Lacon , Annie , 1880-1968 , suffragette

Annie Lacon (1880-1968) was born in Birmingham in 1880. She attended a meeting in Birmingham in 1906 at which Emmeline Pankhurst was a speaker and immediately became the first member of the Birmingham branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). There she also met the man who was to become her husband. In 1907 she was selected as a delegate from Birmingham sent to protest at the House of Commons. During this event on the 20 Mar 1907, she was arrested with around seventy other women and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The following day she was tried and fined five shilling which she refused to pay. She was then held for fourteen days in solitary confinement. She subsequently continued as a member of the WSPU, later giving birth to a daughter whom she named Emmeline. This occurred two months after the death of her husband and she subsequently went to live with her sister before moving to Northampton in 1948 where her daughter was employed. She remained a member of the Labour party there until the end of her life, as well as belonging to the Northampton Business and Professional Women's Club. Lacon was also a member of the Women's Freedom League and birth-control campaigner. She died in 1968.