Wojtczak, Helena - Mary Raleigh Richardson: The Suffragette Arsonist Who Slashed the Rokeby Venus

(Hastings Press, 2025) Signed by the author. This first book-length biography of the militant suffragette Mary Raleigh Richardson reveals for the first time her true identity, ancestry, childhood and education, as well as her surprising - and exciting - international travels before she became embroiled in the suffrage struggle. During her time as a militant Mary was arrested nine times. Prepared to die for the cause, she adopted the hunger strike each time she was imprisoned, and was forcibly fed countless times. Her hunger strike medal boasted more bars than that of any other suffragette - something of which she remained proud for the rest of her life. Her most infamous deed was to use a cheap meat cleaver to inflict several gashes into Velasquez's Rokeby Venus, a world-famous and priceless painting. In a lesser-known and yet equally sensational attack she burned down a historic mansion near Hampton Court. During the war she continued to work for the vote, allying herself with both Sylvia Pankhurst's ELFS and the United Suffragists. Having joined the Labour Party she twice stood for Parliament, and in 1933 was briefly a member of Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Finding it did not align with her values she returned to socialism for the rest of her life. In retirement she penned Laugh a Defiance, a memoir of her suffrage days. The work is essential reading for suffrage scholars and those keen to explore the lives of the individual personalities within the militant movement. Paperback. Fine. 320pp.

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