Miss Rachel Peace

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/454613.html

Additional Information: Rachel appears to have been a working class woman who was a committed suffragette and on the Home Office's 'dangerous suffragettes' list. However, the militant lifestyle was to take its toll on her. When Rachel was arrested in 1913, along with Mary Richardson, for setting fire to an empty house in Surrey, she recounted in court the horrific details of her forcible feeding in prison when on remand, in response to her hunger strike. It became clear during her testimony that she was emotionally fragile as a result of her experiences, and fellow suffragettes who were in the courtroom to support her were so incensed that they threw tomatoes and smashed glass in the court in protest at her treatment. They were themselves arrested. Rachel was sentenced to 18 months' hard labour. One month into her sentence, suffragettes who were worried about her condition attempted to plant a bomb at Holloway Prison where she was being held.