Norah Elam

Norah Elam, also known as Norah Dacre Fox (née Norah Doherty, 5 March 1878 – 2 March 1961), was an Irish-born militant suffragette, anti-vivisectionist, feminist and fascist in the United Kingdom.

Early life Norah Doherty was born on 5 March 1878 at 13 Waltham Terrace in Blackrock, Dublin to John Doherty, a partner in a paper mill, and Charlotte Isabel Clarke. She moved to England with her family and by 1891 was living in London. Norah married Charles Richard Dacre Fox in 1909.

Political activity Norah Dacre Fox was a prominent member of the Women's Social and Political Union and, by 1913, served as general secretary. Dacre Fox was an effective propagandist, delivering rousing speeches at the WSPU weekly meetings and writing many of Christabel Pankhurst's speeches.

In May 1914 Flora Drummond and Norah Dacre Fox besieged the homes of Edward Carson and Lord Lansdowne, both prominent Ulster Unionist politicians who had been inciting militancy in Ulster against the Home Rule Bill then going through Parliament. Drummond and Dacre Fox had both been issued with summonses to appear before magistrates for 'making inciting speeches' and encouraging women to militancy. Their response to journalists who interviewed them was that they thought they should take refuge with Carson and Lansdowne who had also been making speeches and encouraging militancy in Ireland, but who appeared to be safe from interference from the authorities for doing so. Both women appeared before a magistrate, were sentenced to imprisonment and taken to Holloway Prison where they immediately commenced hunger and thirst strikes and endured force-feeding.

In the 1918 United Kingdom general election she stood as an independent candidate in Richmond (Surrey); she received 20% of the votes but was not elected. The same year she campaigned for the internment of enemy aliens in collaboration with the British Empire Union and the National Party. During 1916 and 1917, Elam obtained work as supervisor of a typewriting pool at the Medical Research Council (MRC), gaining information she was to use in articles published under the auspices of the LPAVS during 1934 and 1935. In March 1921, Elam advertised in The Times and chaired a public meeting of LPAVS at the Aeolian Hall in London to discuss 'The Dog's Bill' (a bill to prohibit the vivisection of dogs) that was being debated in Parliament at that time. After her release, Norah and Dudley Elam escorted Unity Mitford to see Diana and Oswald Mosley in Holloway on 18 March 1943. A biography, Mosley's Old Suffragette, written by Susan McPherson and Angela McPherson, was published in 2011.