In 1912 Harding was invited to join the Waterhouse family in London, England, where Dr. Ernest Waterhouse had business interests. Within days, Harding witnessed her first poster parade of women carrying placards with slogans such as "Votes for Women" and "No Taxation without Representation". Drawn to the cause (which had begun 47 years earlier), she was soon a paid
Women's Social and Political Union organizer, financially independent. She moved out on her own for the first time. Harding’s first big ‘job’ was to stage a midnight attack on rare orchids with comrade
Lilian Lenton at the
Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew (Lilian soon became a daring arsonist for the cause). Gert Harding started working on the newspaper,
The Suffragette, when Headquarters at Lincoln's Inn was raided by Scotland Yard and the paper driven underground. Of greatest note in her career with the WSPU is that Harding was asked to 'head up' the secret bodyguard of women assigned to protect their leader, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, from constant rearrest by
Scotland Yard during the
Cat and Mouse Act. The bodyguard learned
jujitsu from
Edith Garrud and carried
Indian clubs. Despite this, the women were typically heavily outnumbered by the police and frequently suffered injuries including contusions, broken bones, dislocated joints and concussions. Their best successes against bobbies and Scotland Yard detectives came from outwitting them, using disguises, decoys and other forms of subterfuge. On two occasions, a decoy 'Mrs Pankhurst' was arrested, allowing the real Mrs Pankhurst to escape undetected. In 1914, Harding became editor of
The Suffragette newspaper. When War broke out, Harding remained as part of the skeletal staff of the WSPU, remaining loyal to the Pankhursts in their allegiance to the British Government during the war effort. Harding was private secretary to
Christabel Pankhurst when Christabel was exiled in Paris (1915).
The Suffragette newspaper was renamed
Britannia, and Harding edited this for five months into 1915. Eventually the Pankhursts had to let her go through lack of funds. Harding landed a job at the Gretna Munitions factory in Scotland, providing social assistance to the women who worked there under terrible conditions. == Later years ==