Evaline Hilda Burkitt
Evaline Hilda Burkitt (19 July 1876 – 7 March 1955) was a British suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
She lived with her wealthy grandparents Clarissa and Charles Burkitt until she was 25 years old, and then rejoined her family, who had moved to Birmingham.
[3] Hilda Burkitt began work as a secretary living in Sparkbrook in Birmingham and joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1907[4] after hearing Nell Kenney and later Emmeline Pankhurst speak.
[5] Burkitt was arrested four times in 1909, the last occasion being in September when she threw a stone at the window of the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's train as it pulled out of Birmingham New Street Station after he visited Birmingham to attend an all-male budget meeting at Bingley Hall.
Despite a heavy police presence suffragettes had managed to climb onto a nearby roof from where they hurled slates down at him.
On her release from Winson Green prison on 18 October 1909 she shouted a defiant "Votes for Women' to a small crowd including reporters.
[5] Following her release from Leeds Prison under the Cat and Mouse Act Burkitt managed to evade recapture until in 1914 she and fellow-suffragette Florence Tunks burnt down two wheat stacks at Bucklesham Farm valued at £340, the Pavilion at the Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth and the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe,[10] causing £36,000 of damage to the latter.
The two women refused to answer questions in Court and sat on a table chatting throughout the proceedings with their backs to the magistrates.
[7] A suffragette released from Holloway at the end of July 1914 stated that Burkitt was being force-fed up to four times a day.
The plaque commemorates the centenary of the burning down of the hotel and is on what remains of the building, at the site of the former Bartlet Hospital.
[17][18] From November to December 2018 an art installation of a portrait of Burkitt was placed in Birmingham New Street Station where she had thrown a stone at Asquith's train in 1909.
