Dorothy Evans
Dorothy Elizabeth Evans was a British feminist activist and suffragette.Life
Born in the Kentish Town area of London, Evans studied at the North London Collegiate School and the Dartford College of Physical Education, qualifying as a teacher. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1907, and began working for it full-time from 1909, serving as its Birmingham organiser from 1910 to 1912. During this period, she was frequently arrested and imprisoned for acts linked to the suffragette campaign, including refusing to buy a dog license, and later, smashing a window.
In 1913, Evans was appointed as the WSPU liaison between its London headquarters, and its leader, Christabel Pankhurst, in Paris. She travelled in disguise to avoid detection, and also travelled around the UK. In 1913, she was arrested in Ulster for being in possession of explosives with the intention of blowing up Lisburn Castle. She went on hunger strike and was force fed.
On her release she was cared for by Lillian Metge and in her will she left Metge a gold watch she had been given by her' Belfast suffragette friends.'
Evans had been given a Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by WSPU.
Evans was released from prison in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I. She broke with the WSPU and the Pankhursts by opposing the war, joining the Suffragettes of the Women's Political and Social Union, and then becoming the provincial organiser of the Independent Women's Social and Political Union. She also devoted much time to the Six Point Group. During the 1920s, she maintained her pacifist stance, and joined the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. During World War II, she served as the secretary of Women for Westminster, a group campaigning to increase the number of female MPs.
Evans maintained simultaneous long-term relationships with Sybil Morrison and Emil Davies, she and Davies having a child.
