Mary Ann Hilliard (1860–1950) was an Irish nurse and suffragette. She was arrested for breaking windows in March 1912, and while imprisoned contributed to

the Suffragette Handkerchief The Suffragette Handkerchief is a handkerchief displayed at The Priest House, West Hoathly in West Sussex, England. It has sixty-six embroidered signatures and two sets of initials, mostly of women imprisoned in HMP Holloway for their part in the ...

Biography

Mary Ann Hilliard was born in

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

in 1860, to Dominick Hilliard, accountant and Margaret Duke and had two brothers and a sister. Known as Minnie, she trained as a nurse in England from 1876 and was a senior staff member at the Alexandra Children's Hospital, Bloomsbury, London in 1908. The Suffragette Handkerchief

Hilliard was involved in the suffragette window-breaking by around 200 protestors in March 1912, and was arrested and sentenced to two months hard labour. Hilliard and sixty-seven other

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 ...

(WSPU) suffragettes who were imprisoned in

Holloway Prison HM Prison Holloway was a closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, until its closure in 2016. Hist ...

embroidered their names on a cloth which became known as

The Suffragette Handkerchief The Suffragette Handkerchief is a handkerchief displayed at The Priest House, West Hoathly in West Sussex, England. It has sixty-six embroidered signatures and two sets of initials, mostly of women imprisoned in HMP Holloway for their part in the ...

. This was a brave act of defiance in a prison where the women were closely watched at all times, and it is thought that Hilliard started it, as she kept the souvenir of her fellow prisoners afterwards. Signatories include Eileen Mary Casey,

Alice Davies Alice Davies (1870 - ''alive in'' 1919 ) was a British suffragette and nurse. She was imprisoned for protesting for women's right to vote by smashing windows, went on hunger strike and was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger St ...

Edith Downing Edith Elizabeth Downing (January 1857 – 3 October 1931) was a British artist, sculptor and suffragette. Life Edith Elizabeth Downing was born in Cardiff in January 1857. She was one of four children of the coal merchant and shipping agent E ...

, Katharine Gatty,

Margaret Macfarlane Margaret Macfarlane (born 1888) was a Scottish suffragette and honorary secretary of the Women's Social and Political Union in Dundee and East Fife. Suffragette activity From at least 1911, Macfarlane, a trained nurse, had started working for ...

, Helen MacRae,

Alice Maud Shipley Alice Maud Shipley (5 June 1869 – 16 December 1951) was a militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who received a prison sentence during which she went on hunger strike and was force-fed, for which a ...

, Frances Williams and other leading women from WSPU mass window-smashing protests. Hilliard's own embroidered name is in blue thread on the right of the title 'Votes for Women' (which she may have embroidered), and 'Holloway Prison, March, 1912'. Although Hilliard may have intended to donate it to the British College of Nurses, according to the British Journal of Nursing in March 1942, she was said to have kept it until she died in 1950. The location of the item after Hilliard's death is unknown; it resurfaced in the 1960s at a jumble sale.

Later life

Hilliard was a war nurse in

World War One World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

with

Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC; known as ''the QAs'') is the nursing branch of the British Army Medical Services. History Although an "official" nursing service was not established until 1881, the corps traces its heritage t ...

and served at the front in Italy, nursing prisoners. Her health deteriorated in the 1920s and she retired from nursing to live in

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

, London. She died in 1950. Her funeral was at Park Lane Methodist Church and cremation at

Golders Green Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th century and ea ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hilliard, Mary Ann British nurses Irish suffragettes 1860 births 1950 deaths People from Cork (city)