Gertrude Ansell

Gertrude Mary Ansell (2 June 1861 – 7 March 1932) was an English suffragette, animal welfare activist and businesswoman. She was arrested, imprisoned and force fed hundreds of times. She was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal by the WSPU.

Life Ansell was the third child and only daughter of the metallurgist George Frederick Ansell (1826–1880) and his wife, Sarah (née Cook). Her father had, in 1856, been appointed to a clerkship in the Royal Mint with a brief to eliminate waste and mismanagement but was forced to give up his position in 1868. He died in 1880 leaving his family little.

Gertrude Ansell's thinking was dominated by the welfare of animals and the enfranchisement of women. In 1909, she became honorary treasurer of the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society and one of the organisers of that year's International Anti-Vivisection and Animal Protection Congress.

She believed that the economic position of women would never be satisfactory without political freedom and in December 1906 she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Ansell took part in the 'Mud March' of 9 February 1907 to Hyde Park at a time when 4000 people, both suffragists in NUWSS and more militant suffragettes in WSPU listened to Millicent Fawcett and many were less sympathetic to Keir Hardie speak up for a 'fighting brigade' to achieve female suffrage.

On 13 October 1908, she was arrested after taking part in a WSPU "raid" on the House of Commons and was sentenced to one month's imprisonment in Holloway Prison. with an axe, causing £15 worth of damage. When arrested, she was reported to have said, "I have done my duty, and I wish that every other woman would do the same." She was sentenced to six months' imprisonment but this time she was not released and, because she continued her hunger and thirst strike, she was forcibly fed. It was to his children that Gertrude Ansell left her small estate. She died at the General Hospital in Saffron Walden on 7 March 1932 following an operation for gallstones.