Miss Dorothy Agnes Bowker

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999); Jill Liddington, Vanishing for the Vote (2014)

Additional Information: Dorothy joined the WSPU in 1909 after hearing Emmeline Pankhurst speak in Torquay. The speech clearly had a huge impact, as prior to this, Dorothy had been against militant tactics. She subsequently worked for the WSPU campaign in Cornwall and also helped to organise branches in Leicester and Loughborough. Between 1910 and 1912, she was the WSPU's organiser in Hastings and St Leonards, also spending some time in London. In 1911, she took part in the suffrage boycott of the government's population census survey, scrawling across her form at 7 York Street, Marylebone in London: 'No Vote-No Census. I am Dumb politically Blind to the census Deaf to the Enumerators. Being classed with criminals, lunatics and paupers I prefer to give no further particulars.' In 1912, Dorothy took part in the WSPU's window-smashing campaign. She was sentenced to three months in Aylesbury Prison, where she joined in a hunger strike.

Other Suffrage Activities: Dorothy joined the Women's Land Army when war broke out in 1914, after which she spent time abroad in Canada and California, USA. She returned to Hampshire in 1934 and was elected to the borough council, where she served for 19 years.