She was an active member of a Women's Liberal Association (fifteen of which joined together in 1887 to become the Women's Liberal Federation that ultimately grew to 942 affiliated associations) and later, in 1907, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She took part in the WSPU march to the Royal Albert Hall in June 1908. Billinghurst helped organise the WSPU response in the Haggerston by-election in July 1908, polling was on the day that twenty-four suffragettes were released from Holloway prison and came around the area canvassing to 'keep the Liberal out.' In 1909, she was presumed by Annie Barnes to be the wheelchair user seen distracting a police horse, who laughed as another woman seemed to tip the rider off. He fell in the horse trough. The occupant of the wheelchair was the one arrested and rough handled into a waiting police van.