Agnes Lake

Agnes Caroline Lake (1887–1972)^[1][2] was a British suffragette who was the business manager of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)’s newspaper The Suffragette.^[3]

Life

Lake was born in 1887 in Harlow, Essex. She married Dr. William Henry Whatmough in 1910.^[1] They had one daughter, who was born in the United States of America.^[2]

Lake was employed as the business manager of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)’s newspaper The Suffragette.^[3] She liaised with Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst about improving the publications content and layout.^[4]

On 30 April 1913, Lake was arrested alongside Beatrice Sanders, Rachel Barrett, Harriet Kerr and Flora Drummond when police raided the WSPU headquarters.^[5][6][7] She was charged with conspiracy under the Malicious Damage to Property Act^[8] and was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment.^[9] In June 1913, she was transferred to Warwick Goal in Warwickshire, where she went on hunger strike and was force fed.^[10] She was so unwell by October 1913 that she was moved into a nursing home in Royal Leamington Spa under the "Cat and Mouse Act."^[2] It is likely that she was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal. After absconding from the nursing home with the help of a local suffragette called Mrs Bell,^[2] she was rearrested outside her home in Leytonstone, London, during December 1913.^[11]

Lake was later dismissed from her role with the WSPU's newspaper, which Christabel Pankhurst said was "purely a business matter".^[12]

She died in 1972 in Wandsworth, London, aged 84.^[2]

References

1. Morton, Tara. "Agnes Lake: Suffragette in Warwick Prison: Part One". Our Warwickshire. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
2. Morton, Tara. "Agnes Lake: Suffragette in Warwick Prison: Part Two". Our Warwickshire. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
3. Gupta, Kat (18 May 2017). Representation of the British Suffrage Movement. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-350-03666-6.
4. Purvis, June (18 January 2018). Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography. Routledge. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-351-24664-4.
5. "The National Archives - 'Raided!!' London headquarters of the Women's Social and Political Union". The National Archives blog. 13 June 2018. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
6. Crawford, Elizabeth (30 April 2013). "WALKS/Suffrage Stories: The Raid On WSPU Headquarters, 30 April 1913". Woman and her Sphere. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
7. Crawford, Elizabeth (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. p. 751. ISBN 978-1-135-43402-1.
8. Anand, Anita (19 July 2016). Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary. Bloomsbury USA. p. 283. ISBN 978-1-4088-3547-0.
9. Luscombe, Eileen (20 October 2023). History and Legacy of the Suffragette Fellowship: Calling all Women!. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-98710-2.
10. Atkinson, Diane (2019). Rise Up, Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 397. ISBN 978-1-4088-4405-2.
11. Langley, Anne. "Militant Suffragettes in Warwickshire: 'Peace is won by War'". Our Warwickshire. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
12. Cowman, Krista (15 July 2007). Women of the Right Spirit: Paid Organisers of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), 1904-18. Manchester University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-7190-7002-0.