IMPRISONMENT Prior to the Derby day of 1913, Vivie had heard of Emily Wilding Davison as a Northumbrian woman, distantly related to the Rossiters and also to the Lady Shillito she had once defended.

She came from Morpeth in Northumberland and had had a very distinguished University career at Oxford and in London, of which latter university she was a B.A.The theme of the electoral enfranchisement of Women had gradually possessed her mind to the exclusion of all other subjects; she became in fact a fanatic in the cause and a predestined martyr to it.

In 1909 she had received her first sentence of imprisonment for making a constitutional protest, and to escape forcible feeding had barricaded her cell.

The Visiting Committee had driven her from this position by directing the warders to turn a hose pipe on her and knock her senseless with a douche of cold water; for which irregularity they were afterwards fined and mulcted in costs.

Two years later, for another Suffragist offence (setting fire to a pillar box after giving warning of her intention) she went to prison for six months.