Miss Jessie Spink

Other sources: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4769024
https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/g11f1wfhz51
Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928 (1999)

Additional Information: Jessie is recorded in the suffragette arrest book as Jessie 'Spinks' but this was in mistake for Jessie Spink. During the women's suffrage campaign, she changed her name completely to 'Vera Wentworth' and it is this name by which she has become best known in the suffrage movement. Vera probably joined the WSPU in 1907 and was arrested in 1908 after taking part in a 'raid' on the House of Commons. She was sentenced to six weeks in prison. Afterwards, Vera was arrested multiple times for taking part in other protests and demonstrations, including heckling Liberal Cabinet minister meetings and window smashing. She also went on hunger strike during her various times in prison and was forcibly fed. Jessie was a member of the daring Young Hot Bloods (YHB), a secretive group within the WSPU who were all under the age of 30. Jessie also wrote a one-act play called 'An Allegory', which was put on stage by the Actresses Franchise League (AFL), with suffragette prisoners in the lead roles. In 1912, Vera, a shop assistant, realised her dream of going to university, attending classes in history and politics at St Andrews University in Scotland. However, she still kept in touch with the suffrage cause, and in 1914 she was one of the women who interrupted and harrassed the Prime Minister when he was on holiday in Devon.