Beth Hesmondhalgh

Elizabeth Ellen Hesmondhalgh (active 1907–1914) was a cotton spinner in Preston, and a British suffragette. She was imprisoned twice for militant protesting on behalf of women's franchise and was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union's (WSPU) Hunger Strike Medal for valour. in Lancashire and married a railway signalman.

Hesmondhalgh was recruited as a member of the Preston branch of the Independent Labour Party, but was later banned for protesting when the MP Philip Snowden was speaking in the town, along with five other militant members of the Women's Social and Political Union.

She had joined the women's suffrage movement in 1907, with the encouragement of Edith Rigby, whom she met at the Independent Labour Party, and who was recruiting working women to the cause of women's suffrage from the local mills. Rigby had called her 'promising material', but persuading Hesmondhalgh had involved 'trying to get round her husband' who supported women's suffrage, despite the risks of arrest and loss of income Meetings were held initially in Rigby's home at 28, Winkley Square, Avenham and chaired by Grace Alderman.

Activism and arrests On 13 February 1907, Hesmondhalgh joined Rigby, Alderman, Rose Towler and the Pankhursts with a large WSPU contingent at the first 'Women's Parliament' in Caxton Hall,

In 1909, she put up posters in Preston which called Asquith, the Prime Minister 'Mr Double-Face' but the homemade glue was ineffective, so she and others wrapped the posters around potatoes, aiming to throw them and again she was arrested and sent to Preston prison.

Due to the militancy spreading, women were being denied access to political events, and the streets around venues cleared ahead of time, but a large crowd, estimated at 6,000, aimed to enter an event on 3 December 1909, held by Winston Churchill MP, who was president of the Board of Trade. Hesmondhalgh was in the front shouting outside the venue, with a large group, at the barriers in Fox Street, refusing to leave after being denied access. She was roughly grabbed from her position by the police (150 were on duty that night including some from London) and protesting women had been pelted by manure. She was arrested for 'obstruction' and sentenced to seven days in prison along with Rigby, Grace Alderman and Margaret Hewitt, or to be obliged to pay a fine. In her court appearance, she chose prison, and said that as a working woman she knew the value of the vote. She and the others went on hunger strike and were force-fed.

Further militancy and branch leadership In 1913, on Easter Monday, she went with Edith Rigby to Manchester's Free Trade Hall to listen to (and disrupt) a meeting of the Labour MP James Thomas. Rigby threw black puddings at the speaker; Hesmondhalgh was said to have laughed at the 'freshness' of the meat. She was sent to the Albert Hall national WSPU meeting with a 'creditable sum' raised from a 'Self-Denial Week', from their base now at 22 Adelphi Street, Preston. Her role was taken over by Eleanor Higginson. Later in 1914, Hesmondhalgh was reported as lending six books to the branch library.

Hunger strike medal Around this time she was presented with an illuminated address from Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU leader, for her services to the cause and was awarded the 'for valour' Hunger Strike Medal, After the war she lived with Eleanor Higginson in Bognor, Sussex.