Margaret Hewitt (suffragette)
Margaret Hewitt (1800s–1900s) was a British suffragette employed by the Women's Social and Political Union. She was involved in protests in 1909 and arrested. She was chosen to visit the Eagle House aka "Suffragette's Rest" where a plaque commemorated her planting holly bush in the arboretum for leading suffragettes. Life Hewitt's early life is unknown. In 1908 she came to notice when she interrupted Lord Carrington as he arrived in Manchester to give him a copy of the newspaper Votes for Women. Carrington told her to send it to him by post. She was also campaigning that month in Greater Manchester at Altringham and organising the collecting stewards for a suffragist meeting in Heaton Park. In 1909 suffragettes were arrested for obstruction during a visit by Winston Churchill because they refused to leave the meeting place. Those taken to court were Edith Rigby, Grace Alderman, Catherine Worthington and Beth Hesmondhalgh. They all chose prison for seven days, in preference to a fine, except for Edith Rigby. Her father, annoyingly, paid the fine claiming that his daughter (a later proven arsonist) was just in the bad company of "hired women". Edith's brother, Arthur, was reported to have pointed at Hewitt, saying