Marion Wallace Dunlop

Who was Marion Wallace Dunlop?

Marion Wallace Dunlop was the first and one of the most well known British suffragette to go on hunger strike, on 5 July 1909, after being arrested in July 1909 for militancy.

Born in Inverness, Scotland and moved later to England. She was an artist who displayed her work at the Royal Academy in 1905 and 1906 and also worked as an illustrator. She became an active member of the Women's Social and Political Union and was first arrested in 1908 for "obstruction" and again in 1908 for leading a group of women in a march. In 1909 she was arrested a third time, in this case for stenciling a passage from the Bill of Rights on a wall of the House of Commons which read, "It is the right of the subject to petition the King, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal." There was never any suggestion that anyone advised or recommended that she go on a hunger strike. All indications are that it was her idea. However, shortly after word got out, hunger-striking became standard suffragette practice. Christabel Pankhurst later reported: "Miss Wallace Dunlop, taking counsel with no one and acting entirely on her own initiative, sent to the Home Secretary, Mr.