Violet Key Jones

Violet Frances Key Jones (17 June 1883 – 30 August 1958) was an Anglo-Irish writer and suffragette who was the treasurer of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) branch in York, England.

Early life Key Jones was born in County Kildare, Ireland in 1883. Her parents were John Jones, an army surgeon, and his wife Harriet Jones , who came from a Yorkshire gentry family. After her father died, Key Jones and her family moved back to Yorkshire in 1900.

Activism Key Jones became involved in the suffrage movement and was the treasurer of the York branch of the WSPU, which had been founded by Annie Coultate in 1910. A year later she was employed by the WSPU as their first paid York and Doncaster organiser for the suffrage campaign. She organised public meetings and protests from her Doncaster office on Hall Gate, and her home on Osbourne Road in York became a safe house for suffragettes, such as Lilian Lenton, Kathleen Brown and Augusta Mary Ann Winship. Her travels between York and Doncaster by train earned her the nickname "the Railway Suffragette."

In February 1911, Key Jones was one of the performers in three plays staged at the York Assembly Rooms by the WSPU in association with the Actresses’ Franchise League. One show was titled "How the vote was won". was sentenced to a year's imprisonment in Wakefield Gaol with hard labour for attempting to blow up a house near Doncaster for the cause. He went on hunger strike and was released temporarily from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act, and Key Jones, along with Annie Seymour Pearson and Annie Coultate, helped him to evade rearrest.

Also in 1912, Key Jones jumped onto the running board of Sir Walter Worsley's car during the opening ceremony of the "Open Air School" in York and scattered Votes for Women pamphlets. The same year the WSPU hosted an open-air meeting at Waterdale in Doncaster She later said about the event: "this sort of rowdyism can only help the cause... I would have spoken if I could make my voice heard above the noise". As part of her role, she wrote letters to the British engineering magazine The Engineer.

Later life Key Jones died in 1958 in Bradford and was buried at Scholemoor Cemetery.

Legacy In 2019 a plaque was placed on Coney Street by the York Civic Trust in partnership with Pilot Theatre and the Theatre Royal to commemorate the office headquarters where York's suffragettes organised and campaigned.