LILLIAN LENTON
“The images on the chairs represent issues concerning law and human rights; one of them is dedicated to the Suffragettes”
Deepings’ own Suffragette
commemorated at Runnymede There is a special reason why the bronze chairs that form the public artwork at Runnymede, designed by Hew Locke as part of the 800 year celebrations of the signing of the Magna Carta, have a resonance with the people of the Deepings. The twelve chairs signify the number of jurors at a trial as a representation of Clause 39 of the Magna Carta which lays down the right to trial by jury. The images on the chairs represent issues concerning law and human rights; one of them is dedicated to the Suffragettes and, particularly, to Lillian Lenton. Lillian, born in 1892, was the granddaughter of an old Deeping family, the Lentons, and she spent many happy holidays here, her father Isaac having left for Leicester in 1882 where he became a carpenter. It was during one of those holidays, in 1901, that while playing with her cousins, John and Joseph, two haystacks belonging to Samuel Frisby of Bank House, Eastgate, were set on fire. The boys denied
involvement but nobody believed them when they insisted that it was Lillian who was to blame. After leaving school, Lillian realised her ambition to train as a dancer but having heard Emmeline Pankhurst speak she was inspired to join the Suffragettes. Almost immediately she was involved in a serious window breaking episode and was one of 200 arrested and sent to Holloway Prison for two months. Unrepentant, on release she became involved in a sustained arson campaign with Olive Wharry, famously setting alight the tea pavilion in Kew Gardens in 1913. Remanded in custody, Lillian went on hunger strike and was force fed. She became seriously ill when food entered her lungs and she contracted double pneumonia and pleurisy. She was released under the Government’s Cat & Mouse Act which allowed prisoners to be released if they refused food and became ill but were to be re-arrested when they recovered.
Home Office Records, National Archives
Lillian escaped but was rearrested in Doncaster and charged with setting light to Blaby Railway Station. She then escaped continued >
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