1. Dora Beedham was a British nurse from the social activist Spong Family and suffragette who joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1908 and was imprisoned and force-fed.
13 Facts About Dora Beedham
1. 2.
Dora Beedham's mother was a vegetarian - Dora and the other daughters followed suit.
3.
In June 1910 Dora Beedham Spong began training as a midwife, a career she was still following in 1915.
4.
Dora Beedham was a member of the Independent Labour Party, Finsbury branch.
5.
Dora Beedham joined the Women's Social and Political Union, the suffragette activists, in 1908.
6.
Dora Beedham was charged for the first time the next day on 1 July 1908 for obstruction and sentenced to a month in Holloway prison, where her fellow members of Finsbury ILP wrote to her in support and 'admiration of the courage and determination in submitting to the onus of the prison cell in the women's cause'.
7.
Dora Beedham's name was not found on the 1911 Census nor are her sisters apart from Annie.
8.
Dora Beedham was given a Hunger Strike Medal 'For Valour'.
9.
The children of Frances Elizabeth Scott and James Osborne Spong were: Minnie Frances Spong ; Dora Beedham Spong ; Annie Eliza Spong ; Florence Spong and Irene Osborn Spong.
10.
Dora Beedham was unmarried but lived with a fellow artist Joseph Sydell, whom she met at art college.
11.
Dora Beedham opened the Spong School in Hampstead in 1919, where Spong Rhythmic Dancing was taught and which in 1920 became known as Natural Movement Dancing.
12.
Dora Beedham studied lace-making in Spain and wood-carving under Hubert von Herkomer.
13.
Dora Beedham's signature is on the Holloway banner made by WSPU members in prison, now in the Museum of London.