Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton

Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (12 February 1869 – 22 May 1923), usually known as Constance Lytton, was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control. She used the name Jane Warton to avoid receiving special treatment when imprisoned for suffragist protests.

Although born and raised in the privileged ruling class of British society, Lytton rejected this background to join the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the most militant group of suffragette activists campaigning for "Votes for Women".

She was subsequently imprisoned four times, including once in Walton gaol in Liverpool under the nom de guerre of Jane Warton, where she was force fed while on hunger strike. She chose the alias and disguise of Jane Warton, an "ugly London seamstress", to avoid receiving special treatment and privileges because of her family connections: she was the daughter of a viceroy and the sister of a member of the House of Lords. She wrote pamphlets on women's rights, articles in The Times newspaper, and a book on her experiences, Prisons and Prisoners, which was published in 1914.

While imprisoned in Holloway during March 1909, Lytton used a piece of broken enamel from a hairpin to cut the letter "V" into the flesh of her breast, placed exactly over the heart. (The "V" came from "Votes for Women", as she had planned to scratch the whole phrase "beginning over the heart and ending it on [her] face".)

Lytton remained unmarried, because her mother refused her permission to marry a man from a "lower social order", while she refused to contemplate marrying anyone else.

Her heart attack, stroke, and early death at the age of 54 have been attributed in part to the trauma of her hunger strike and force feeding by the prison authorities.

Early life and family

Lytton was the third of seven children of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton and Edith Villiers.