressing local activist Hannah Mitchell. She then travelled to Scotland, in order to organise the WSPU's activism there. It was here that her oratory impressed and influenced Janie Allan. She met Frederick Lewis Greig (1875/76–1961) in Scotland, and married him on 8 February 1907, in Glasgow. They agreed to adopt a common surname of Billington-Greig and to be equals in the marriage. In an article written the same year, she stated "All the best-paid work is in the hands of men, and women are rigidly shut out. From all the higher posts in the lesser trades, and from all