 As graduates , Macmillan and four other women were full members of the General Council of Edinburgh University , but they were denied the opportunity to vote in February 1906 to determine the Member of Parliament who would represent the university seat . Macmillan argued that the wording of the General Council 's voting statutes used the word persons throughout , and that she and the other female graduates were indeed persons . In March , Macmillan wrote to Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy to ask for aid , as Elmy was the author of the pamphlet The Enfranchisement of Women . Macmillan told Elmy " I formed my beliefs on your pamphlet . " Elmy recommended she contact Charlotte Carmichael Stopes for additional useful arguments . Macmillan brought the case before the University Courts in 1907 but lost , and lost a subsequent appeal . Scottish suffragists banded together to raise the £ 1000 required to present a case to the House of Lords . They hoped to raise awareness in Great Britain of the absurdity and injustice of denying the vote to educated women such as themselves . 
