Lady Constance Georgina Lytton (1869 - 1923)

Lady Constance Georgina Lytton ©

The girl who would grow up to be a suffragette, came from a long and illustrious patrician family. Her father was a statesman, her grandfather a noted author and politician and her great-grandmother was the early 19th century feminist Anna Wheeler. Her family was surrounded by many of the great artistic, political and literary names of the day. Indeed, one of her sisters would go on to marry the architect Edwin Lutyens, while another married Gerald Balfour, the future Prime Minister.

Born in Vienna, Austria, she spent much of her youth living in Europe and India, following the path of her ambassador father. Yet at an early age she rejected this aristocratic way of life as best she could. When her father died, and there was little need to keep a public face, she retired from view - her main activity being the care of her mother. She found little interest in the outside world, and rejected all attempts by family and friends to pull her into it.

When her godmother and great-aunt died, leaving her a £1000, things slowly changed. The £1000 was given to support the revival of Morris dancing. Shortly thereafter she was taken on a tour of some suffragettes locked up in Holloway prison. The sight of these girls changed her outlook dramatically. In 1909, she joined the Women's Political and Social Union and once again became an active member of society - albeit suffragette society. She toured the country giving speeches, fighting the cause in Parliament and telling her posh connections about the cause in the hopes of motivating them to action.

Knowing the right people served her well. When she herself was thrown into Holloway for protesting, she was released when the authorities found out who she was. Yet a year later she'd find herself in prison again. This time it was for throwing rocks at a MP's car. She tried to outsmart the authorities by telling them she was merely a working-class girl named Jane Warton. In prison she tried the suffragette-proven method of protest and went on hunger strike, and was force-fed no less than eight times. Upon her release from jail she lectured on the subject of her time spent there, and the trying conditions under which suffragette prisoners lived. It's thought that her speech helped to end the practice of force-feeding.

The strain of her imprisonment took its toll shortly thereafter. She suffered a heart attack in August of 1910, and in 1912 suffered a stroke that left her paralysed on her right side. Not easily stopped, she forced herself to write with her left hand, and penned her account of being an imprisoned suffragette called Prisons and Prisoners. She died in 1923.