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William Ball (suffragist)
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William Ball (suffragist)
William Ball (4 November 1862 – 1935) was a British workers union member, jailed for his support of women's suffrage, and subject of a WSPU pamphlet, "Torture In An English Prison", which described his experience being force-fed such that his health deteriorated and he was sent to a lunatic asylum.
William Ball was born in Coton, Staffordshire to Thomas Ball, a gardener, and Elizabeth Ball. In Birmingham in 1891, he married Miriam Jennie Warick, with whom he had five children. Ball was a member of the National Transport Workers Federation.
He was an athlete and a "championship sprinter" of the Midlands. According to the WSPU pamphlet Torture In An English Prison, neither he nor his family had any history of mental illness.
Ball's arrest and imprisonment in December 1911 was for breaking two panes of the Home Office windows in protest at the jailing of another man, Alan MacDougall, who had supported the suffragettes attending political meetings. Ball also was against the Manhood Suffrage Bill which "would bar the passage of a measure for votes for women".
A first offence, but with a sentence of two months at Pentonville prison, Ball was denied the right to wear his own clothes, like the women suffragettes at the same time. He refused prison clothing and went on hunger strike, was force-fed for the first time on Christmas Day and then twice daily for 37 days.
This "disgusting" process meant being held down by two warders, "a tube thrust up his nose and down his throat".
Ball was forbidden from writing to his wife, Jennie, and denied visits, despite her frequent letters of appeal to the prison governor, Major Owen Davies. With four dependent children and only one wage, Jennie wrote to the Prison Commission, Home Office with a request to insure Ball's life, which would require a doctor's visit to assess his health. This too was denied with a statement from the prison that he was in his "usual health" and due for discharge on 21 February; but on 12 February, she was then informed that he was certified insane and transferred to a pauper's asylum.
Solicitor Arthur Marshall, husband of WSPU's Kitty Marshall took Jennie to the Home Office to find out Ball was at Colney Hatch, Barnet. On visiting, Ball's wife found him "very seriously ill and in an exceedingly emaciated condition with nose and throat swollen and inflamed from forcible feeding."
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William Ball (suffragist)
William Ball (4 November 1862 – 1935) was a British workers union member, jailed for his support of women's suffrage, and subject of a WSPU pamphlet, "Torture In An English Prison", which described his experience being force-fed such that his health deteriorated and he was sent to a lunatic asylum.
William Ball was born in Coton, Staffordshire to Thomas Ball, a gardener, and Elizabeth Ball. In Birmingham in 1891, he married Miriam Jennie Warick, with whom he had five children. Ball was a member of the National Transport Workers Federation.
He was an athlete and a "championship sprinter" of the Midlands. According to the WSPU pamphlet Torture In An English Prison, neither he nor his family had any history of mental illness.
Ball's arrest and imprisonment in December 1911 was for breaking two panes of the Home Office windows in protest at the jailing of another man, Alan MacDougall, who had supported the suffragettes attending political meetings. Ball also was against the Manhood Suffrage Bill which "would bar the passage of a measure for votes for women".
A first offence, but with a sentence of two months at Pentonville prison, Ball was denied the right to wear his own clothes, like the women suffragettes at the same time. He refused prison clothing and went on hunger strike, was force-fed for the first time on Christmas Day and then twice daily for 37 days.
This "disgusting" process meant being held down by two warders, "a tube thrust up his nose and down his throat".
Ball was forbidden from writing to his wife, Jennie, and denied visits, despite her frequent letters of appeal to the prison governor, Major Owen Davies. With four dependent children and only one wage, Jennie wrote to the Prison Commission, Home Office with a request to insure Ball's life, which would require a doctor's visit to assess his health. This too was denied with a statement from the prison that he was in his "usual health" and due for discharge on 21 February; but on 12 February, she was then informed that he was certified insane and transferred to a pauper's asylum.
Solicitor Arthur Marshall, husband of WSPU's Kitty Marshall took Jennie to the Home Office to find out Ball was at Colney Hatch, Barnet. On visiting, Ball's wife found him "very seriously ill and in an exceedingly emaciated condition with nose and throat swollen and inflamed from forcible feeding."
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