![Ellen Isabel Jones young](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Ellen_Isabel_Jones_young.png)
Ellen Isabel Jones (born Ellen Isabel Cotton; – 1946) was an English
suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
. Ellen, known as "Nell", was a close associate of
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
and
Christabel Pankhurst
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bord ...
, leaders of the Suffragette movement. She was also an acquaintance of
Madame Yevonde
Yevonde Philone Middleton (née Cumbers; 5 January 1893 – 22 December 1975) was an English photographer, who pioneered the use of colour in portrait photography. She used the professional name Madame Yevonde.
Early life
Educated at the lib ...
, a photographer associated with the
Suffragettes
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
and who shared a building with them in
Victoria, London
Victoria is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster. It is named after Victoria station (London), Victoria Station, which is a major transport hub. The station was named after the nearby Victoria Street.
The name is used to describ ...
.
Her husband, Dr. Ernest Williams Jones (1878 — 14 December 1922,
Aldridge
Aldridge is an industrial town in the Walsall borough, West Midlands, England. It is historically a village that was part of Staffordshire until 1974. The town is from Brownhills, from Walsall, from Sutton Coldfield and from Lichfield. T ...
), was a supporter of her cause and made speeches in its favour — unusual in a time where men could be sacked for showing support for women's rights.
Suffragette
Nell was born in
Penkridge
Penkridge ( ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in South Staffordshire, South Staffordshire District in Staffordshire, England. It is to the south of Stafford, north of Wolverhampton, west of Cannock and east of Telford. ...
,
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
. In May 1914,
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
invited her to
Belgravia
Belgravia () is a Districts of London, district in Central London, covering parts of the areas of both the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Belgravia was known as the 'Five Fields' Tudor Period, during the ...
to throw stones at the windows of the grand houses of the powerful, ruling class, who were opposed to the demands for women's suffrage. Jones knew in advance that she was likely to be arrested and even force-fed.
Jones was duly arrested and, as she wrote in her letter from prison, "had never been so relieved to be fall into the arms of a man when the Bobby arrested me". She was hauled off to the Bow Street Magistrates' Court where she was found guilty and sentenced to a term in prison.
When arrested and sentenced, she didn't give her name and was sent to Holloway Prison. In Holloway jail, Jones did five days of "hunger and thirst" strike in protest at the inequities of women not being allowed to vote. Many suffragettes, including Mrs Pankhurst, were force fed. There is no evidence of Ellen Jones being force fed but in the face of many women responding to their incarceration with this dramatic protest, to avoid the embarrassment of 'gentle women' dying for their cause, they were released.
Nell had become very weak due to her hunger & thirst strike and was sent to a nursing home under the
"Cat and Mouse" Act to get better, after which she was expected to report back. However she escaped back to Aldridge and to ensure her safe return, her husband was told not to meet her so instead she was met by a family friend "Bernard" on a motorbike who drove her home in his sidecar.
Jones had been given a
Hunger Strike Medal
The Hunger Strike Medal was a silver medal awarded between August 1909 and 1914 to suffragette prisoners by the leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). During their imprisonment, they went on hunger strike while serving th ...
'for Valour' by WSPU.
She spent the remaining 34 years of her life on the run. She died in
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...
.
Details of these events are held in an archive of her papers at
The Women's Library
The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
![Ellen Isabel Jones hunger strike medal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Ellen_Isabel_Jones_hunger_strike_medal.png)
This collection is now owned by the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
, which stands on the site formerly occupied by the
WSPU
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 ...
.
These events were also told on two BBC News broadcasts on 6 February 2018, the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, on BBC News 24 and BBC Midlands Today.
Personal life
![Ellen Isabel Jones resting place](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Ellen_Isabel_Jones_resting_place.png)
Ellen was married to Dr Ernest Williams Jones,
M.D.
Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...
of
Aldridge
Aldridge is an industrial town in the Walsall borough, West Midlands, England. It is historically a village that was part of Staffordshire until 1974. The town is from Brownhills, from Walsall, from Sutton Coldfield and from Lichfield. T ...
,
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
, the first
General Practitioner to receive the
M.D.
Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...
degree., with whom she had four boys.
In World War I, vast numbers of soldiers, wounded in the
Somme,
Passchendale
Passendale () or Passchendaele (; obsolete spelling, retained in English; vls, Passchendoale) is a rural Belgian village in the Zonnebeke municipality of West Flanders province. It is close to the town of Ypres, situated on the hill ridge sepa ...
,
Ypres
Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though
the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality co ...
or other devastating battles, were brought back to England in need of medical aid. Dr Jones and Ellen, a nurse, gave their house over to become the Aldridge Auxiliary Hospital to care for convalescent soldiers recovering from their wounds.
Dr Jones was an early disciple of
Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
ian
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and, by chance, a great friend of his namesake, Freud's biographer, another
Ernest Jones
Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...
. He died in 1922 from pneumonia, whereafter she moved to The Spinney,
Rottingdean
Rottingdean is a village in the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. It borders the villages of Saltdean, Ovingdean and Woodingdean, and has a historic centre, often the subject of picture postcards.
Name
The name Rottingde ...
to raise her boys on the South Coast with help from income from Paying Guests. With antisemitism common in the 1930s, the house became known for welcoming Jewish guests and had many guests from
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
.
Ellen's father, Thomas Cotton (of
Penkridge
Penkridge ( ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in South Staffordshire, South Staffordshire District in Staffordshire, England. It is to the south of Stafford, north of Wolverhampton, west of Cannock and east of Telford. ...
), was a
lock keeper
A lock keeper, lock tender, or lock operator looks after a canal or river lock, operating it and if necessary maintaining it or organizing its maintenance. Traditionally, lock keepers lived on-site, often in small purpose-built cottages. A lock ke ...
.
Publicity
On 6 February 2018, the 100th anniversary of Women's Suffrage, her story was for the first time made public. Locally an event was organised by Aldridge School on the Centenary of Women's Suffrage, consisting of a visit to her resting place and a speech given by local historians. This was televised on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
.
References
External links
One Cotton family's true medieval originsThe (Almost) Complete Cotton Family Tree
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Ellen Isabel
English suffragists
People from Penkridge
People from Aldridge
Year of birth missing
1946 deaths
Hunger Strike Medal recipients