Margaret Macfarlane | |
|---|---|
 Margaret Macfarlane in a Home Office surveillance photograph of 1912 | |
| Born | 1888 |
| Organization | Women's Social and Political Union |
| Known for | Scottish suffragette |
Margaret Macfarlane (born 1888) was a Scottish suffragette and honorary secretary of the Women's Social and Political Union in Dundee and East Fife. [1]
From at least 1911, Macfarlane, a trained nurse, had started working for the cause of women's suffrage. In 1911, when Emmeline Pankhurst embarked on a speaking tour of Scotland, Macfarlane helped to co-organise a "crowded" public meeting in St Andrews, which was chaired by the secretary of the St Andrews branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. [2]
Her increasingly militant advocacy for women's suffrage led to her arrest in London in November 1911, at the age of 23. She was charged with breaking one of the largest windows in London at the office of the Hamburg America Line at Cockspur Street, valued at £104, and sentenced in March 1912 to four months in HM Prison Holloway. [3] She was one of 68 women who added their signatures or initials to a handkerchief embroidered by prisoners in Holloway in March 1912, and kept until 1950 by Mary Ann Hilliard, and still available to view at the Priest House West Hoathly. [4]
Macfarlane refused to eat in prison and was regularly force fed until her release at the end of June 1912. Her weight, she said, dropped from 7st 5lb on her entry to prison to 6st 6lb on her release. [5] She later described her experience of force feeding: [4]
I was lifted into a chair & tied with a strong sheet to the back of the chair. As far as I can remember, my arms were held on each side on the arms of the chair. There was a wardress with a feeding cup & one behind my chair, making a gag for the mouth with her fingers. Another held my knees. I told them that I would not swallow a drop of the gruel voluntarily. When they found that I did not retain any of the food, the one who was gagging me egged the others on to tickle me, to hold my nose to make me swallow, & to grip me on the throat, which to me is the most cruel. The pressing of the throat to make one swallow gives a fearful feeling of suffocation. When they got my feet up, my head was hanging right over the back of the chair, which added to the choking sensation.
Macfarlane continued her political work on her release, appearing in court again in January 1913 on charges of breaking a window of the Home Office and doing damage worth £2. She was ordered to pay the damage and a fine of 40 shillings. [6]
Emily Wilding Davison was an English suffragette who fought for votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a militant fighter for her cause, she was arrested on nine occasions, went on hunger strike seven times and was force fed on forty-nine occasions. She died after being hit by King George V's horse Anmer at the 1913 Derby when she walked onto the track during the race.
The Prisoners Act, commonly referred to as the Cat and Mouse Act, was an Act of Parliament passed in Britain under H. H. Asquith's Liberal government in 1913. Some members of the Women's Social and Political Union had been imprisoned for acts of vandalism in support of women's suffrage. In protest at being imprisoned some of the suffragettes undertook hunger strikes. The hunger strikers were force-fed by the prison staff, leading to a public outcry. The act was a response to the protestations. It allowed the prisoners to be released on licence as soon as the hunger strike affected their health; they then had a predetermined period of time in which to recover after which they were rearrested and taken back to prison to serve out the rest of their sentence. Conditions could be placed on the prisoner during the time of their release. One effect of the act was to make hunger strikes technically legal. The nickname of the Act came about because of the domestic cat's habit of playing with its prey, allowing it to temporarily escape a number of times, before killing it.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1917. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia.
Ann "Annie" Kenney was an English working-class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie Baldock. Kenney attracted the attention of the press and public in 1905 when she and Christabel Pankhurst were imprisoned for several days for assault and obstruction, after heckling Sir Edward Grey at a Liberal rally in Manchester on the issue of votes for women. The incident is credited with inaugurating a new phase in the struggle for women's suffrage in the UK, with the adoption of militant tactics. Annie had friendships with Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence, Mary Blathwayt, Clara Codd, Adela Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst.
Frances Mary "Fanny" Parker was a New Zealand-born suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for her actions.
A suffragette was a member of militant women's organisations in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections, known as women's suffrage. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience. In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, from suffragist, to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.
Jane "Janie" Allan was a leading source of funding and a Scottish activist for the militant suffragette movement of the early 20th century.
Mary Elizabeth Phillips was a suffragette, feminist and socialist. She was the longest prison serving suffragette. She worked for Christabel Pankhurst but was sacked; she then worked for Sylvia Pankhurst under name Mary Pederson. In later life she supported womens and childrens organisations.
Lilias Ashworth Hallett was a leading British suffragist. She organised, helped to fund activities and was a speaker. She was said to have been "made ill" by the militants but she conceded that it was the militants that created the progress that she spent years failing to achieve.
Alice Hawkins was a leading English suffragette among the boot and shoe machinists of Leicester. She went to prison five times for acts committed as part of the Women’s Social and Political Union militant campaign. Her husband Alfred Hawkins was also an active suffragette and received £100 when his kneecap was fractured as he was ejected from a meeting in Bradford. In 2018 a statue of Alice was unveiled in Leicester Market Square.
Frances Graves aka Frances Gordon was a British suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement prior to the First World War and was imprisoned and force-fed for her actions.
Caroline Phillips was a Scottish feminist, suffragette and journalist. She was honorary secretary of the Aberdeen branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), met and corresponded with many of the leaders of the movement and was also involved in the organisation of militant action in Aberdeen.
Margaret Skirving Gibb (1877–1954) was a Scottish suffragette and chess player. She was born in 1877. Her father was Peter Walker Gibb, a fish merchant, and her mother was Margaret Skirving. She was one of six siblings, one of whom was fellow suffragette Ellison Scotland Gibb. She died in Prestwick in 1954.
Edith Hudson was a British nurse and suffragette. She was an active member of the Edinburgh branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and was arrested several times for her part in their protests in Scotland and London. She engaged in hunger strikes while in prison and was forcibly fed. She was released after the last of these strikes under the so-called Cat and Mouse Act.
Elsie Diedrichs Duval was a British suffragist and campaigner for women's rights. She was arrested many times throughout her life and in 1913 became was the first woman to be released from prison under the so-called 'Cat and Mouse Act', she was also the second suffragist since the act's creation to be realised under it, the first being her then fiancée Hugh Franklin. Throughout her life Elsie was loyal to the suffrage cause and eventually died on 1 Jan 1919, one year after some women in the UK received the right to vote for the first time.
The Hunger Strike Medal was a silver medal awarded by the leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to suffragette prisoners who had gone on hunger strike for not being recognised as political prisoners while serving sentences in the prisons of the United Kingdom. Many women were force-fed.
Edith Marian Begbie was a militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who went on hunger strike in Winson Green Prison in Birmingham in 1912 and who was awarded the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal.
Alice Maud Shipley was a militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who received a prison sentence during which she went on hunger strike and was force-fed, for which action she received the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal.
Violet Mary Doudney was a teacher and militant suffragette who went on hunger strike in Holloway Prison where she was force-fed. She was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
Katharine Gatty was a nurse, journalist and lecturer and a militant suffragette who as a prominent member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) received the Hunger Strike Medal from the WSPU after going on hunger strike in prison for which she was force-fed. In her later years she resided in California in the United States before emigrating to Australia where she was to spend her last years.
