Alice Riley was born in 1863 in Stafford, one of ten children, 7 girls 3 boys and by 23/24 years old, after marrying her husband moved to Leicester creating boots and shoes.

Bail was set at £2 for disorderly conduct and resisting the police, but all the women arrested chose to serve jail sentences instead.

[6] Supporters from the suffragette movement stood outside and cheered when the women were released after two weeks in jail, and marched to a celebratory breakfast.

[6] Hawkins was jailed a second time in 1909 as she tried to force entry into a public meeting where Winston Churchill was speaking in Leicester, at which suffragettes had been specifically barred.

His case had been taken up by the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement after he was thrown down some stairs after protesting against Winston Churchill during a Liberal party meeting Bradford.

[12] In 1913 Hawkins was among the representatives chosen to speak with leading politicians David Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey.

Hawkins explained how her fellow male workers could choose a man to represent them whilst the women were left unrepresented.

[14][15] Three of Hakwins's sons joined the army in World War I, in different regiments, and all met by chance 10 miles behind enemy lines and a local photographer captured them.

In 2018, a five-year funding campaign ended when a seven foot high statue was unveiled in market square by four women including Manjula Sood and Liz Kendall.

The ceremony was witnessed by Helen Pankhurst, dozens of her relatives and hundreds of people, as part of the centenary celebrations of Votes for Women.

[16] Her great-grandson, Peter Barratt speaks to schools and at public events, a century later, that Hawkins was fighting for women to have equal pay and that is still not achieved, and encouraging all people to use their right to vote.

He found the transcript in the National Archives of the delegation including Hawkins of Working Women to Lloyd George, the chancellor, from January 1913.