Mary Ann Hilliard
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Mary Ann Hilliard | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1860 Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 1950 (aged 89–90) Wembley, England |
| Occupation | Nurse |
| Known for | Suffragette and holder of the Suffragette Handkerchief |
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.
Biography
[edit]Mary Ann Hilliard was born in Cork in 1860, to Dominick Hilliard, accountant and Margaret Duke and had two brothers and a sister.[1] 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.[2]
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.[2]
Hilliard and sixty-seven other Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) suffragettes who were imprisoned in Holloway Prison embroidered their names on a cloth which became known as The Suffragette Handkerchief.[3] This was a brave act of defiance in a prison where the women were closely watched at all times,[4][5] and it is thought that Hilliard started it, as she kept the souvenir of her fellow prisoners afterwards.[6]
Signatories include Eileen Mary Casey, Alice Davies, Edith Downing, Katharine Gatty, Margaret Macfarlane, Helen MacRae, Alice Maud Shipley, Frances Williams and other leading women from WSPU mass window-smashing protests.[4] Hilliard's own embroidered name is in blue thread on the right of the title 'Votes for Women' (which she may have embroidered),[3] and 'Holloway Prison, March, 1912'.[2]
Although Hilliard may have intended to donate it to the British College of Nurses, according to the British Journal of Nursing in March 1942,[7] she was said to have kept it until she died in 1950.[2]
The location of the item after Hilliard's death is unknown; it resurfaced in the 1960s at a jumble sale.[2]
Later life
[edit]Hilliard was a war nurse in World War One with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service[8] and served at the front in Italy, nursing prisoners.[citation needed] Her health deteriorated in the 1920s and she retired from nursing to live in Wembley, London.[7]
She died in 1950. Her funeral was at Park Lane Methodist Church and cremation at Golders Green.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ "People Profiles". www.bearefamilytree.com. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
- ^ a b c d e Atkinson, Diane (2018). Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes. London: Bloomsbury. p. 291. ISBN 9781408844045. OCLC 1016848621.
- ^ a b Unknown. "The Suffragette embroidery of 1912". Retrieved 4 November 2019.
- ^ a b "Priest House suffragette handkerchief" (PDF). Sussex Past. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
- ^ "Marking Suffrage Day - remembering Frances Parker". Te Papa’s Blog. 18 September 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
- ^ "Prison embroidery by Suffragettes, 1905 - 1914". Selvedge Magazine. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
- ^ a b c "Genealogy". Elaine Beare. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
- ^ War Office: Directorate of Army Medical Services and Territorial Force: Nursing Service Records, First World War: Catalogue entry: Name: Hilliard, Mary. National Archives: National Archives. 1914. pp. WO 399/3836.