Sarah Benett

Before Sarah Benett became involved in fighting for women's suffrage she was active in social reform.

After the death of her mother in 1894 Benett moved to Burslem in Staffordshire where she started another co-operative society and a general store in nearby Hanley, which she managed.

[2] In 1907 after attending a meeting where the speaker was Flora Drummond Bennet immediately realised that this important cause was where she needed to put her efforts and at the age of 57 joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the newly formed Women's Freedom League (WFL).

Benett took part in the WSPU's window smashing campaigns of 1911 and 1912 and was released early from her three-month jail sentence in Holloway Prison in 1912 after going on hunger strike,[2] for which action she received the Hunger Strike Medal and Holloway brooch from the WSPU.

On one day near Berwick they walked over 30 miles before the now seven marchers were welcomed by the local Member of Parliament.

[3] For her part in the smashing of windows at Selfridges in 1913 in protest over the government's withdrawal of the Franchise Bill Benett received a six-month prison sentence.

[11] Her biography Rebel With a Cause: The Life and Times of Sarah Benett, 1850-1924, Social Reformer and Suffragette by Iain Gordon was published in 2018.