{{Short description|British suffragette and tax resister(1866–1922)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}{{Use British English|date=January 2025}}{{Infobox person | birth_date = 1866 | birth_place = Abbess Roding, Essex, England | death_date = 19 April 1922 | death_place = Hornchurch, Essex, England | organization = [[Women's Social and Political Union]], [[Women's Tax Resistance League]] }} '''Bertha Bacon''' ({{Nee|<b>Thurgood</b>}}, 1866–19 April 1922)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=12 April 2015 |title=THE LIVES AND ACTIONS OF SUFFRAGETTES AND SUFFRAGISTS: Bacon and Baines |url=https://uncoveryourancestors.org/blog/archives/12-2015/ |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=Uncover Your Ancestors |language=en}}</ref> was a British [[suffragette]] and member of the [[Women's Tax Resistance League]].
== Life == Bacon was born in 1866 in [[Abbess Roding]], [[Essex]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mrs Bertha Bacon / Database - Women's Suffrage Resources |url=https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/1542/mrs-bertha-bacon |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=www.suffrageresources.org.uk}}</ref> She was one of eight children.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Bertha Bacon, Jennie, George and George Wilfred Baines |url=https://www.suffragettesandsuffragists.com/database/suffragettes-bacon-and-the-baines-family |access-date=2024-11-06 |website=RESEARCHING SUFFRAGETTES AND SUFFRAGISTS |language=en}}</ref>
Bacon was a suffragette and member of the Wimbledon branch of the [[Women's Social and Political Union]] (WSPU).<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |date=2 December 1911 |title=Wimbledon Suffragettes in Court |url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/image-viewer?issue=BL%2F0004578%2F19111202&page=2&article=008&stringtohighlight=bertha+bacon |access-date=18 February 2025 |work=Wimbledon News |pages=2}}</ref> She was arrested on 24 November 1911, for smashing three windows of the dining room at the [[Westminster Palace Hotel]],<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">Suffragettes: Amnesty of August 1914: Index of Women Arrested 1906-1914. HO 45/24665. [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives of the UK]], Kew, Surrey, England.</ref> valued at £5.<ref name=":1" /> The [[Bishop of Gloucester]] had been sitting next to a window that was smashed.<ref name=":1" /> She explained that she had broken the windows because "It was my duty. There is a wave of feminine indignation sweeping over the country and we cannot help it."<ref name=":3" /> She was fined £5 or twenty one days imprisonment and £4 damages.<ref name=":0" />
After her release from prison, she also became a member of the ''[[Women's Tax Resistance League]],'' which used [[tax resistance]] to protest against the disenfranchisement of women. In April 1913, in [[Romford]], Essex, a gold ring set with a coral and two pearls was auctioned off to pay her tax bill.<ref name=":1" />
She died in 1922 at [[Hornchurch]], Essex.<ref name=":2" />
== References == {{Reflist}} {{Authority control}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Bertha}} [[Category:1866 births]] [[Category:1922 deaths]] [[Category:People from Epping Forest District]] [[Category:British suffragists]] [[Category:19th-century British women]] [[Category:20th-century British women]] [[Category:Women's Social and Political Union]] [[Category:British women civil rights activists]]