Alison Roberta Noble Neilans (1884-1942) was a militant suffragette who campaigned for the legal and individual rights of prostitutes. Independent from a young age following the death of her father, Neilans became the financial secretary of the Women's Freedom League in 1908 and was arrested and force fed on several occasions during demonstrations. After joining the International Abolitionist Federation, her campaigns became centered on the rights of prostitutes. At a time when campaigners focused on reform, Neilans was unique in rejecting the accepted double standards of the time, 'perhaps no class of people has been so much abused...or alternatively, sentimentalised over as prostitutes have been, but one thing they have never had yet, and that is simple legal justice'. Source: National Portrait Gallery.

Photography by Anne Tetzlaff