Lilian Lenton

Lilian Ida Lenton (5 January 1891 – 28 October 1972) was an English dancer, suffragist, and winner of a French Red Cross medal for her service as an Orderly in World War I.

'Lillie' Lenton was born in Leicester in 1891, the eldest of five children born to Isaac Lenton (1867–1930), a carpenter-joiner, and his wife Mahalah (née Bee) (1864–1920), a housewife. On leaving school she trained to be a dancer, but, after hearing Emmeline Pankhurst speak, she " ... made up my mind that night that as soon as I was twenty-one and my own boss ... I would volunteer". On attaining that age, she joined the Women's Social and Political Union, and with fellow members took part in a window-smashing campaign in March 1912. She was jailed for two months under the alias 'Ida Inkley'.

In early 1913, with Olive Wharry, she began a series of arson attacks in London, and was arrested in February 1913 on suspicion of having set on fire the Tea House at Kew Gardens. In Holloway Prison she held a hunger strike for two days before being forcibly fed, which caused her to become seriously ill with pleurisy caused by food entering her lungs. It took two doctors and seven wardens to restrain her. She was quickly and quietly released. Her case created an outrage among the public, made worse by the fact that the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna, denied that she had been force fed and that her illness was actually caused by her hunger strike. However, Home Office papers show that she was force fed on 23 February 1913. A letter to The Times in 1913, from Victor Horsley, a leading surgeon, claimed "...the Home Secretary's attempted denial that Miss Lenton was nearly killed by the forcible feeding is worthless...she was tied into a chair and her head dragged backward across the back of the chair by her hair. The tube was forced through the nose twice . . . after the second introduction when the food was poured in, it caused violent choking." To avoid more such political embarrassment, the Government rushed through its 'Cat and Mouse Act' in April 1913, which stated that hunger-striking suffragette 'mice' could be released on temporary licence to recover their health, when the security forces could re-arrest them.

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