ARTIST AND SUFFRAGETTE, ERNESTINE MILLS – Kensington

Ernestine Mills (nee Bell) was born in 1871, and, taking a great interest in art, was taught, as a child, by Frederic Shields, friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She was subsequently to publish the "Life and Letters of Frederic Shields".

Ernestine joined the famous Slade School and the South Kensington School of Art, later the Royal College of Art, both in London. It was at this latter institution, that she met and studied with Sylvia Pankhurst, and soon afterwards became passionately involved in the struggle in Britain for Votes for Women.

She used her art for the Suffragette movement, and designed badges in the Suffragette colours, purple, white and green. In 1901 she became a member of the British Society of Women Artists, and, long afterwards, in 1943-4, served as its Acting President.

She died in 1959