Violet Mary Doudney

Certificate awarded to Violet Doudney for her support and dedication to the Suffragette Movement, after she had endured a hunger strike and solitary confinement at Holloway Prison in 1912. Designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and signed by Emmeline Pankhurst.

Violet Mary Doudney (5 March 1889 – 14 January 1952) was a teacher and militant suffragette who went on hunger strike in Holloway Prison where she was force-fed. She was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).

Early life Violet Doudney was born in 1889 in Barkby in Leicestershire, the daughter of Laura Annie née Rice (1858–1939) and George Richard Doudney (1859–1913), a corn merchant. She matriculated at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford in 1908, from where she graduated in 1911 aged 21.

Militancy The following year in 1912 she moved to London with the intention of becoming a teacher. Here she joined the Women's Social and Political Union and took part in a window-smashing campaign of the homes of senior politicians to protest against the treatment of suffragette prisoners who were on hunger strike. On 28 June 1912 Doudney smashed the windows at the home of Home Secretary Reginald McKenna following which she was arrested and taken before magistrates the next morning. In court she was asked if she regretted her actions; she replied that she did not and had taken the action in protest against the Home Secretary's policies. Sentenced to two months hard labour in Holloway Prison she went on hunger strike and despite her frailty was force-fed. On her release from prison she was awarded a Hunger Strike Medal by Emmeline Pankhurst.

Doudney's influential Leicestershire businessman father and her mother wrote to the Home Secretary requesting her early release from prison due to her ill health, stating that if the request was granted they would ensure she would take no further part in suffragette campaigns. When she discovered why she had been released from prison after only three weeks the enraged Violet Doudney wrote at once to the Home Secretary pointing out that as a 23-year-old woman she was capable of making her own decisions, adding: at Holy Trinity Church, Leicester. She had met him the year before in Constantinople, modern day Istanbul, on the same evening she had attended a ball where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk attempted to persuade her to stay and teach girls as part of his effort to modernise and secularise the new Republic of Turkey. Together Violet and Sidney had three sons, )

In 1939 she retired from teaching at which time she and her husband were living in the City of London near the Temple Church where they were both ARP Wardens, with Violet Toy also undertaking first-aid duties.

Violet Mary Toy died in Epsom in Surrey in 1952.

Legacy

Brent Women of Renown Violet Doudney was celebrated, amongst Dame Stephanie Shirley and Amy Johnson, as one of the "Brent Women of Renown" in a project that shared her story to students in Brent schools throughout 2023. On 6 November 2023, a documentary about the "Brent Women of Renown" was premiered at the Kiln Cinema in Kilburn, where Doudney's granddaughter, Maggie Toy, was interviewed alongside other guests.

Epsom College, Doudney House (Lower School) In 2025, Epsom College named one of its new Houses 'Doudney' in recognition of Violet's time spent teaching English and Drama at the college during the Second World War.