Lilias Mitchell

Lilias Mitchell (1884-1940) was a Scottish suffragette and campaigner for political and social reform.

Early life Lilias Mitchell was born in Leith, to Annie Mitchell and Alexander Mitchell, a timber merchant.

Women's suffrage In 1907 or 1908, Mitchell and her mother attended a suffrage meeting at which Emmeline Pankhurst and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence spoke. Lilias joined the Women's Social and Political Union at that meeting. In 1910, Mitchell was part of a WSPU march to the House of Commons which was broken up by the police. She was arrested, and served a short sentence in Holloway Prison.

By 1912 Mitchell was the WSPU organiser for Aberdeen.

In July 1913 Mitchell was sent to organise in Birmingham. There, in early 1914, she and Mary Richardson used a bomb to blow up a railway station on the outskirts of the city. In May 1914 she was arrested for breach of the peace, and sent to Winson Green Prison. She again went on hunger-strike. Under the government's 'Cat and Mouse Act' she was released to regain her health, then re-arrested in June 1914. East of Scotland secretary for the League of Nations Union and secretary of the Scottish Division of the Young Women's Christian Association.

Death Mitchell died in 1940 from a heart condition.