Jane Short
{{short description|British feminist and suffragette}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Jane Short
| image = Jane Short suffragette 1914.jpg
| caption = surveillance image of Jane Short
| other_names = Rachel Peace
| birth_name = Florence Jane Short
| birth_date = 25 April 1881
| birth_place = Lewisham, England
| death_date = not known (alive in 1932)
| nationality = British
| occupation = feminist and suffragette
| known_for = suffragette activism and hunger strike
| honours = Hunger Strike Medal for Valour{{cn|date=July 2023}}
}}
Florence Jane Short (aka Rachel Peace) (born 25 April 1881 – after 1932)Florence Jane Short in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915 (1881) was a British feminist and suffragette, who was imprisoned and force-fed.
Early life
Florence Jane Short was born in 1881 in Lewisham, the daughter of Mary née Brown (1857-) and Samuel Henry Short (1850–1924), then a labourer. By 1901, her father was a storekeeper for the Metropolitan Board of Works while Jane Short is listed as a shirt machinist.1901 England Census for Florence J Short - London Lewisham, Lewisham, District 34 In 1911, she was a masseuse and embroideress in Letchworth in Hertfordshire.1911 England Census for Florence Jane Short - Hertfordshire - Letchworth, 05
Suffragette activism
File:Cat and Mouse Act Poster - 1914.jpg
File:Force-feeding (suffragettes).jpeg
Short was arrested for joining in suffragette activism in Downing Street in November 1911; in July 1912 for window breaking at Baldock and Hitchin post offices and again for breaking windows at an estate agents in Pall Mall in February 1913.
Then, on 4 October 1913, Short was arrested with Mary Richardson near the scene of a mansion house fire (under the name 'Rachel Peace') . At the house 'The Elms', Hampton, evidence of inflammables and a copy of the WSPU publication The Suffragette was found. The police caught the women in the early hours, and as Mary was out of prison under the Cat and Mouse Act, Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 to recover from ill health but on licence to return to serve the rest of their original sentence, when they were both arrested for arson, but refused to identify themselves. At their trial, they were informed that if they went on hunger strike, they would be force-fed if needed but were not to be released under the Act, due to their previous dangerous behaviour. Short led her own defence against the cruelty of force-feeding and its impact on women's health, and then the audience of women rose and threw tomatoes and a hammer at windows and at the court officials. The court was cleared whilst 'Rachel Peace' was sentenced to 18 months with hard labour.{{Cite book|title=Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes|last=Atkinson|first=Diane|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2018|isbn=9781408844045|location=London|pages=439–440, 456, 555|oclc=1016848621}}
During her sentence Short was able to release detailed descriptions of the force-feeding and its physical and mental effect:
'I feel as if I should go mad.'{{Cite news|title=The Times|date=17 November 1916}}Within a week of this sentence, eight private doctors' practices had their premises' windows broken by missiles wrapped in suffragette materials. And church services at St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey were disrupted by large groups of women chanting a loud prayer to God in favour of Short & Richardson, the cruelty of force-feeding and justice of the cause.
The Bishop of London did visit women in Holloway Prison, where they were being force-fed, and reported that Short (Peace) was pale but not unduly thin or distressed.Rachel Peace, National Archive, HO144/1721/221874 And while 'Rachel Peace' was first imprisoned, an explosive was attached to the walls, shattering, and windows but, no one was found or arrested for the attack.
Short was given a Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' (named to Rachel Peace) by the WSPU. Today, it is in a private collection.{{cn|date=July 2023}}
Short was able to write secretly to Mary Richardson and Kitty Marion whilst they were all in prison, in pencil using thin brown lavatory paper. She even gave an astrology prediction (relating to fighting and beauty - Mars and Venus) on the latter's birthday.
She suffered terribly while serving her prison sentence and endured force-feeding three times a day, causing her to "lose her reason". On her release from prison, she spent the rest of her life in and out of various lunatic asylums at the expense of Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton.[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/suffragettes-surveillance-unseen-police-mugshots-militant-women/suffragette-mugshots5/ Suffragettes under surveillance: Unseen police mugshots of the militant women who won the vote] - The Daily Telegraph 6 February 2018