No Occupation

29

Single

19 Hermitage Road (off Hagley Road) Birmingham, B15 3UP

WSPU

Evades

Bertha Ryland joined the WSPU in 1908 and quickly threw herself into work. In 1910 she set up a WSPU base in Lichfield and spent the first few months of 1911 drumming up support in the Midlands towns of Walsall, Stafford and Hanley. Later in 1911, she took part in the WSPU window smashing raid for which she recieved seven days imprisonment. Perhaps unsuprisingly, Bertha also took part in the illegal boycott of the 1911 census - hence she is absent from the census form and from her home on census night. A committed 'sufragette' Bertha went on to smash more windows the following year, and was subsequently sentenced to four months hard labour. she was sent to Winson Green Prison where she went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed. in 1914 she used a cleaver to damage the painting Master Thornhill in Birmingham Art Gallery. For more on Bertha, see, E. Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928 (London: Routledge, 2001) & https://womanandhersphere.com/2013/03/22/suffrage-stories-from-frederick-street-to-winson-green-the-birmingham-womens-suffrage-campaign/