Myra Sadd Brown

A suffragette, she became a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1907 and, after breaking a window at the War Office in 1912 was sentenced to two months in prison with hard labour.

The couple decorated their wedding venue, the Congregational chapel in Maldon, in purple, white and green, which later became the colours of the Women's Social and Political Union.

A lover of the arts, she enjoyed the plays of George Bernard Shaw and numbered artists among her friends, including Henry Holiday and Jessie Mothersole.

Her letters publicising the cause regularly appeared in such publications as the Christian Commonwealth and she also involved her children in the fight including persuading her teenage daughter Myra to stand in the street selling copies of The Woman's Dreadnought.

[2] On 4 March 1912 Sadd Brown was arrested for throwing a brick through a window at the War Office,[5] for which she was sentenced to two months hard labour in Holloway Prison[6] together with a number of other suffragettes including Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst.

"[11] While on hunger strike her letter to him said: "I want you to tell all inquiring friends that I am quite well, my spirit not in the least cooled & that I think we still have the noblest cause in the world, one well worth fighting and suffering for.

"[12] In a letter dated 20 March 1912 she wrote: "Mrs Pankhurst and Ethel Smyth came back to this wing yesterday... Oh just fancy these two great women sitting sewing all afternoon on garments for prisoners – can you imagine anything more ironic, it certainly does seem that the world is topsy-turvy.

"[13] In a letter to her children written on toilet paper she states: "I have such a funny little bed, which I can turn right up to the wall when I don't use it.

[1] Her husband Ernest Sadd Brown, who had supported her throughout her years of campaigning and activism, died of rheumatic heart disease in 1930.

[1][19][20] A radio item [21] features Sadd Brown's experiences in prison from her letters and talking to her granddaughter by Beth Moss.