Arabella Scott

[1] WSPU activism ceased when the First World War began and Scott became a field nurse, later she married emigrated to Australia.

[9] She joined the group of WFL members taking a petition on women's suffrage to the British Prime Minister in Downing Street in 1909, which was the first time she was arrested.

She then decided that the WFL was not going to achieve universal women's suffrage and joined the more militant Women's Social and Political Union both in Scotland and in the south of England, and was convicted of arson and other charges associated with militant action, and when in prison, Arabella Scott went on hunger strikes, and was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal.

[3][10] In July 1909, Arabella and her sister Muriel Scott were both arrested on the charge of obstruction in London after they tried to hand a petition to the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, and were sentenced to serve 21 days at HM Prison Holloway.

They would be re-arrested at a later time to complete their sentences,[11] if they did not return voluntarily or provide a current address and all Scottish police forces were informed of the need to find and arrest them, as per the case file.

[12] Scott was caught on 12 June 1913 at the house of sympathiser Miss de Pass[15] and rearrested, when she returned to Calton Gaol she went on hunger strike again.

She only served a few days of her sentence, as on 16 June she was assessed as too weak by a medical officer and was released on licence again[3] but did not return to the jail.

[1] On 28 August the medical officer put her forward for immediate discharge due to her health, however she had to be removed from the jail by force as she did not want to be placed on leave under licence once more.

[3] She was found on 19 June during a raid at a suffragette house, where she was rearrested and forced to return to jail, this time in Perth Prison, where she was force-fed.

[17] She knew this as she had sent a bunch of sweet peas to Ethel Moorhead in March that year, when she had been suffering from this treatment and was eventually being released in health grounds.

[4] Her autobiography, My Murky Past, was compiled and edited by her niece, Frances Wheelhouse, from taped interviews, and has the details which Scott used to describe a force-feeding tube being driven into her stomach as bits of her broken teeth washed around with blood in her mouth.

[6] She became a member of the Australian branch of the Suffragette Fellowship[21] [22] and was proud of her past, encouraging girls she taught to stand up for their rights.

[5] The details were based on Watson's reports held in the National Archives of Scotland and from the select transcripts of taped interviews with Arabella Scott, provided by Frances Wheelhouse.

political image of 'Cat and Mouse' Act 1914
Force feeding (suffragettes)
Photograph of a square metal grave marker bearing the name 'Arabella Charlotte Colville-Reeves', the dates '7.5.1886 - 27.8.1980' and the epitaph 'In loving memory'.
Arabella Scott's grave marker