Isabella Potbury

Isabella Claude Potbury (1890 – 31 July 1965) was a portrait painter,^[1] a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a militant suffragette^[2] who was arrested several times and imprisoned during which she was force-fed.^[3] She was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal by the leadership of the WSPU.^[4]

A suffragette being force-fed; Potbury endured this treatment in 1912 in Holloway Prison

Isabella Potbury was born in 1890 in Epsom in Surrey, the daughter of Harriet Alice née Clapham (1862–1942) and Cambridge-educated schoolmaster John Albert Potbury (1859–1903).^[5]

She was first arrested on 25 November 1910 following which she appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court. She was in the dock there again on 24 November 1911 after a further arrest following which she was imprisoned. Potbury was back in court at the London Sessions on 12 December 1911 and again appeared at Bow Street on 7 March 1912 after breaking ten windows with Olive Wharry and Mollie Ward at Messers Robinson and Cleaver on Regent Street in London valued at £195. A student aged 22, Potbury was sent for trial at the London Sessions on 19 March 1912, receiving a sentence of six months imprisonment in Holloway Prison where she was a co-signatory on The Suffragette Handkerchief in 1912.^[6] She was released early at the end of June 1912 after joining the hunger strike and being force-fed.^[7] Her final appearance at Bow Street was on 30 June 1914.^[2][8]

In 1929 she married the playwright and actor Charles Nicholas Spencer (1898–1958)^[1] at Chelsea in London.^[9] The couple lived at 113 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea.

Isabella Claude Spencer died in 1965 at Chelsea in London.^[10][11]