Isabella Claude Potbury (1890 – 31 July 1965) was a portrait painter,[1] a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a militant suffragette[2] who was arrested several times and imprisoned during which she was force-fed.[3] She was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal by the leadership of the WSPU.[citation needed]
Isabella Potbury was born in 1890 in Epsom in Surrey, the daughter of Harriet Alice née Clapham (1862–1942) and Cambridge-educated schoolmaster John Albert Potbury (1859–1903).[4]
She was first arrested on 25 November 1910 following which she appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court. She was in the dock there again on 24 November 1911 after a further arrest following which she was imprisoned. Potbury was back in court at the London Sessions on 12 December 1911 and again appeared at Bow Street on 7 March 1912 after breaking ten windows with Olive Wharry and Mollie Ward at Messers Robinson and Cleaver on Regent Street in London valued at £195. A student aged 22, Potbury was sent for trial at the London Sessions on 19 March 1912, receiving a sentence of six months imprisonment in Holloway Prison where she was a co-signatory on The Suffragette Handkerchief in 1912.[5] She was released early at the end of June 1912 after joining the hunger strike and being force-fed.[6] Her final appearance at Bow Street was on 30 June 1914.[2][7]
In 1929 she married the playwright and actor Charles Nicholas Spencer (1898–1958)[1] at Chelsea in London.[8] The couple lived at 113 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea.
Isabella Claude Spencer died in 1965 at Chelsea in London.[9][10]
References
edit- ^ a b 1939 England and Wales Register for Isabella C Spencer: London, Chelsea - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
- ^ a b Roll of Honour of Suffragette Prisoners 1905-1914 - The National Archives
- ^ Miss Isabelle Claude Potbury - Women's Suffrage: History and Citizenship resources for schools
- ^ Isabella Claude Potbury in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915 - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
- ^ Maureen Daly Goggin and Beth Fowkes Tobin (ed.) Women and Things 1750-1950: Gendered Material Strategies, Routledge (2016) - Google Books pg. 35
- ^ "The Suffragette Handkerchief (1912) - Sussex Past pg. 8" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
- ^ England, Suffragettes Arrested, 1906-1914 for Isabelle Potbury: HO 45/24665: Suffragettes: Amnesty of August 1914: Index of Women Arrested, 1906-1914 - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
- ^ Isabelle C Potbury in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
- ^ Isabella C Spencer in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
- ^ England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 for Isabella Claude Spencer 1965 - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
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