A permanent memorial to an inspirational figure in the fight to get votes for women has been unveiled in Lancaster city centre.
Suffragette Selina Martin was imprisoned and brutally treated for her actions.
More than a century later, Lancaster Civic Vision have erected a plaque where she lived in Sun Street.
The plaque was unveiled by grandchildren Mrs Janice McCutcheon, Mrs Julie Howell and His Honour Phillip Sycamore CBE, former Honorary Recorder of Lancaster; great-grandchildren Sally Dennison and Thomas Sycamore; and great great grandchildren Jackson, Piper and Ruby Sycamore.
David Cam, Under-Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire also took part in the unveiling.
Selina Martin was born in Ulverston in 1887 and moved to Lancaster as a baby, growing up in Windermere Road. She was the eldest of eleven children and her family later moved to Sun Street.
Selina became a domestic servant. In the 1900s she became active in the suffragette movement, campaigning for the right to vote for women. On 1st April 1909, Selina Martin represented Lancaster as part of a group of suffragettes attempting to speak to the Prime Minister. As they tried to force their way into the House of Commons, they were arrested. Selina was jailed for a month at Holloway Prison.
In December 1909, Selina again tried to speak with Prime Minister Asquith in Liverpool. He ignored her, and frustrated, she threw a heavy stoneware bottle into his car. For this she was arrested and sentenced to two months’ hard labour.
During this imprisonment she went on hunger strike, refusing to eat and gaining more publicity for their cause. Selina was force fed, with a tube being violently inserted via her mouth and into her stomach. She was also roughly treated in prison, being chained to her bed, forced to wear wet clothes and thrown down stairs into a punishment cell.
Selina Martin’s actions show her bravery in campaigning for the right to vote. Her story was shared through newspapers and suffragette publications, gaining awareness and support for their cause.
She was awarded the Women’s Social and Political Union’s Hunger Strike Medal in recognition of her ordeal. In her later life she continued to live in Lancaster, where she ran a tobacconist’s shop.
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