Frances Gordon
[1] The caretaker fired two shots with his revolver to alert the local constable on the beat, the noise of which caused the other suffragettes accompanying Gordon to flee the house.
[1] The lady owner of Springhall House declined to prosecute Gordon but the public prosecutor decided to proceed with the trial date fixed for 22 June 1914.
The prisoners' mouths were held open by a metal device so that they could be fed by a funnel connected to a Vaseline-coated rubber tube pushed down their throats into their stomachs.
"[6] On 26 June 1914, Dr. Watson, described as an "ambitious medical officer who had volunteered to force feed women on hunger strike",[5] informed the governor of Perth prison that Gordon was of "a highly neurotic and hysterical temperament.
"[1] Watson recorded that as Gordon vomited so much, he decided to feed her rectally through nutrient enemas in addition to food from the nasal tube from 30 June onwards.
[1] On 26 June 1914, Janie Allan, a leading Scottish activist in the militant suffragette movement, wrote to the Chairman of the Prison Commission that the burning down of Whitekirk Church in East Lothian, one of Scotland's most beautiful medieval churches, was the direct result of the force-feeding of Ethel Moorhead in Calton Prison and that the Scottish suffragettes would take strong action if the same was proved to have been inflicted on Arabella Scott and Frances Gordon.
[1] Allan also wrote a similar letter to Dr. James Drevon stating that "there are many women who, 6 months ago, were not prepared to do anything violently militant, but who today would not hesitate."
As a consequence, the planned tour of Scotland by the King and Queen in mid-July would see protests which "would be regrettable but to those who know how high feeling runs against forcible feeding, such incidents would cause no surprise.
The socialist Tom Anderson wrote to the Glasgow Evening Times about the case which quoted from the medical assessment Dr. Mabel Jones conducted on Gordon on her release:"I saw her (Miss.
Her appearance was appalling, like a famine victim: the skin brown, her face bones standing out, her eyes half shut, her voice a whisper, her hands quite cold, her pulse a thread, her wrist joints slightly swollen, stiff, and painful, the breath most offensive, and the contents of the bowel beyond control.
[4] On 16 July 1914, Lord Hugh Cecil, John Pratt and Maurice Healy all raised the question of Frances Gordon's treatment in the House of Commons.
[citation needed] On 10 August 1914, not long after the outbreak of the First World War, the British government ordered that all prisoners convicted of suffrage agitation be released.
[6] Three days after this, Emmeline Pankhurst called an end to all militancy stating "it has been decided to economise the Union's energies and financial resources by a temporary suspension of activities.
"[6] In 2010, the story of the four suffragettes - Scott, Gordon, Parker and Maude Edwards - at Perth prison has been turned into a stage play, Cat and Mouse, by playwright Ajay Close.
