Victoria Lidiard

Victoria Lidiard (23 December 1889 – 3 October 1992) was an English social activist, optician and Christian author, reputed to be the longest surviving suffragette in the UK. Lidiard campaigned for animal welfare, vegetarianism and the ordination of women.

Biography Victoria Simmons was born on 23 December 1889 in Clifton, Bristol, part of a large family of 13 children. She was educated in a local Dame school, leaving at aged 14 to work in a photographic studio, whilst studying bookkeeping and shorthand in the evenings.

With her mother and other of her sisters, and against her father's wishes, She was also interviewed by Brian Harrison, in March 1976, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews. Lidiard talked to Harrison about her family background, her involvement in the suffrage movement, her time in Holloway Prison, and her work as an optician.

Her life is marked by a blue plaque in Hove.

Personal life

Lidiard became a vegetarian at the age of 10 and remained interested in animal welfare her entire life. Her vegetarian diet bewildered the authorities at Holloway Prison who gave her an excessive quantity of "almost half a pound of butter beans".

Lidiard was socially active throughout her life, involving herself in animal welfare campaigns such as for the improvement of conditions under which livestock was transported; holding positions on a local church council, and serving as a member of the National Council. Towards the end of her life she campaigned with the Movement for the Ordination of Women, drawing an exact parallel between that and the suffrage work of her youth.

She wrote and published two books, Christianity, Faith, Love and Healing (1988) and Animals and All Churches (1989).

She died in Hove, East Sussex on 3 October 1992.