Evaline Hilda Burkitt was a British suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). A militant activist for women's rights, she went on hunger strike in prison and was the first suffragette to be forcibly-fed. Between 1909 and 1914 she was force-fed 292 times and was the last woman to be so treated in Holloway Prison. She was a recipient of the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal.
Winson Green Prison in the 1920s
The Pavilion on Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth before and after the arson attack in 1914
Hilda Burkitt c.1905: the 2018 artwork was based on this photograph by her sister Ida Lillian Burkitt
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. 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, derived from suffragistα, in order 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.
Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst of the WSPU, c. 1908
Emmeline Pankhurst founded the WSPU in 1903 and became the most prominent of Britain's suffragettes.
Mannequin of Lilian Metge
Emily Davison became known in the WSPU for her daring militant action.