She was born as Eugenie Sheppard in 1863 in Dudley in Worcestershire,[3] the youngest of four children born to Ellen née King (1829-) and Thomas Sheppard (1829-1904), an ironmonger and town councillor in Dudley.[4] By 1891 she was a student boarding at 8 Regent Terrace in Cambridge while studying Medicine at the University of Cambridge.[5] The 1901 Census lists her and her older sister Amy Sheppard as Medical Practitioners lodging at 13 Upper Berkeley Street in Marylebone in London.[3] She was arrested at a demonstration in the West End of London in 1912 during which she and other suffragettes smashed windows with stones and hammers.
On being imprisoned in Holloway Prison Dr. Sheppard went on hunger strike and was force-fed.[6] On her release Sheppard received the Hunger Strike Medal from the leadership of the WSPU. The medal is engraved with the words: "Fed by Force 1/3/12".[2]