Marion Wallace Dunlop (1864–1942) was the first British suffragette to go on hunger strike, on 5 July 1909, after being arrested in July 1909 for militancy.
Born in Scotland, she moved to Ealing and joined the WSPU. She was found guilty of wilful damage for throwing small stones through the windows of 10 Downing Street. She refused to pay a fine and was sent to prison for a month. She was not authorized by the Pankhurst family to undertake hunger striking. However, shortly after word got out, hunger-striking became standard suffragette practice. Christabel Pankhurst later reported: "Miss Wallace Dunlop, taking counsel with no one and acting entirely on her own initiative, sent to the Home Secretary, Mr. Gladstone, as soon as she entered Holloway Prison, an application to be placed in the first division as befitted one charged with a political offence. She announced that she would eat no food until this right was conceded."[1]
She endured 91 hours of fasting before she was released on the grounds of ill health. In September 1909, the British Government introduced force feeding in prisons.