Miriam Pratt

Miriam Annie Pratt (26 January 1893 – 24 June 1975) was an English suffragette and arsonist, known for setting fire to two unoccupied buildings in Cambridge in 1913.

Early life Pratt was born in Windlesham, Surrey, in 1893. When she was eight she went to live in Norwich with her childless aunt, Harriet, and her husband William Ward; he was a police officer.

Suffragette activity In 1913 she was working at St Paul's National School in Norwich. She had joined the suffragettes; other leading suffragettes in Norfolk included Caprina Fahey, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, and Grace Marcon.

On 17 May 1913 Pratt and an unnamed person used paraffin to set alight two houses under construction on Storey's Way in Cambridge. A house which was being built for a widow was burnt out; at a building which was being erected for Reginald Punnett, the new Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics, the damage was confined to a staircase and some woodwork. Pratt made the point that although women were getting a university education, they were not being given Cambridge degrees because of their gender.

Along with suffragette literature, Pratt, for some reason, left her gold watch at the scene and this was later identified by her uncle William Ward as a watch he had given her. She did not return to prison.

While she was in prison Pratt's photograph was taken.

Later life Pratt left the WSPU when the organisation supported the First World War and suspended campaigning for the vote. She returned to Norwich and married Bernard Francis on 19 May 1915. He had been a member of the Men's League For Women's Suffrage and joined the Royal Engineers early in the war, reaching the rank of lieutenant.