Florence Olivia Tunks (19 July 1891 – 22 February 1985) was a militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who with Hilda Burkitt engaged in a campaign of arson in Suffolk in 1914 for which they both received prison sentences.
Florence Tunks was born in Newport in Monmouthshire in 1891, the eldest of four daughters of Gilbert Samuel Tunks (1863–1933), an engineer, and Elizabeth "Bessie" Ann née Hall (1866–1947).[1] From at least 1894 to 1911 the family were living in Cardiff in Wales where Gilbert Tunks ran a mechanical and electric engineers and oven builders trading as Tunks and Co.[2][3] The 1911 Census for Cardiff lists Florence Tunks as a bookkeeper[4][5] and she was still a bookkeeper[6] when she was living with her parents and three sisters at 20 Bisham Gardens in Highgate.[7]
At some time around 1914 Tunks joined the Women's Social and Political Union and became a militant suffragette. In April 1914 Tunks with her fellow-suffragette Hilda Burkitt burnt down two wheat stacks at Bucklesham Farm valued at £340, the Pavilion at the Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth and the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe, causing £35,000 of damage to the latter as part of the campaign for women's suffrage. There were no occupants in either the Pavilion or the hotel.[8] The two women refused to answer questions in Court and sat on a table chatting throughout the proceedings with their backs to the magistrates.[9] For her actions Tunks received a nine-month sentence which she served in Holloway Prison.
Florence Tunks studied for a certificate in nursing between 1915 and 1918 at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary in Derby and qualified as a nurse in London in 1923. In 1946 she is listed on the Nursing Register as living with her widowed mother in the family home at Bisham Gardens in Highgate.[10] Her parents are buried together in Highgate Cemetery. She never married and died in Glindon Nursing Home on Lewes Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex in 1985 aged 93.[11][12][13]
In 2014 The Felixstowe Society unveiled a plaque commemorating the burning down of the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe by Hilda Burkitt and Tunks in 1914. The plaque commemorates the centenary of the burning down of the hotel and is on what remains of the building, at the site of the former Bartlet Hospital.[14][15]
References
edit- ^ Florence Olivia Tunks in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837–1915
- ^ Dissolving of the partnership of Tunks & Co - The London Gazette 27 November 1894 pg. 6992
- ^ Tunks and Co - Grace's Guide to Industrial British History
- ^ Florence Tunks in the 1901 Wales Census
- ^ 1911 Wales Census for Florence Tunks - Glamorgan, Cardiff, East Cardiff 02
- ^ Florence Tunks was convicted of arson in 1914 - Institute of Certified Bookkeepers website
- ^ We want to hear about ‘remarkable women in Highgate’ - Camden New Journal 23 November 2017
- ^ "Flexstowe Bath Hotel". The Suffolk Real Ale Guide. Campaign for Real Ale in Suffolk. Archived from the original on 29 April 2017. Retrieved 12 October 2019.
- ^ Diane Atkinson, Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes, Bloomsbury Publishing (2018) - Google Books
- ^ UK & Ireland, Nursing Registers, 1898-1968 for Florence Olivia Tunks - Register of Nurses 1946 - Ancestry.com (subscription required)
- ^ Florence Olivia Tunks in the England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916–2007 (1985)
- ^ England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995 for Florence Olivia Tunks (1985)
- ^ Death Notice for Florence Olivia Tunks (1985) - The London Gazette 27 March 1985 pg. 4374
- ^ Felixstowe Bath Hotel suffragette arson commemorated - BBC News 29 April 2014
- ^ Phil Hadwen (1 September 2014). "The Plight of the Plaques" (PDF). The Felixstowe Society Newsletter (107): 22–23. Retrieved 12 October 2019.