Caprina Fahey (née Gilbert; 13 September 1883 – 26 October 1959) was a British suffragette who was given the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) Hunger Strike Medal "for Valour" in 1914.
[6] He disapproved of her later activism as a suffragette, commenting in a letter in 1909 "Cappie a thumper of drums or a 'tootler' on Flutes and a banner waver in a rotten Cause!!!!
[8][11][4] Fahey served with the French Red Cross as a masseuse during World War I, where she is thought to have met her second husband Edward Knight.
[4] Fahey also helped at Longdown Farm, organising suffragette meetings in central Buckinghamshire,[13] where she stayed in the summers of 1908 and 1909.
[14] Fahey was arrested in 1909, along with twenty six other suffragette campaigners who marched from Caxton Hall, Westminster and attempted to enter the House of Commons.
[8] She was sentenced for obstruction with Constance Lytton, Daisy Solomon, Rose Lamartine Yates and Sarah Carwin, receiving one month in prison.
[8] Fahey associated with local Norfolk suffragettes including Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh, Grace Marcon and Miriam Pratt.
[4] By 1913, Fahey was asked to be a 'captain', leading one of twenty two groups of suffragette mourners along with Leonora Tyson, Elsa Myers, Eleanor Glidewell, and Dorothea Rock at the funeral procession of Emily Davison.
[8] Caprina Fahey was awarded the WSPU Hunger Strike Medal "for Valour" dated 14 March 1914 when she was arrested under the name Emily Charlton.
[1] Her legacy as a suffragette was not mentioned in her death notice, but her time in the Red Cross, as a state registered midwife and as an Air Raid ARP Warden and membership of the Women's Institute were recorded.