Frances Parker

Who was Frances Parker?

Frances Mary "Fanny" Parker was a British suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for her actions.

Born in New Zealand, Parker came from a well off background and was a niece of Lord Kitchener. Her famous uncle would later declare himself "disgusted" by her involvement in the women's movement. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, receiving a degree in 1899, and subsequently spent several years working as a teacher in France and New Zealand. On her return to Britain she began campaigning for women's suffrage, initially with the Scottish Universities Women's Suffrage Union, and later with Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union, for which she became organiser in the West of Scotland in 1912.

Parker took part in increasingly militant actions, for which she was imprisoned several times. She served six weeks for obstruction in 1908 following a demonstration. Later she was sentenced to four months in Holloway Prison in March 1912 after taking part in a WSPU-organised window-smashing raid. Like many suffragettes she went on hunger strike and was subjected to force-feeding. Later that year she was imprisoned twice, once for breaking windows, and once for breaking into The Music Hall in Aberdeen with the intention of disrupting an appearance by David Lloyd George. On both occasions she was released after going on hunger-strike for several days.