Lets apartments

48

Single

46 Shaftesbury Road, Earlsdon, Coventry

WSPU

Complies

Alice was born in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. In the 1890s, she lived with her brother (a cycle manufacturer) and his wife and children, but by 1901 seems to have moved in with her sister's family. By 1911, they were living at 46 Shaftesbury Road, Coventry. Alice was likely responsible for getting the suffragette WSPU branch in Coventry started some time in late spring of 1908, serving as both secretary and President in its early days. That year (and by then residing in Queens Road) Alice was the only woman representing Coventry in a deputation of women who travelled to London to see the Prime Minister to put the votes for women case to him. The PM refused to speak with them. So, the women reassembled at nearby Caxton Hall where it was decided to return to Parliament Square to protest at this refusal. There, the women were prevented by police and scuffles broke out leading to Alice's arrest for obstruction. In a postcard home, she claimed not to have been arrested for obstruction, but for simply trying to address the crowd. Like the more than 20 other women arrested that day, she was offered the choice of a fine or imprisonment. Alice elected to serve the cause by going to prison and spent one month in Holloway. She was released with 15 other suffragettes on the 31st of July. The women were met at the gate by crowds of well wishers including WSPU leaders Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst with bouquets and a brass band before being whisked by wagonette to a celebratory breakfast. Upon returning to Coventry, Alice was invited to speak about her experiences to local votes for women supporters at St Peter's Vicarage by (see) Rev. Percy Widdrington. At the meeting she said 'she did not regret her month in Holloway. She was not at all a penitent prisoner. She went to prison because it seemed to her the only way, or at any rate the best way, in which she could help the movement'. In 1909, she seems to have officially left the Coventry WSPU who gifted Alice an enameled pendant as 'a token of their high regard and affection' and for the suffering she had endured in prison. Alice's reason for leaving is unclear, but she thanked them for the gift and 'assured them that the hardest thing to do for the cause was to do nothing'. She continued to take an interest in the campaign and attend meetings. In 1911 she complied with the census, choosing not to take part in the wider suffragette boycott of the survey that year. Thereafter, and like many suffrage campaigners, she slips into obscurity. Alice died in January 1945 aged 82, and was still resident in Coventry. Researcher: Tara Morton. Coventry research funded by Warwick University.