Frances Gordon

Frances Graves aka Frances Gordon (born around 1874) was a British suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement prior to the First World War and was imprisoned and force-fed for her actions.

Campaigning for women's suffrage and arrest Frances (Florence) Graves adopted the alias Frances Gordon while campaigning for women's suffrage. Adopting an alias was not uncommon for campaigners, either to avoid their families being condemned by association or to evade capture by police. The house was not occupied but a caretaker was awoken by a noise at 2:30am and was astonished to find Gordon in the parlour. Dr Hugh Ferguson Watson had already subjected Ethel Moorhead to the treatment at Calton Prison in February 1914. The prisoners' mouths were held open by a metal device so that they could be fed by a funnel connected to a Vaseline-coated rubber tube pushed down their throats into their stomachs. The mixture contained eggs, sweetened milk, and meat juice.

Gordon's force-feeding was to last ten days. informed the governor of Perth prison that Gordon was of "a highly neurotic and hysterical temperament. There has been more or less nervous prostration since I told her that I had orders to feed her." Even during her sleep, Gordon "talked much about tubes and feeding". She had a very narrow phalanx and nasal passage and had "great difficulty breathing after the tube is passed." The then Secretary for Scotland (Thomas McKinnon Wood) replied that:"On admission she was at once put to bed and treated as a sick prisoner. Her condition required the administration of enemata, and I have no reason to doubt that in the circumstances the doctor treated her case properly and humanely. The doctor states that there was very little difference in her appearance when she was discharged...that she made no complaint of pain; that she was able to converse, and did converse freely with the doctor's assistant who accompanied her on the journey to Glasgow; that it is true that the breath was offensive, but that it had been offensive from the date of admission; and that generally the statement as to her condition is exaggerated."

In 2010, the story of the four suffragettes – Scott, Gordon, Parker and Maude Edwards – at Perth prison was turned into a stage play, Cat and Mouse, by playwright Ajay Close. An adjacent street, Ethel Moorhead Place, was named after fellow suffragette.