Minnie Turner

Minnie Turner was born on 6th May 1866. A supporter of women's suffrage, Turner became the honorary secretary of the Women's Liberal Association in Brighton in 1896. She was also a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). However, disappointed by the failure of the Liberal government to introduce legislation that would enable women to vote, Turner joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908.

Turner ran her home, Sea View (13/14) Victoria Road, as a boarding house. Mary Clarke lived in her house while based in Brighton as a WSPU organiser. Turner was especially keen to cater for suffragettes and advertised her services in Votes for Women, The Suffragette, The Common Cause, The Vote and Women's Dreadnought.

Her advert stated: "Suffragettes spend your holidays in Brighton, central. Terms moderate." Some of the women who stayed at her boarding house included Emmeline Pankhurst, Constance Lytton, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Annie Kenney, Flora Drummond , Marie Naylor, Mary Leigh, Mary Phillips and Vera Wentworth.

In November 1910 Turner was arrested with Mary Clarke while taking part in a demonstration outside the House of Commons. She was released without charge. She was arrested for breaking a window in the Home Office in November 1911 and received a sentence of 21 days' in Holloway Prison.

Some members of the WSPU stayed at Sea View after enduring hunger-strikes. This included Minnie Baldock in 1911 and Emily Wilding Davison in July 1912. Minnie Turner also kept a suffrage lending library at her home. That year her house was attacked by local people who disapproved of her support for the WSPU.

Minnie Turner was a member of the Tax Resistance League (TRL). The motto adopted by the Tax Resistance League was "No Vote No Tax". According to Elizabeth Crawford, the author of The Suffragette Movement (1999): "When bailiffs seized goods belonging to women in lieu of tax, the TRL made the ensuing sale the occasion for a public or open-air meeting in order to spread the principles of women's suffrage and to rouse public opinion to the injustice of non-representation meted out on tax-paying women." In 1912 Turner had goods seized and sold at auction in lieu of tax. and Florence Haig.

Minnie Turner died in 1948.