Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Women’s Social and Political Union Medal for Valour, obverse inscribed, ‘Hunger Strike’, the reverse, ‘Mary Hilliard’, silver, 22mm., hallmarks for Birmingham 1911, the suspension bar inscribed, ‘March 4th 1912’ and brooch bar, ‘For Valour’, original ribbon with an enamelled brooch bar in the ‘Suffragette’ colours, in case of issue, interior of lid inscribed, ‘Presented to Mary Hilliard by the Women’s Social & Political Union in recognition of a gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship a great principle of political justice was vindicated’, nearly extremely fine £3000-4000

Mary Hilliard was one among some 96 women who were arrested and tried for participating in a major mass demonstration by Suffragettes on 4 March 1912.

Three days earlier on the first day of the month an unpublicised rally, organised by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU - whose members were more commonly known as Suffragettes), had led to major incidents of civil disobedience, mainly window breaking in London, along Whitehall, the Strand, Haymarket, Piccadilly, Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street. These events had attracted much negative attention in the press and resulted in something of a national outcry. It was a memorable day also, in that it was the occasion on which Mrs Pankhurst threw her first stone - her target was the windows at 10 Downing Street. About 220 arrests were made and about 270 properties damaged.

The women's focus at this time was to draw attention to the debate in Parliament of a 3rd Conciliation Bill which would, had it been passed, have extended the franchise to various categories of women. However, its defeat was a foregone conclusion, hence the WSPU maintained their militancy throughout the debate with a series of high-profile demonstrations.

In order to build on the success of 1 March, the WSPU publicised another rally for the evening of the 4th to take place in Parliament Square, all-the-while keeping secret and drawing attention away from its other plan which was to stage another rally earlier in the day. Thus it was that on the morning of 4 March, one hundred or more women walked quietly and in single file along Knightsbridge, Brompton Road and Kensington High Street on the way demolishing nearly every pane of glass they passed. Taken by surprise, the Police arrested as many women as they could with some help from the Military Police (one report says soldiers) from Knightsbridge Barracks.

Mary Hilliard was arrested on this day and although the charge against her is not specified in the Suffragette Newspaper 'Votes for Women', it was almost certainly on a charge of window breaking. Her case was heard at Bow Street Magistrates Court on 11 March and she was sentenced to two months with hard labour, which she served in full. Most of those charged with window smashing received sentences of between seven days and two months, except in a few cases where the damage was over £5 in which case a longer period of imprisonment was imposed.