Mary Ann Aldham was an English militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who was imprisoned at least seven times.
Mary Ann Aldham in a Home Office surveillance photograph (c. 1914)
Mary Ann Aldham signed the Suffragette Handkerchief, Holloway 1912.
This portrait of Henry James by John Singer Sargent was slashed by Aldham at the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1914
A newspaper cutting from 1914 concerning Aldham's attack at the Royal Academy
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.
