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23 Facts About Caprina Fahey

1.

Caprina Fahey was a British suffragette who was given the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger Strike Medal "for Valour" in 1914.

2.

Caprina Fahey was an active member of the WSPU and was imprisoned twice in Holloway Prison.

3.

Caprina Fahey married twice, divorcing her first husband and retaining custody of their child, which was unusual at the time.

4.

Caprina Fahey was born Charlotte Emily Caprina Gilbert in Capri, Italy, on 13 September 1883.

5.

Caprina Fahey's mother was Alice Jane Gilbert and her father was Alfred Gilbert, sculptor of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus, London.

6.

Caprina Fahey's parents were cousins and eloped to Paris in order to be married.

7.

Caprina Fahey travelled by train to Belgium with her mother on 7 September 1901.

8.

Caprina Fahey trained as a masseuse and married Alfred Edward Caprina Fahey in 1901, taking his name.

9.

Caprina Fahey's husband was one of her father's assistants and a painter.

10.

Caprina Fahey later sued Alfred for divorce and was given custody of Dennis; this was unusual for the times.

11.

Caprina Fahey's husband died soon afterwards in 1907 and their son died at the age of 35 in Brighton, leaving his mother three grandchildren in Sussex.

12.

Caprina Fahey served with the French Red Cross as a masseuse during World War I, where she is thought to have met her second husband Edward Knight.

13.

Caprina Fahey worked as an Air Raid Warden and they hosted at least one evacuee in wartime.

14.

Caprina Fahey joined the WSPU in 1908, and within two years became organiser for Middlesex.

15.

Caprina Fahey helped at Longdown Farm, organising suffragette meetings in central Buckinghamshire, where she stayed in the summers of 1908 and 1909.

16.

Caprina Fahey was arrested in 1909, along with twenty six other suffragette campaigners who marched from Caxton Hall, Westminster and attempted to enter the House of Commons.

17.

Caprina Fahey was sentenced for obstruction with Constance Lytton, Daisy Solomon, Rose Lamartine Yates and Sarah Carwin, receiving one month in prison.

18.

Caprina Fahey associated with local Norfolk suffragettes including Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh, Grace Marcon and Miriam Pratt.

19.

Caprina Fahey was imprisoned with Helen Watts and wrote praising her subsequent 90 hour fast in prison.

20.

Caprina Fahey was awarded the WSPU Hunger Strike Medal "for Valour" dated 14 March 1914 when she was arrested under the name Emily Charlton.

21.

Caprina Fahey died at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on 26 October 1959.

22.

Caprina Fahey's funeral took place at the All Saints Church in Hainford on 29 October 1959.

23.

Caprina Fahey was nominated for the Suffrage to Citizenship project organised by the Women's Local Government Society.