Suffragette Selina Martin

Photograph of Selina Martin reading a book. Handwritten on the back is ‘From Selina Martin’.
In December 1909 in Liverpool, Martin, together with another suffragette, Leslie Hall, threw a ginger beer bottle into the car of Asquith, the Prime Minister. Although Asquith was not in the car at the time, and the vehicle was undamaged, the women were arrested and imprisoned both before and after their trial. Martin broke the windows in her cell and refused to eat. She was force fed and handled violently by the prison wardresses.
This episode led suffragette Lady Constance Lytton to adopt the guise of a working class suffragette, alias Jane Warton, and to publicise her experiences showing that the authorities treated working class women more brutally.