Victoria Lidiard (née Simmons) was born in Bristol on 23rd December 1889. She died, aged 102, on 3rd October 1992 in Hove, the last living suffragette. In 1996 the Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd, unveiled a plaque on her home at 14 Palmeira Avenue.
Denied the education provided to her brothers, Victoria found work at 14 in a photographic studio. Always independent, she became a vegetarian in 1899 then in 1907 joined the WSPU, after hearing Annie Kenney speak. Thereafter, she became an activist and a friend to prominent suffragettes. She chalked pavements, sold Votes For Women (and was spat on by a local clergyman for doing it), addressed meetings at Bristol Docks and smashed windows in Whitehall. On 4th March 1912 she broke a War Office window and was imprisoned for two months.
During the First World War she and her sister ran a guest-house in Kensington and made anti-aircraft shells at Battersea Power Station at the weekends. In 1918 she married Major Alexander Lidiard, an active member of the Men’s League For Women’s Suffrage, whom she had met while selling Votes For Women.
After the war Victoria trained as an optician, working alongside her husband. She was an animal welfare activist, a published writer and a member of her local church council, attending St John’s Church in Palmeira Square. She actively campaigned for the ordination of women.
