Bertha Bacon
{{Infobox person
| birth_date = 1866
| birth_place = Abbess Roding, Essex, England
| death_date = 19 April 1922
| death_place = Hornchurch, Essex, England
| organization = Women's Social and Political Union, Women's Tax Resistance League
}}
{{Short description|British suffragette}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}{{Use British English|date=January 2025}}
Bertha Bacon ({{Nee|Thurgood}}, 1866–19 April 1922){{Cite web |date=12 April 2015 |title=THE LIVES AND ACTIONS OF SUFFRAGETTES AND SUFFRAGISTS: Bacon and Baines |url=https://uncoveryourancestors.org/blog/archives/12-2015/ |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=Uncover Your Ancestors |language=en}} was a British suffragette and member of the Women's Tax Resistance League.
Life
Bacon was born in 1866 in Abbess Roding, Essex.{{Cite web |title=Mrs Bertha Bacon / Database - Women's Suffrage Resources |url=https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/1542/mrs-bertha-bacon |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=www.suffrageresources.org.uk}} She was one of eight children.{{Cite web |title=Bertha Bacon, Jennie, George and George Wilfred Baines |url=https://www.suffragettesandsuffragists.com/database/suffragettes-bacon-and-the-baines-family |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=RESEARCHING SUFFRAGETTES AND SUFFRAGISTS |language=en}}
Bacon was a suffragette and member of the Wimbledon branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).{{Cite news |date=2 December 1911 |title=Wimbledon Suffragettes in Court |url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/image-viewer?issue=BL%2F0004578%2F19111202&page=2&article=008&stringtohighlight=bertha+bacon |access-date=18 February 2025 |work=Wimbledon News |pages=2}} She was arrested on 24 November 1911, for smashing three windows of the dining room at the Westminster Palace Hotel,Suffragettes: Amnesty of August 1914: Index of Women Arrested 1906-1914. HO 45/24665. The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey, England. valued at £5. The Bishop of Gloucester had been sitting next to a window that was smashed. She explained that she had broken the windows because "It was my duty. There is a wave of feminine indignation sweeping over the country and we cannot help it." She was fined £5 or twenty one days imprisonment and £4 damages.
After her release from prison, she also became a member of the Women's Tax Resistance League, which used tax resistance to protest against the disenfranchisement of women. In April 1913, in Romford, Essex, a gold ring set with a coral and two pearls was auctioned off to pay her tax bill.
She died in 1922 at Hornchurch, Essex.
References
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Category:19th-century British women