Miss Ada Cecile Granville Wright

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

Additional Information: Ada had become interested in the suffrage movement in the 1880s. She collected signatures for a suffrage petition in 1886 and later joined the NUWSS in Bournemouth. When she heard about the militancy of the WSPU, she drew out all her savings from the bank and travelled to London to be part of it all. In 1907, she was arrested when taking part in a deputation to the Houses of Parliament, and was sentenced to two weeks in prison. Ada was then arrested on multiple other occasions for attending deputations and was physically assaulted when taking part in a WSPU demonstration in Parliament Square, which was to become known as 'Black Friday' because of the violent response by police. A photograph was taken of Ada lying on the ground after being struck by a policeman, and this was splashed across the front page of the newspaper The Daily Mirror. It generated much sympathy for the women's suffrage cause. Undeterred by the assault, Ada was arrested on other occasions for window smashing, and went on hunger strikes in prison and was forcibly fed. On one occasion she became very ill and was temporarily released under the government's 'Cat and Mouse Act' to recover. Ada also sheltered Emmeline Pankhurst when she was a 'mouse' and on the run. In 1914, she was arrested in a scuffle surrounding Emmeline's escape from the Brackenbury family home, better known as 'Mouse Castle'. Ada was arrested again for appearing with Emmeline at a meeting that year and for taking a deputation to the King at Buckingham Palace.