Caprina Fahey was a British suffragette who was given the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) Hunger Strike Medal "for Valour" in 1914. She was an active member of the WSPU and was imprisoned twice in Holloway Prison. In 2017, the Norfolk Museums Service made a successful appeal for information about her life.
Suffragette prisoners procession, 1909
The Hunger Strike Medal was a silver medal awarded between August 1909 and 1914 to suffragette prisoners by the leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). During their imprisonment, they went on hunger strike while serving their sentences in the prisons of the United Kingdom for acts of militancy in their campaign for women's suffrage. Many women were force-fed and their individual medals were created to reflect this.
Medal awarded to Myra Sadd Brown in 1912
Medal in its presentation case with silver bar for a hunger strike and enamel bar for force-feeding awarded by the WSPU to Mabel Capper
Hunger Strike Medal awarded to Georgina Fanny Cheffins
Charlotte Blacklock's Hunger Strike Medal, Museum of Australian Democracy collection