Elsie Howey

Rose Elsie Neville Howey (1 December 1884 – 13 March 1963), known as Elsie Howey, was an English suffragette.

Activism In 1909 Howey was invited to, Eagle House, the home of Mary Blathwayt to plant a Nordmann Fir. The honour was given to leading suffragists Howey joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a militant suffrage organisation, in 1907

In February 1908, she and her sister, Mary Gertrude Howey, were arrested alongside other WSPU members after hiding in a pantechnicon van that was driven into the House of Commons. After her release, she joined Annie Kenney and Mary Blathwayt to campaign at a by-election in Shropshire in May 1908. Soon afterwards, she was imprisoned again for three months for protesting outside the home of then-Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. assisted by Vera Holme inside and Minnie Baldock.

She went further on 5 September 1910, when Howey and two other suffragettes, Vera Wentworth and Jessie Kenney, assaulted Prime Minister Asquith and Herbert Gladstone while the men were playing golf, and pursued Asquith to his holiday home, left protest cards, saying "Release Patricia Woodlock" and other suffragette materials in his private garden. The actions proved too much for Mary Blathwayt's family. Her mother, Emily, resigned from the WSPU and her father, Linley, wrote letters of protest to Christabel Pankhurst, Howey and Wentworth. Pankhurst was told that Howey and Wentworth could not visit their house again. Wentworth sent them a long reply expressing regret at their reaction but noting that "if Mr. Asquith will not receive deputation they will pummel him again".

From 1910, Howey campaigned for the WSPU in Liverpool. On 14 January 1910, Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton was imprisoned and forcibly fed at Walton Gaol. In response, Howey broke the gaol governor's windows so that she too would be jailed in support of Lytton. Lytton in turn called Howey "valiant" and the "most dear one of our members".

In April 1910, The role was also played by nineteen year old actress Marjery Bryce.

In July Howey was arrested again for demonstrating in Penzance in Cornwall. She was imprisoned for seven days, during which time she undertook a hunger strike and fasted for 144 hours.

When the 1911 census was taken, she participated in the suffragette boycott of the census and refused to be enumerated, writing "Votes for Women" on her form.

Howey was jailed at least six times in her career as a suffragette. She often took hunger strikes in prison and endured forcible feeding; Her last arrest was in December 1912 It was probably caused by her multiple episodes of forcible feeding.