The history of the British women’s suffrage movement is defined not only by mass public parades and political lobbying but also by the individual sacrifice and physical suffering militant activists endured. Arabella Charlotte Scott (1886–1980), a Scottish schoolteacher, was one of the movement's most dedicated figures. Her commitment to Votes for Women led her through a relentless cycle of civil disobedience, imprisonment, hunger strikes, and brutal force-feeding.
Scott’s story offers a compelling case study of the state’s repressive response to political protest. Highlighting the traumatic lengths to which women went to challenge patriarchal authority before the First World War. Her time in Perth Prison in the summer of 1914—where she was force-fed for an extraordinarily long period—epitomises the final, desperate struggle between the suffragettes and the government under the controversial Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act 1913, or the "Cat and Mouse Act."
Born in Dunoon, Scotland, in 1886, Arabella Scott came from a military family; her father served as a British army captain for over 25 years. However, her mother was a teacher, connecting Scott strongly to the educational class. Scott benefited from the expanding opportunities for female higher education in Scotland. Graduating with a Master of Arts (MA) degree from the University of Edinburgh. This achievement was significant, as few women had access to such advanced education at the time. Scott established herself as an intellectually capable, educated woman, joining the cohort of independent, middle-class professionals who drove the suffrage movement. She began her career teaching school in Leith, near Edinburgh.
Her political awakening began early. Arabella Scott initially joined the Women’s Freedom League (WFL), a non-militant splinter group of the WSPU. Her activism, dating to at least 1908, focused on constitutional methods. Including public speaking at open-air meetings across Scotland and participating in petitioning efforts. In 1909, she and her sister, Muriel Scott, were arrested in London for obstruction after attempting to present a petition to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith at Downing Street. They served a 21-day sentence at Holloway Prison. This initial experience of official resistance and incarceration proved formative, quickly pushing her toward the WSPU's more militant and confrontational tactics. Scott quickly concluded that constitutional methods would not deliver change; only sustained, high-profile militant action could force the government's hand.
By 1913, Arabella Scott had fully embraced the WSPU's strategy of political vandalism and civil disobedience. This phase, sanctioned by Emmeline Pankhurst, involved actions designed to cause property damage severe enough to secure long prison sentences. The suffragettes planned these acts carefully, often targeting property to avoid injuring individuals. They cut telephone lines, smashed windows, and committed acts of arson. Their goal: to force the government to grant them political prisoner status.
Scott’s most significant arrest occurred in May 1913, following her involvement in an attempted fire-raising at Kelso Racecourse in the Scottish Borders. She worked alongside Edith Hudson, Elizabeth Thomson, Agnes Colquhoun Thomson, and their driver, Donald McEwan. The court convicted Scott and her co-conspirators at Jedburgh Sheriff Jury Court, sentencing her to nine months' imprisonment. Critics considered the nine-month sentence extremely harsh, especially compared to sentences often handed down for violent crimes against persons. This punitive term clearly signalled the state’s determination to crush the movement. Scott’s trial and subsequent conviction received widespread newspaper coverage, cementing her profile as a leading militant figure in Scotland.
Following her conviction, Arabella Scott immediately adopted the hunger strike upon her admittance to Calton Gaol in Edinburgh. The hunger strike was the prisoners' primary tool—a non-violent act. It challenged the state's moral authority, forcing officials to choose between three impossible options: grant the prisoner political status, allow the prisoner to die (creating a martyr), or resort to the internationally condemned practice of forcible feeding.
The government responded to the escalating hunger strike crisis with the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act 1913. Suffragettes notoriously dubbed this legislation the "Cat and Mouse Act." The law allowed the government to release hunger strikers once their health deteriorated dangerously. They could then rearrest the women once they had recovered sufficiently outside prison walls, forcing them to serve the remainder of their sentences. This policy aimed to bypass the ethical and legal outrage caused by force-feeding, while also neutralizing the threat of martyrdom.
Arabella Scott quickly became a prime target for the "Cat and Mouse" cycle. Authorities pursued her relentlessly throughout 1913 and 1914. After her initial release from Calton Gaol under licence in May 1913, she refused to go underground. She maintained a public presence despite having promised her employers, the Leith School Board, that she would cease militant activity—a promise that allowed her to retain her teaching post. Scott’s defiance was absolute.
Over the next year, police arrested her, released her on hunger strike, and then hunted her down repeatedly. When rearrested in August 1913, she immediately resumed her hunger and thirst strike. Upon being forced out of the jail gates after her temporary discharge, she had to be physically ejected as she actively refused to leave on licence. By 1914, she worked as a WSPU organiser in Brighton under the assumed name of ‘Catherine Reid’. When police found her in May 1914, she fiercely resisted arrest. Police from Scotland Yard and Brighton had to help the Scottish officers effect the arrest. She refused to walk, forcing the police to lift and drag her onto trains for the return journey north. This sustained resistance demonstrated her profound political commitment and her rejection of the state’s authority.
Scott's final, defining confrontation with the government occurred at Perth Prison in the summer of 1914. Police arrested her and readmitted her to custody on June 19, transferring her to Perth Prison on June 20. Perth had become the designated hub for force-feeding in Scotland. Her fate was sealed: authorities intended her to serve a "substantial portion" of her sentence, a requirement only achievable through artificial feeding.
Scott remained imprisoned for over five weeks, from June 20 to July 26, 1914, enduring force-feeding up to three times daily. Dr. Hugh Ferguson Watson, the only Scottish prison medical officer at the time willing to perform the procedure, supervised the force-feeding. Dr. Watson had previous experience, having volunteered to force-feed Ethel Moorhead in Edinburgh earlier that year. He was known for his clinical detachment from the prisoners' political motivations. Scott's account of the procedure, detailed in her autobiography My Murky Past, is harrowing.
She described the trauma of the metal feeding tube being driven into her stomach. Her determined resistance resulted in permanent physical damage: she reported that
"bits of her broken teeth washed around with blood in her mouth"
as the tube was forced past her jaws. The psychological manipulation was as painful as the physical assault. When she vomited the feed after the tube was removed, Dr. Watson allegedly shouted,
"You did that on purpose."
Despite this violent control, Scott held firm to her political purpose. She reportedly rejected an offer from Watson to facilitate her exile to Canada in exchange for abandoning her protest. She responded,
"That would be tantamount to saying that all this protest of mine was in vain and wrong and I would be giving in."
In addition to the physical violence, prison authorities employed methods of sensory and psychological deprivation to break her will. Officials kept Scott in solitary confinement, often in a prone position, and denied her basic human rights. She received no visitors, no letters, no access to a lawyer, and no copy of the prison rules. The official justification claimed this prevented "unnecessary excitement" that might "hamper her treatment," but the real intent was clearly to isolate her and undermine her mental fortitude. She endured extended periods without bathing and received no stimulating materials like books or writing implements. Scott's suffering in Perth Prison highlights the state's intent to break her spirit, turning the prison and her own body into the ultimate battleground for the suffrage struggle.
While Scott endured the forced feeding inside, her case sparked a massive external protest: The Perth Suffragette Protest of 1914. Organized by her sister Muriel and the WSPU, thousands of women descended upon Perth throughout June and July. They intended to draw public attention to the "torture" being committed inside the prison walls and to offer moral support to the imprisoned women, including Frances Gordon and Fanny Parker.
The activists maintained a constant vigil outside the prison gates, strategically choosing the location to contrast the suffering inside with the supposed freedom of the outside world. Muriel Scott maintained a suffrage stall nearby, disseminating materials and providing updates on her sister’s plight. Protestors regularly gathered in crowds of up to 3,000, using megaphones to sing hymns and shout messages of encouragement. The protest was so determined and pervasive that it caused significant disruption throughout the city. Activists interrupted church services and even attempted to protest during a royal visit, leading to the cancellation of public films and the drafting of extra police to manage the unrest.
The government faced pressure, forced to address Scott’s case in Parliament. On July 27, 1914, members raised questions in the House of Commons regarding the duration and method of her force-feeding, her resistance, and her health condition. The government defended its actions, reporting that they had artificially fed her
"by the mouth,"
that she had resisted but had
"never been strapped down,"
and that she was in
"good bodily health"
upon her release. However, the official narrative failed to suppress the political and moral condemnation that the WSPU was successfully generating. Arabella Scott was released on licence under the "Cat and Mouse Act" on July 26, 1914. This release, achieved through a hunger strike that forced the government’s hand after five weeks of sustained force-feeding, represented a political victory for the suffragettes, demonstrating their unwavering determination even under the most extreme duress.
International conflict, not a political settlement, brought Scott's long ordeal to a formal close. Two days after her release, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Within weeks, the First World War had begun. The WSPU announced an immediate cessation of all militant activities to support the national war effort. On August 10, 1914, the Secretary of Scotland announced the mitigation of all suffragette sentences passed in Scottish courts, officially ending the sentences of Scott and her comrades.
Following the truce, Scott immediately transitioned her activism into nursing, serving as a field hospital nurse during the war. This dedication to public service mirrored her pre-war commitment to political change. She channelled the skills and bravery she displayed resisting the state into national service. Post-war, Scott’s life led her far from the Scottish prisons where she had fought her battles. She later married as Arabella Colville-Reeves and emigrated to Sydney, Australia.
In Australia, she remained committed to the ideals she fought for, becoming a member of the Australian branch of the Suffragette Fellowship. Throughout her long life, she remained fiercely proud of her past. Using her experiences to encourage her female students to stand up for their rights. Her autobiography, My Murky Past, A suffragette's sacrifice in the struggle for votes for women, compiled from taped interviews and edited by her niece Frances Wheelhouse, remains a critical primary source. It documents the psychological and physical brutality of the force-feeding regime. Arabella Scott died in 1980 at the age of 94 in New South Wales.
Arabella Scott’s life provides a profound narrative of personal sacrifice in the pursuit of political equality. Her early embrace of militancy, her tireless efforts under various aliases, and her repeated evasion of the "Cat and Mouse Act" demonstrated a rare level of dedication. However, her five weeks of unrelenting resistance to force-feeding at Perth Prison in 1914 remains her enduring historical contribution. This ordeal, which left her with chipped teeth as
"battle scars,"
became a highly publicized indictment of the government’s treatment of political prisoners. It successfully fuelled public sympathy, ultimately helping to force the government’s hand. Scott’s story ensures that the physical suffering endured by suffragettes remains a central, unforgotten aspect of the movement’s eventual triumph. The bravery she displayed, both on the streets and in the isolated confines of her cell, confirms her place as a hero of Scottish and worldwide women’s rights history.
