Amy Maud Bull,

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

or Amy Hicks (16 July 1877 – 11 February 1953) was a British teacher and suffragist.

Life

Bull was born in Great Holland Hall in 1877. She went to Girton Hall where she won a prize every year until she obtained a first degree in classics in 1899. She was a lecturer at

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

in 1900–1901, then taught at Belvedere High School,

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

(1901–1904) and was a fellow at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

(1904–1905).Elizabeth Crawford, ‘Bull , Amy Maud (1877–1953)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 31 Dec 2016
/ref> left, Amy's mother, Lilian_Hicks_(by_Lena_Connell).html" ;"title="Lena_Connell.html" ;"title="Lilian Hicks (by Lena Connell">Lilian Hicks (by Lena Connell)">Lena_Connell.html" ;"title="Lilian Hicks (by Lena Connell">Lilian Hicks (by Lena Connell) Amy's mother, Lilian Hicks, had been associated with the suffrage cause since Amy was a young girl. They were both members by 1902 of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and they were soon joining celebrations of civil disobedience in pursuit of their cause. By 1907 they were both in the

Women's Freedom League The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access ...

and Amy was serving as a secretary. Amy was imprisoned for three weeks for

obstruction Obstruction may refer to: Places * Obstruction Island, in Washington state * Obstruction Islands, east of New Guinea Medicine * Obstructive jaundice * Obstructive sleep apnea * Airway obstruction, a respiratory problem ** Recurrent airway o ...

that year. In about 1909 the Women's Freedom League published a postcard which featured Lilian Hicks.Suffragette postcards: real photographic portrait
womanandhersphere.com, retrieved 31 December 2016 She and her mother were arrested on Black Friday on 18 November 1910. Bull was a member of the

Women's Tax Resistance League The Women's Tax Resistance League (WTRL) was from 1909 to 1918 a direct action group associated with the Women's Freedom League that used tax resistance to protest against the disenfranchisement of women during the British women's suffrage move ...

which sought to resist paying tax to a government that only men had voted for. In 1912 she was smashing West End shop windows as part of a

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

demonstration. She was sentenced in March 1912 and she was jailed for four months during which time she went on hunger strike and was

force fed Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...

. She and

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

founded the East London branch of the Women's Social and Political Union on 27 May 1913 and in the same year her mother was secretary of the Hampstead

United Suffragists The United Suffragists was a women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. History The group was founded on 6 February 1914, by former members and supporters of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In contrast to the WSPU, it admit ...

. The first World War started in 1914 and Bull served in the Women's Volunteer Reserve which had been founded by suffragettes to help the war effort. She married John Major Bull on 4 August 1927. She went on be a

rural district Rural districts were a type of local government area – now superseded – established at the end of the 19th century in England, Wales, and Ireland for the administration of predominantly rural areas at a level lower than that of the Ad ...

councillor and to lecture on home produced food to meetings of

Women's Institutes The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...

. She was awarded an MBE in 1948. Bull died in

Little Baddow Little Baddow is a village to the east of Chelmsford, Essex. The name ''Baddow'' comes from an Old English word meaning 'bad water', and which was the original name of the River Chelmer. The village is positioned on one of the many elevated hills ...

in 1953.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bull, Amy 1877 births 1953 deaths Schoolteachers from Essex British suffragists English tax resisters Members of the Order of the British Empire Hunger Strike Medal recipients Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge