Archive for category Collecting Suffrage
Collecting Suffrage: Suffragette Fakery
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on December 2, 2021
Over the years I have expressed concern about the practice of dealers and auctioneers in labelling as ‘suffragette’ any piece of jewellery that combines stones approximating to suffragette colours of purple, white and green. I explained in another post [see https://wp.me/p2AEiO-nd] that such jewellery would have had no association with the suffragette movement, the colours were merely harmonious and fashionable, which was why they had been chosen by the Women’s Social and Political Union as their ‘brand’. This practice is, I am afraid, still rife, but at least I have tried to warn the trade and the public.
However, I am now increasingly worried by the number of deliberately faked suffragette objects that are being sold both on eBay and by British auction houses, often for high prices. Fake ‘suffragette’ flags, watches, cigarette cases, car badges, defaced coins, and woven cloth badges are the latest items to appear in auction house sales. Having specialised in suffrage ephemera – as an historian and a dealer – for over 35 years I can assure my readers that most of these objects either never existed in the ‘suffrage’ years and are being dreamed up – and manufactured – by unscrupulous sellers, or are modern copies. I do occasionally protest to terrestrial auction houses about individual items and they then invariably withdraw them from sale – but I cannot hope to stem the tide alone.
While I hate the idea of private buyers being duped, not only by spending large sums but also by thinking, erroneously, that they own an artefact with a real connection to the suffrage movement, my principal fear is that such objects will end up in public collections; indeed, I know this to have happened. If the institution is made aware of its mistake and removes the object from display, it has lost money; if the object passes into the collection unchallenged, it is legitimising a fiction. I would ask potential buyers to think carefully – and even consult an expert – before spending money on artefacts labelled as ‘suffragette’. Better still, research the movement carefully so that you can exercise your own judgment. There are still plenty of ‘right’ objects to be found but, as ever, this maxim holds: ‘If an item looks too good to be true, it probably is’.
Caveat Emptor
To see something of the marvellous range of suffrage artefacts that were actually produced by suffrage societies do consult Ken Florey’s site. Although treating, in the main, items produced to publicise the US suffrage movement, he also includes a wide range of British items.
My website also includes a number of articles that may prove useful – under the ‘Collecting Suffrage’ heading. And, if you would like advice about an item you are thinking of buying, you can always ask for my opinion.
Collecting Suffrage: Free Online Talk 22 June
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on June 15, 2021

On Tuesday 22 June at 6pm London Time I shall be giving a free online (Zoom) talk on ‘Collecting Suffragettes’,, under the auspices of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association and the Institute of English Studies (University of London.
The very fully illustrated talk will discuss suffrage memorabilia – of all types – created in the course of the women’s suffrage campaign that ran from 1866 until all women in Britain were granted the parliamentary vote in 1928.
If interested, you can book here
Collecting Suffrage: The ‘Census Resisted’ Badge
Posted by womanandhersphere in 1911 Census, Collecting Suffrage on September 25, 2020
NO VOTE – NO CENSUS – CENSUS RESISTED BADGE
Metal badge worn by suffragettes who boycotted the April 1911 census. Around the outside of the badge is ‘No Vote – No Census – Census Resisted and in the centre ‘A census for Gt Britain shall be taken in the year 1911 & the census day shall be Sunday the 2nd day of April in that year’.
The census boycott was an important act of civil disobedience and you can find many posts on this website about the suffragette resisters. Just key ‘census’ into the Search Box.
The round black and grey badge still carries on its reverse the maker’s paper ‘Merchants Portrait Co.’. This badge is extremely scarce and is in fine condition £1100
If interested in buying, email elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Gladice Keevil Photographed by Lena Connell
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 21, 2020
Portrait photograph of Miss Gladice Keevil, The ‘National Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clement’s Inn, WC’.
The photographer was Lena Connell, who, in an interview in the Women’s Freedom League paper, The Vote, dated her involvement with the suffrage movement to this commission. When she arrived at Lena Connell’s St John’s Wood studio in 1908 Gladice Keevil had not long been released from prison and was soon appointed National Organizer for the WSPU in the Midlands.
She was a speaker in the WSPU’s summer campaign in Ireland in 1910 and was described by a member of one of her open-air meetings in Belfast as ‘Clever speaker and knows her subject’. She was also one of the WSPU’s prettiest activists.
Postcard in fine condition – unposted £120 + VAT in UK and EU. Email me if interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Mrs Amy Sanderson, Scottish Speaker For The Women’s Freedom League
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 18, 2020
Mrs Amy Sanderson, born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1906 and took part in the deputation in February 1907 from the first Women’s Parliament in Caxton Hall to the House of Commons, was arrested and served a Holloway prison term.
She actively campaigned in Scotland for the WSPU before, in October 1907, joining those who broke away to form the Women’s Freedom League. becoming for 3 years a member of the WFL executive committee. In 1908 she served another prison term.
She was a very popular speaker for the WFL and, in 1912, for the ‘Women’s March’ from Edinburgh to London.
In this photograph she is wearing her ‘Holloway brooch’, given by the WFL in recognition of her imprisonment.
The card, issued by the WFL no later than November 1909, after which date the Scottish Glasgow headquarters moved from Gordon Street to Sauchiehall Street, is in fine, unposted condition. £130 + VAT in UK and the EU.
Email me if interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Anna Munro, Organizer For The Scottish Council Of The Women’s Freedom League
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 17, 2020
Full-length portrait photograph of Anna Munro (1881-1962) Scottish organiser for the Women’s Freedom League. The address is that of the WFL Scottish headquarters.
Anna Munro had joined the WSPU in 1906, becoming its organizer in Dunfermline. The following year she followed Teresa Billington-Greig into the WFL, becoming her private secretary. She was imprisoned in Holloway in early 1908 before being appointed organizing secretary of the Scottish Council of the WFL.
After the First World War Anna Munro (now Mrs Ashman) became a magistrate in England and was later president of the WFL in which she remained active until its disbanding in 1961.
Photographic postcards of Scottish suffragettes are relatively uncommon. This one is in fine, unposted condition. £130 + VAT in UK and EU. Email me if interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Photograph Of Cicely Hamilton By Lena Connell For The Suffrage Shop
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 14, 2020
Photograph of a luminous Cicely Hamilton, writer, actor and suffrage activist, taken by Lena Connell, the renowned photographer.
The close-up photograph is mounted on stiff card, which carries the logo of The Suffrage Shop, 15 Adam Street, Strand, London. Hamilton was closely associated with the Suffrage Shop, which in 1910 published her Pageant of Great Women.
The photograph was probably taken c 1910/1911. Hamilton’s name has been scratched on the emulsion, presumably by the photographer, and it is signed by Cicely Hamilton. SOLD
If interested in buying, do email me. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Mrs Charlotte Despard Photographed by Christina Broom
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 9, 2020
A lovely photograph of Mrs Charlotte Despard, leader of the Women’s Freedom League. It was taken on a rooftop, possibly at the time of the WFL’s White, Gold and Green Fair in 1909.
The photographer and publisher of the resultant postcard was Mrs Albert Broom (Christina Broom), who photographed several groups of those participating in that WFL Fair.
In fine, unposted, condition. A scarce image. Sold
Email me if interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: This Is The House That Man Built
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 8, 2020
And this is the Minister weary and worn/Who treated the Suffragette with scorn,/Who wanted a Vote, and (a saying to quote),/ Dared him to tread on the tail of the coat/Of the bold Suffragette determined to get,/Into ‘THE HOUSE’ that man built.’
The Minister is surrounded by elegant suffragettes – with the House of Commons in the background.
One in the BB Series of 6 postcards showing suffragettes in a dignified light.
Fine – unposted £30 + VAT in UK and EU
Email me if interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Portrait Postcard Of Christabel Pankhurst, c. 1908
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 7, 2020
Head and shoulders photographic portrait of Christabel Pankhurst, probably dating from c. 1908.
She is wearing a rather attractive loose, square-necked dress, with her hair up in her characteristic knot. When Kate Frye attended a meeting of the Actresses’ Franchise League addressed by Christabel in February 1910 she commented, ‘Her hair was very untidy and I think would suit her so much better done low than on top in an ugly little knob.’ But I always think the hint of dishevelment is rather endearing.
The postcard is captioned ‘Miss Christabel Pankhurst. The National Women’s Social and Political Union. 4 Clement’s Inn, WC’, indicating that it was issued after some members, led by Mrs Charlotte Despard, broke away to form the Women’s Freedom League in the autumn of 1907. For a time they hoped to keep the ‘WSPU’ name, which led the Pankhursts to rename their faction ‘The National WSPU’.
The card was published by Sandle Bros. and would have been for sale in WSPU shops. This copy came from a collection put together by three suffragette sisters. Fine – unposted – £40 + VAT in UK and EU. Email me if interested in purchasing. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Photograph of Mrs Fawcett, 1890
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 3, 2020
Today I offer you a studio photograph of Millicent Garrett Fawcett by W & D Downey. Published by Cassell & Co, 1890. She was 43 years old and had already been a leading light of the women’s suffrage movement for over 20 years.
A very good image – mounted. Suitable for framing. £40 + VAT in UK & EU.
In the past I have been concerned about the low profile afforded popularly to Mrs Fawcett. Indeed, in 2013 I wrote a post on the subject: Make Millicent Fawcett Visible.
And in 2016 when there was a suggestion that there should be a statue of a ‘suffragette’ in Parliament Square I did point out that there was already one nearby to Mrs Pankhurst (which I was also determined would not be moved) and one, so often forgotten, to the suffragette movement in general, just down Victoria Street in Christchurch Gardens. That resulted in another post – on Suffragette Statues.
As we all know, the idea of a ‘suffragette’ statue in Parliament Square morphed, thanks to input from Sam Smethers and the Fawcett Society, into the already well-loved statue of Mrs Fawcett. So that she is now indeed publicly visible.
Yesterday’s photograph of Mrs Pankhurst proved very popular, but if you would like demonstrate your loyalty to Mrs Fawcett, here is an excellent opportunity to acquire a photograph of her with which to adorn your desk or wall.
Do email me if you’re interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Photograph Of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst c 1907
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 2, 2020
This photograph of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst probably dates from c 1907, taken at her desk in Clement’s Inn, headquarters of the Women’s Social and Political Union.
The photograph comes from the collection of Isabel Seymour, who was an early WSPU supporter working in the WSPU office.
The photograph is mounted and is 15 x 20 cm (6″ x 8″) and is in good condition for its age. SOLD
Do email me if interested in buying. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Questions To Lloyd George Asked By The Women’s Social And Political Union
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 26, 2020
A leaflet on which the WSPU set out eleven questions concerning Lloyd George’s behaviour in introducing a Government measure for Manhood Suffrage in 1913.
Among the many other pertinent questions: ‘Why do you expect us to accept your personal and unofficial advocacy of Woman Suffrage as a substitute for united and official action on the part of the Government as a whole?
Two-sided leaflet, printed in purple. In good condition – some creasing. £100
If interested in buying – email me – elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: 1907 Programme For ‘Votes for Women’, Play By Elizabeth Robins
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 19, 2020
4-page programme for one of the 8 matinée performances of this so-popular play, staged in April and May 1907 at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, under the joint management of John Vedrenne and Harley Granville Barker.
The programme includes the cast list, of course, and a notice that ‘At these Matinées, Ladies are earnestly requested to remove Hats, Bonnets, or any kind of head dress. This rule is framed for the benefit of the audience…’
Kate Frye (suffrage diarist) saw the play on 16 April and wrote a long entry that night in her diary where, including, amongst other comments, ‘I loved the piece – it is quite fine – most cleverly written and the characters are so well drawn. Needless to say the acting was perfection as it generally is at the Court Theatre and the second act – the meeting in Trafalgar Square – ought to draw the whole of London. I was besides myself with excitement over it ‘
This programme belonged to Isabel Seymour, an early worker in the WSPU Clement’s Inn office, She folded the programme into her pocket or handbag and then kept it for the rest of her life.
In good condition – extremely scarce £500
Email me if interested in buying – elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
THIS ARTICLE AND PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY COPYRIGHT.
PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU WISH TO USE ANYTHING POSTED HERE.
Collecting Suffrage: The Women’s Guild Of Empire
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 12, 2020
The Women’s Guild of Empire organised a demonstration at a critical time just before the General Strike in April 1926. Here we see Flora Drummond supervising the making of the banners that were to be paraded on the Day. The march brought together ‘wives of working men who have had personal experience of strikes’ (as Elsie Bowerman wrote to the editor of ‘The Spectator‘) from all regions of the country, culminating in an Albert Hall meeting, chaired by Mrs Drummond.
A scarce and unusual image – a postcard In fine, unposted, condition SOLD
email me if interested in buying elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: ‘Punch’ Cartoon, 17 January 1906
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 11, 2020
Punch cartoon from the issue for 17 January 1906. ‘The Shrieking Sister’. The Sensible Woman (with her fur stole around her neck) addresses the dishevelled ‘suffragette’ (with a ‘Female Suffrage’ flag tied to her umbrella) – ‘You – help our cause? Why, you’re its worst enemy!’ They are standing outside a hall that advertises ‘Great Liberal Meeting’.
Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union had recently appeared on the national scene. Just over two months previously Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney had been imprisoned after interrupting a Liberal party meeting – and this is how the WSPU is now personified. The General Election, which resulted in a Liberal landslide, was in full swing when the cartoon was published.
A full-page Bernard Partridge cartoon. SOLD
If interested in buying, do email me elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: Photographs Of The Equal Rights Rally, 3 July 1926
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 10, 2020
Two snapshots – taken at the rally by John Collins, Kate Frye’s husband.
Here’s an excerpt from Kate’s diary entry for the day, as reproduced in Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s suffrage diary (now out of print).
Saturday July 3rd 1926 [London: Flat C, 57 Leinster Square]
[After lunch] changed, off with J[ohn] – bus to Marble Arch and walked to Hyde Park Corner. Sat a little then saw the procession of women for Equal franchise rights and to the various meetings and groups. Heard Mrs Pankhurst and she was quite delightful. Also saw Ada Moore – getting very old. Saw Mrs Despard 82 and walked all the way. And the Actresses’ Franchise League.
The tiny snapshots show women and men walking into Hyde Park, with banners. If anyone else was taking photos that day, they do not seem to have made their way into public collections. Very good – very scarce. £20 the two together.
Do email me if you’re interested in buying these shadows of the past. elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
SOLD
Collecting Suffrage: ‘Punch’ Cartoon, 21 October 1908
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 6, 2020
Punch cartoon, 21 October, 1908. Two burglars on their way to ‘suburban night-work’ watch a line of policemen marching the opposite way, into Town, to deal with the Votes for Women demonstration advertised on the poster.
The burglars agree that the ‘sufferajits’ are a good thing, keeping the police occupied as they do. This was the time of the ‘Rush the House of Commons’ demo.
FOR SALE – Full page cartoon by Bernard Partridge. Fine condition £12 SOLD
Collecting Suffrage: The Church League For Women’s Suffrage Paper
Posted by womanandhersphere in Books And Ephemera For Sale, Collecting Suffrage on August 5, 2020
The paper of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage was published monthly from January 1912. This is the issue for 9 September 1912. Issues of the paper are scarce and this one is in good condition for its age – packed with information. For sale – SOLD
If interested email me: elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com
Collecting Suffrage: ‘Votes For Women’ Hooks And Eyes
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on January 16, 2015
In over 30 years spent hunting for and selling objects related to the women’s suffrage campaign, this little box is the only example I have ever found of ‘Votes for Women’ Hooks and Eyes. Although I had it photographed in black and white back in the 1990s, the box in reality is tricked out in the WSPU colours of purple, white and green.
The manufacturer registering ‘Votes for Women’ as its trademark was not the only maker of hooks and eyes to discern a market for its goods among the supporters of the suffrage cause. Votes for Women (eg issue for 23 April 1909, p 26) carried advertisements for ‘Smart’s invisible hooks and eyes ‘ which were the’ patented invention and property of two members and supporters of the Women’s Social and Political Union.’
These items might well have been found amongst the stock of the suffrage shops opened by the various suffrage societies.
As well as being campaigners, the majority of suffragettes and suffragists were, of necessity, also needlewomen. So here was an opportunity to back the Cause while sewing fastenings onto their skirt plackets or bodices.
Copyright
Christmas List 2013 – To Give Or Receive
Posted by womanandhersphere in Books And Ephemera For Sale, Collecting Suffrage on December 8, 2013
Woman and her Sphere
List for Christmas 2013
Elizabeth Crawford
5 Owen’s Row
London EC1V 4NP
Send orders to me by email: e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Payment may be made by cheque, Paypal or by direct bank transfer
Item 178
During those ground-hog days between Christmas and the New Year why not lose yourself in the pre-First World War suffrage world.
I can send a signed copy of my latest book to you or, as a gift from you, to anyone you choose.
Campaigning for the Vote: The Suffrage Diary of Kate Parry Frye
Edited by Elizabeth Crawford
An extract
‘Saturday June 14th 1913. [Kate is lodging in Baker Street, London]
I had had a black coat and skirt sent there for Miss Davison’s funeral procession and the landlady had given me permission to change in her room. I tore into my black things then we tore off by tube to Piccadilly and had some lunch in Lyons. But the time was getting on – and the cortege was timed to start at 2 o’clock from Victoria. We saw it splendidly at the start until we were driven away from our position and then could not see for the crowds and then we walked right down Buckingham Palace Rd and joined in the procession at the end. It was really most wonderful – the really organised part – groups of women in black with white lilies – in white and in purple – and lots of clergymen and special sort of pall bearers each side of the coffin. She gave her life publicly to make known to the public the demand of Votes for Women – it was only fitting she should be honoured publicly by the comrades. It must have been most imposing. [Plus much more description of the procession as Kate follows it into King’s Cross station]
Campaigning for the Vote tells, in her own words, the efforts of a working suffragist to instil in the men and women of England the necessity of ‘votes for women’ in the years before the First World War. The detailed diary kept all her life by Kate Parry Frye (1878-1959) has been edited to cover 1911-1915, years she spent as a paid organiser for the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage. The book constitutes that near impossibility – completely new primary material, published for the first time 100 years after the events it records.
With Kate for company we experience the reality of the ‘votes for women’ campaign as, day after day, in London and in the provinces, she knocks on doors, arranges meetings, trembles on platforms, speaks from carts in market squares, village greens, and seaside piers, enduring indifference, incivility and even the threat of firecrackers under her skirt.
Kate’s words bring to life the world of the itinerant organiser – a world of train journeys, of complicated luggage conveyance, of hotels – and hotel flirtations – , of boarding houses, of landladies, and of the ‘quaintness’ of fellow boarders. This was not a way of life to which she was born, for her years as an organiser were played out against the catastrophic loss of family money and enforced departure from a much-loved home. Before 1911 Kate had had the luxury of giving her time as a volunteer to the suffrage cause; now she depended on it for her keep.
No other diary gives such an extensive account of the working life of a suffragist, one who had an eye for the grand tableau – such as following Emily Wilding Davison’s cortege through the London streets – as well as the minutiae of producing an advertisement for a village meeting. Moreover Kate Frye gives us the fullest account to date of the workings of the previously shadowy New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage. She writes at length of her fellow workers, never refraining from discussing their egos and foibles. After the outbreak of war in August 1914 Kate continued to work for some time at the society’s headquarters, helping to organize its war effort, her diary entries allowing us to experience her reality of life in war-time London.
Excerpts from Campaigning for the Vote featured in ‘The Women’s Rebellion’, episode 2 of Michael Portillo’s Radio 4 series, 1913: The Year Before –listen here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02mxyyz
ITV has selected Kate Frye – to be portrayed by a leading young actress – as one of the main characters in a 2014 documentary series to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.
And there are plans under discussion to make Kate’s story more widely known…..
Published by Francis Boutle Publishers – http://www.francisboutle.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=102&osCsid=f25354bc872ffc120b251b6b63915492
Wrap-around paper covers, 226 pp, over 70 illustrations, all drawn from Kate Frye’s personal archive.ISBN 978 1903427 75 0
Signed copies available from me: £14.99 plus £3 postage to UK addresses.
Signed copies also available of:
Enterprising Women: the Garretts and their circle
Enterprising Women tells the story of a group of women around the Garrett family, who in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth changed the position of women in Britain forever. Pioneering access to education at all levels for women both in academic and vocational subjects as well as training for the professions – medicine, architectural decoration, landscape design – they also involved themselves in politics and the campaign for women’s suffrage. As well as discussing in detail the work of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Emily Davies, this book brings to the foreground the careers of some less well known members of the group, including Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, the first women interior decorators, and Fanny Wilkinson, the first professional woman landscape gardener
‘Crawford’s scholarship is admirable and Enterprising Women offers increasingly compelling reading’ Journal of William Morris Studies
Francis Boutle, 2002 338pp 75 illus paperback
http://www.francisboutle.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=17&products_id=7
Signed copies available from me: £14.99 plus £3 postage to UK addresses.
**
Woman and her Sphere List for Christmas 2013
NON-FICTION: WOMEN
1. BLAIR, Kirstie Form & Faith in Victorian Poetry & Religion OUP 2012 [13415] By assessing the discourses of church architecture and liturgy the author demonstrates that Victorian poets both reflected on and affected ecclesiastical practices – and then focuses on particular poems to show how High Anglican debates over formal worship were dealt with by Dissenting, Broad Church, and Roman Catholic poets and other writers. Features major poets such as the Browning, Tennyson, Hopkins, Rossetti and Hardy – as well as many minor writers. Mint in d/w (pub price £62) £35
2. BOUCHERETT, Jessie and BLACKBURN, Helen Conditions of Working Women and the Factory Acts Elliot Stock 1896 [13341] An extremely scarce and interesting study. Boucherett and Blackburn were particularly concerned that women should not be barred from trades by the dictat of Parliament – rather that their working conditions should be improved. The final chapter consists of ‘The Report to the Society for the Employment of Women on the work of women in the white lead trade, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, March, 1895. With illustrations. Good (back cover marked) – and very scarce (I have never – in nearly 30 years – previously had a copy in stock) £55
3. BROWN, Mike The Day Peace Broke Out: the VE experience, Sutton Publishing 2005 [8936] Describes VE-Day celebrations in Britain and across the world through the memories of those who were there. Illustrated with photographs, adverts, posters and cartoons. Soft covers – large format – mint £10
4. CLAPP, Elizabeth and JEFFREY, Julie Roy (eds) Women, Dissent and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America, 1790-1865 OUP 2011 [13422] Essays by David Turley, Timothy Whelan, Alison Twells, Clare Midgeley, Carol Lasser, Julie Roy Jeffrey, Stacey robertson and Judie Newman – with an Introduction by Elizabeth Clapp. Mint in d/w (pub price £60) £25
5. CLARK, Margaret Homecraft: a guide to the modern home and family Routledge, 3rd ed 1978 (r/p) [10288] The author was senior adviser for Home Economics for Derbyshire. The book was a textbook, suitable for school Home Economics courses. First published in 1966. Soft covers – very good £6
6. DAVID, Deirdre (ed) The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel CUP 2012 (2nd ed) [13411] This second edition includes essays by Kate Flint, Caroline Levine, Nancy Armstrong, Lyn Pykett and Clare Pettit – amongst others. Soft covers – mint £15
7. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING’S HOME ENCYCLOPAEDIA Ebury Press 1968 (r/p) [10297] Packed with information and illustrations. How very retro. Large format – very good in rubbed d/w – heavy £10
8. GREGORY, James Victorians Against the Gallows: capital punishment and the abolitionist movement in 19th-century Britain I.B. Tauris 2011 [13421] The first comprehensive study on the movement against Capital Punishment in Victorian Britain. Mint in d/w (pub price £65) £35
9. HILEY, Michael Victorian Working Women: portraits from life, Gordon Fraser 1979 [13340] Photographs of working women most of them collected during the second half of the 19th century by A.J. Munby. Paper covers – very good £12
10. LARSEN, Timothy A People of One Book: the Bible and the Victorians OUP 2011 [13407] Case studies of representative figures, from Elizabeth Fry to Florence Nightingale, from C.H. Spurgeon to Grace Aguilar to demonstrate the scripture-saturated culture of 19th-century England. Mint in d/w (pub price £76) £25
11. LEE, Julia Sun-Joo The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel OUP 2010 [13436] Investigates the shaping influence of the American slave narrative on the Victorian novel in the years between the British Abolition Act and the American Emancipation Proclamation – and argues that Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thackeray and Dickens integrated into their works generic elements of the slave narrative. Mint in d/w (pub price £40) £15
12. LOANE, M. An Englishman’s Castle Edward Arnold 1909 [9060] Martha Loane was a district nurse – this study of the homes of the poor is the result of her social investigation. Good £18
13. LOFTIE, W.J. A Plea for Art in the House: with special reference to the economy of collecting works of art, and the importance of taste in education and morals Macmillan 1879 (r/p) [13338] First published in 1876 – around the same time as Rhoda and Agnes Garrett’s book in the same series ‘Art at Home’ – and evincing many of the same touchstone’s of taste in home decoration. Goodish – a little rubbed and bumped £18
14. ORRINSMITH, Mrs The Drawing Room: its decoration and furniture Macmillan 1877 [9344] In the ‘Art at Home’ series. ‘The author has endeavoured to give more particular directions as to the furnishing and adornment of the Drawing-Room than was possible in the Miss Garretts’ volume treating of the whole subject of ‘House Decoration’ .’ Very good – missing free front end paper many illustrations – a scarce book £45
15. PALMER, Beth Women’s Authorship and Editorship in Victorian Culture OUP 2011 [13432] Draws on extensive periodical and archival material to bring new perspectives to the study of sensation fiction in the Victorian period. Mint in d/w (pub price £60) £35
16. RAPPOPORT, Jill Giving Women: alliance and exchange in Victorian culture OUP 2012 [13413] examines the literary expression and cultural consequences of English women’s giving from the 1820s to the First World War – in the work of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell and Christina Rossetti – as well as in literary annuals and political pamphlets. Through giving, women redefined the primary allegiances of teh everyday lives, forged public coalitions, and advanced campaigns for abolition, slum reform, eugenics, and suffrage. Mint in d/w (pub price £45.99) £32
17. RODENSKY, Lisa (ed) The Oxford Handbook of the Victorian Novel OUP 2013 [13431] A cornucopia! Mint in d/w – heavy – 808pp. (pub price £95) £50
18. SLATER, Michael The Great Dickens Scandal Yale University Press 2012 [13420] How Dickens sought to cover up his relationship with Ellen Ternan. Mint in d/w (pub price £20) £8
19. STONE, S. A. Home-Making: practical household hints C. Arthur Pearson 1915 [13570] One quails at the amount of routine work that was expected of the housewife and clearly, even when dirt was so much more of a threat and smoke pollution so much more damaging, it can’t really have been necessary to do all that the writers of such guides stipulated. I’m exhausted just reading it. Good reading copy £8
20. STOREY, Joan Home Service Book: the answers to your everyday problems in the home Hodder & Stoughton 1955 [10275] With numerous photographs of, for instance, heating equipment – v. evocative. Good £6
21. TINDALL, Gillian Three Houses, Many Lives: the story of a Cotswold vicarage, a Surrey boarding school and a London home Vintage 2013 [13417] Once again Gillian Tindall works her magic. I loved it (I bought my own copy!) £5
22. VANCE, Norman Bible & Novel: narrative authority and the death of God OUP 2013 [13412] ‘In our increasingly secular society novel-reading is now more popular than Bible-reading. Serious novels are often taken more seriously than scripture. The author looks at how this may have come about as an introduction to four best-selling late-Victorian novelists: George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Mary War, and Rider Haggard.’ Mint in d/w (pub price £55) £28
23. VINCE, Mrs Millicent Decoration and Care of the Home W. Collins 1923 [12870] Mrs Vince had been a pupil of the pioneer ‘House Decorator’, Agnes Garrett. Very good in rubbed d/w £18
BIOGRAPHY
24. (ADDAMS) Louise Knight Jane Addams: Spirit in Action Norton 2011 [13405] Biography of the US campaigner for international peace and social justice. Mint in d/w £10
25. (BRONTE) Margaret Smith (ed) Selected Letters of Charlotte Bronte OUP 2010 [13426] With a new introduction by Janet Gezari. Soft covers – mint £3
26. [GARDINER] Sarah Gardiner (ed) Leaves from a Young Girl’s Diary: the journal of Margaret Gardiner 1840-41 Tuttle, Moorhouse & Taylor Co (NY) 1927 [13478] The journal kept by Margaret Gardiner who, with her father, a NY State Senator, her mother and her sister (who was to become the wife of a US President), sailed across the Atlantic to Europe. They landed at Liverpool and then proceeded to ‘do’ Europe. Delightful. Very good – scarce £45
27. (LIDDELL) Simon Winchester The Alice Behind Wonderland OUP 2011 [13406] ‘Using Charles Dodgson’s published writings, private diaries, and of course his photographic portraits, Winchester gently exposes the development of Lewis Carroll and the making of his Alice.’ Mint in d/w £6
28. (ROBINS) Octavia Wilberforce Backsettown & Elizabeth Robins published for private circulation 1952 [13258] A little tribute – telling how Elizabeth Robins came to set up the retreat at Backsettown in Sussex. With lovely photograph of Elizabeth Robins tipped in as frontispiece. Fine in paper wraps – with a birthday inscription on free front endpaper – scarce £38
29. (SIMPSON) Morrice McCrae Simpson: the turbulent life of a medical pioneer Birlinn 2011 [13433] The discoverer of ‘the blessed chloroform’ and, as such, an important figure in ‘woman’s sphere’. Soft covers – mint £5
30. (STOREY) STOREY, Joyce Joyce’s War 1939-1945 Virago 1992 (r/p) [13482] Soft covers -very good £4
31. (STUART) Hon. James A. Home (ed) Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton David Douglas (Edinburgh) 1901 & 1903 [13335] Two volumes – complete set. The first volume covers the period 1817 to 1825 and the second volume (called ‘Second Series’) that from1826 to 1834. Society observed. Very good – two volumes together £38
32. (THACKERAY) John Aplin Memory and Legacy: A Thackeray Family Biography 1876-1919 Lutterworth Press 2011 [13409] Draws extensively on private collection of descendants of the 19th-century Thackerays and focuses principally on the later years of Anne Thackeray Ritchie, whose amazingly intricate network of family and friendships offers fresh insights into the artistic milieu of the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras. Soft covers – very good £15
EPHEMERA
33. The Home Friend (New Series) SPCK 1854 [8313] 4 vols of miscellany of fact and fiction. Very good in embossed decorative original cloth – together £45
34. HOSMER, Harriet [13465] 2pp handwritten letter, on black-edged note paper, written by the American sculptor, Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908), from her studio in Rome – at ’38 Gregoriana’. She is inviting ‘Mrs Newton’ to her studio and giving details of the times of her ‘open house’. Mrs Newton, with her husband, is in Rome on a visit. There is no date – but probably 1860s or 1870s? Fine £20
35. LONDON (ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL) SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN (UNIVERSITY OF LONDON) [13520] An appeal to build an extension – c 1915. Consists of a brief history of the School and photographs -interior and exterior – of the building and its begetters. Fine £25
36. THE HOME ARTS & INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION A Collection of the Association’s Reports [13332] The Home Arts & Industries Association was founded in 1884 by Eglantyne Jebb and was instrumental in spearheading a revived interest in the craft movement. The Association had its office and studios in the Royal Albert Hall. The collection comprises the Reports for 1902, 1905, 1906 (1 two-sided leaflet and a 4-pp leaflet setting out barest details of the Association, which appears to have been undergoing a financial crisis. I am not sure whether there were reports for 1907 and 1908), 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918. Most in very good condition (that for 1902 may be disbound, front page is present, but loose). – ex-Board of Education Library. Together £55
37. BEDFORD COLLEGE The Common Room [13254] Real photographic card – I can see a print of G. F.Watts’ ‘Hope’ among the pictures – and is that a portrait of Emily Penrose over the fireplace? I’m not sure. Very good – printed in Berlin so probably dates from pre-1914 – unposted £10
38. GEORGE LANSBURY, MP, LCC [13279] real photographic postcard published by the Church Socialist League, London branch, pre – First World War. Fine – unposted £25
39. KITTY GILLOW [10700] poses in top hat and tails – with cigar. A latter-day music-hall actress, she has signed her photograph – which was taken in Jersey in 1964 £5
40. MISS ELLA SHIELDS B. Feldman 1914 [10675] sings ‘Just One Kiss – Just Another One’ and is photographed in top hat and tails on the cover of the sheet music. The song was written by William Hargreaves and Dan Lipton. Very god £7
41. MISS ELLA SHIELDS Campbell, Connelly & Co 1925 [10678] sings ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, written by Irving King, and is photographed as an awkward young man on the cover of the sheet music. Good £6
42. MISS ELLA SHIELDS Lawrence Wright 1925 [10681] sings ‘When the Bloom is On the Heather’ and is photographed in top hat and tails on the cover of the sheet music. Very good £6
43. MISS ELLA SHIELDS Francis, Day & Hunter 1927 [10682] sings ‘I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover’ and is photographed in close up on the cover wearing her top hat and white bow tie. Fair – some marks on cover £5
44. MISS ELLA SHIELDS Lawrence Wright 1929 [10688] sings ‘Home in Maine’ and is photographed in sailor attire on cover of sheet music. Good £6
45. MISS HETTY KING Francis, Day & Hunter 1908 [10684] sings ‘I’m Afraid to Come Home in the Dark’ and is photographed on the cover of the sheet music in extravagantly elegant top hat and tails. Very good £7
46. MISS NORA DELANEY Lawrence Wright 1929 [10687] sings ‘Glad Rag Doll’ and is photographed in male evening dress on the cover of the sheet music. Good £5
47. MISS VESTA TILLEY [10695] photographic postcard of her in waistcoat and trilby, together with a cigarette card of woman in male evening dress. Good – card posted in 1907 £6
48. MISS ZENA DARE [10693] photographic postcard of her in male attire. Very good – posted in 1906 £5
49. ‘MR WINIFRED WARD’ [10697] as she signs in ink (real signature) a photograph of herself in evening dress. She was an acclaimed male impersonater in the early 20th century. Fine £7
50. VESTA TILLEY Francis, Day & Hunter 1905 [10670] sings ‘Who Said, “Girls”?’. Sheet music featuring photograph on cover of Vesta Tilley in smart male attire. The ditty begins: ‘One day on a Western claim/Miners vow’d their lives were tame, For in that lonel spot there seldom girls had been.’ Good £7
51. VESTA TILLEY Francis, Day & Hunter 1896 [10672] sings ‘He’s Going In For this Dancing Now’, sheet music, written by E.W. Rogers. Very good – except that the front cover is semi-detached £5
52. VESTA TILLEY Francis, Day & Hunter 1894 [10683] sings ‘By the Sad Sea Waves’ and is photographed in colour on the cover of the sheet music. Good – though spine strengthened £7
FICTION
53. BRONTES, The Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: selected writings OUP 2010 [13427] Edited with Introduction and Notes by Christine Alexander. Soft covers – mint £6
54. GASKELL, Elizabeth Cranford OUP 2011 [13428] With introduction by Dinah Birch. Soft covers – mint £4
55. NELSON, Cary (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Modern and Contemporary American Poetry OUP 2012 [13429] Mint in d/w – heavy – 716pp (pub price £95) £50
56. VYNNE, Nora The Pieces of Silver Andrew Melrose 1911 [13337] One of the dedicatees of this novel is Franklin Thomasson, whose family had a long association with the women’s suffrage movement. The heroine is a feminist journalist and political campaigner – as was the author, who co-authored, with Helen Blackburn, ‘Women Under the Factory Acts 1903’ (see item # ). While not being categorically ‘suffrage’, it is so very close to that genre that I have included it in this section. A scarce book £48
WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
57. DOBBIE, B.M. Willmott Dobbie A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset: Eagle House, Batheaston Batheaston Society 1979 [13585] The story of the Blathwayt family and their involvement in the women’s suffrage movement – copiously illustrated by the photographs taken by Col Blathwayt. Soft covers – quite scarce £26
58. KING, Elspeth The Scottish Women’s Suffrage Movement People’s Palace, Glasgow 1978 [13272] Soft-covered booklet that was published to accompany the ‘Right to Vote’ exhibition organised by the People’s Palace Museum to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1928 Representation of the People Act. Very good £12
59. (PANKHURST) Emmeline Pankhurst My Own Story Eveleigh Nash 1914 [13265] Mrs Pankhurst’s authobiography, written with the help of the American journalist, Rheda Childe Dorr. Good – scarce £55
60. HINE, Muriel The Man With the Double Heart John Lane 1914 [13336] A ‘suffrage’ novel. The heroine’s mother is a Militant Suffragette; she is not. Good £18
WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE: EPHEMERA
61. A Brief Review of the Women’s Suffrage Movement since its Beginning in 1832 [NUWSS], printed by Vacher & Sons April 1911 [13505] 16-pp pamphlet. Very good – would be fine but it has lost its staples. With the ownership inscription of a ‘Mrs Kerr’ on the cover. £35
62. ADA HINES [12587] (1872-1949) of ‘The Nook’, Ashton-on-Mersey, was an artist and a suffragette – the joint founder, in 1909, with her friend and fellow artist, Lucy Fildes, of the Manchester branch of the Women’s Freedom League. Here is an opportunity to acquire a small oil painting by her – unframed – on board – entitled ‘Sunset’. Signed but undated – rather atmospheric. £75
63. BODICHON, Mrs Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women London National Society for Women’s Suffrage, no date late 1860s? [9519] Printed by Head, Hole & Co, Farringdon Street and Ivy Lane, E.C. Scarce and important pamphlet -8pp – good £250
64. CORONATION PROCESSION 17 June 1911 [11274] A stereoscope photograph of ‘The Empire Car’ – part of the ‘Pageant of Empire’ part of the procession staged by the suffrage societies to mark the Coronation of George V. Very good £95
65. ELMY, Elizabeth Wostenholme Woman’s Franchise: the need of the hour ILP 2nd ed, no date [1907] [12760] A campaigner for women’s suffrage since the mid-1860s, she had put aside a lifetime’s aversion to party politics and joined the Manchester ILP in 1904. This article was originally published in the ‘Westminster Review’. In her concise style she analyses the events of the previous 40 years and demands that Liberal MPs who profess to support women’s suffrage honour their pledges. £65
66. HILL, MISS OCTAVIA Women and the Suffrage 1910 [13150] 2-sided leaflet, reproducing a letter from Octavia Hill to the Editor of the ‘Times’, dated 14 July 1910. In this she repudiates the necessity of votes for women – ‘Let the woman seek the quiet paths of helpful real work, be set on finding where she is wanted, on her duties, not on her rights…’ The 2-sided leaflet was printed by the National Press Agency Ltd and does not carry the imprimatur of the anti-suffrage society, although I imagine that group was probably behind its publication, the NPA being their usual printer. Good – very scarce £68
67. IN MEMORIAM Rt Hon Lord and Lady (Emmeline) Pethick-Lawrence of Peaslake [13195] 4-pp leaflet describing the various commemorations of the lives of the Pethick-Lawrences. Issued by the Suffragette Fellowship under the names of Lady (Helen) Pethick-Lawrence and Grace Roe. Good £15
68. LEIGH SMITH, Barbara A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women; together with a few observations thereon Holyoake & Co, 2nd edition revised with addition 1856 [9033] Barbara Leigh Smith (later Barbara Bodichon) was 27 years old when she wrote this pamphlet, first published in 1854 as part of her campaign to change the Married Women’s Property Acts. This pamphlet is extremely scarce (I have never had a copy for sale before), bound inside recent paper covers. Rather amusingly, the printed price of ‘Threepence’ has been scored through and ‘1 1/2 d’ added – a comment, presumably, then on the interest being shown in the campaign by a public not yet awakened to the cause. Very good £280
69. LYDIA BECKER [12607] Letter from Lydia Becker to ‘Mr Levi’ – written from 85 Carter St, Greenyes, Manchester on ‘Oct 16’ – I have worked out that the year is1868. ‘Mr Levi’ is probably Prof Leone Levi, to whom she had sent a pamphlet a few days earlier. I think, in response, he had written to her in admiration asking for some material from her for his autograph book. In this letter, in return, she writes ‘I have written out my three Norwich prospositions ,[these are drawn from her address at Norwich to the British Association Section F on 25 Aug 1868] which I hope may serve your purpose as a curiosity! for your autograph book, and a bone of contention for your friends.’ These ‘three Norwich propositions’ are set out on a separate sheet. But, in addition, in her 4-pp mss letter she sets out ‘my general wishes and conclusions as to the rights of women’.. All the material has been carefully attached to a sheet that once was page 77 in a collection of autograph material. Incidentally the material on the reverse, p 78, is in Italian, lending credence to my supposition that the correspondent was Leone Levi, who had left his native Italy for Liverpool in 1844. A very interesting letter – very good £95
70. MEN’S LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Gladstone on Woman Suffrage MLOWS c. 1909 [13146] The Men’s League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was founded in early 1909 and in 1910 merged with the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League to form the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. This pamphlet – reproducing the Grand Old Man’s words on the subject is pamphlet no 3 issued by the Men’s League, presumably quite soon after its founding in 1909. 4-pp – good, with some foxing, scarce £78
71. MEN’S LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Is Woman Suffrage A Logical Outcome of Democracy? MLOWS c 1909 [13147] Pamphlet no 6 published by the short-lived Men’s League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. 4-pp – very good – scarce £60
72. MISS MORGAN, OF BRECON The Duties of Citizenship Women’s Local Government Society c 1912 [12946] Extracts reprinted from a paper read at the Annual Conference of the National Union of Women Workers, Manchester, October 27th 1896. By the time this leafet was issued Miss Morgan had been Mayor of Brecon, 1911-12. 4-pp – good – withdrawn from the Women’s Library £15
73. NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Mr J.R. Tolmie’s Reply to Mr L. Housman’s Pamphlet NLOWS no date (1913) [13145] The pamphlet of Laurence Housman’s to which this refers is ‘The Physical Force Fallacy’. Pamphlet no 37 issued by the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. 4-pp – very good £65
74. NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR OPPOSING WOMAN SUFFRAGE Woman Suffrage and the Factory Acts NLOWS no date [13155] A 4-pp leaflet, no 8 in the NLOWS series, pointing out that the ‘Women’s Party’ (ie pro-suffrage campaigners) were opposed to the ‘humane acts’ limiting women’s work in factory etc because ‘most of them harbour such a jealous mistrust of men that they suppose even their evidently disinterested actions to be prompted by insidious and harmful motive.’ The leaflet concludes ‘To grant women the franchise would therefore be to raise a fresh obstacle in the way of progress and to defer reforms still necessary for the welfare of the working classes..’ Very good – very scarce £75
75. NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE CENTRAL COMMITTEE: First Report of the Executive Committee presented at the General Meeting of the Central Committee held on Wednesday 17 July 1872 National Society for Women’s Suffrage 1872 [12931] See my ‘Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide’ as to how and why the Central Committee came into being. This – the Committee’s first report, contains lists of names of members of the Committee, of subscribers, and of the Local Committtes around England and Scotland that affiliated to the Central. In original paper covers – rubbed – very scarce £95
76. PANKHURST, Christabel A Challenge [13508] ‘Miss Pankhurst’s unpublished Articcle in this week’s ‘Votes for Women’, 8 March 1912. This was the week that Christabel eluded the police and escaped to Paris – and ‘Votes for Women’ was censored. The article that was to have been included was, instead, issued by the WSPU as a leaflet. It ends by promising ‘Repression will make the fire of rebellion burn brighter. Harsher punishment will be a direct invitation to more drastic acts of militancy.’ I don’t remember ever seeing this leaflet before. one-sided – chipped at one edge and with a slight slit – but with no loss of text. Good – and very scarce £75
77. PANKHURST, Christabel International Militancy WSPU 1915 [13502] ‘A speech delivered at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 13th, 1915’. 24-pp pamphlet, paper covers (with photograph of Christabel Pankhurst). Fine – just with a couple of rust marks from spine staples – in original paper wrappers. Scarce £100
78. PETHICK-LAWRENCE, Emmeline and Frederick (eds) VOTES FOR WOMEN VOL III Oct 1909-Sept 1910 [12407] Hefty bound volume of the WSPU weekly newspaper, in original Sylvia Pankhurst-designed boards. Signs of wear at leather corners – spines rebacked – ex Reading University Library – with library label on back boards. Internally very clean and tight, except for page of the Index where paper has split, but with no loss of text.. £900
79. PHILLIPS, Mary The Militant Suffrage Campaign privately printed 1957 [11357] ‘This pamphlet is designed to tell in a concise form the story of the ‘Votes for Women Canpaign’ and to explain the reasoned policy on which it was based.’ Mary Phillips had been a leading WSPU organizer. Soft covers – 15pp – scarce £65
80. POTT, Gladys Report of Lecture by Miss Pott on the Anti-Suffrage Movement [13511] ‘Delivered at 67 Westbourne Terrace, W. on Tuesday December 12th 1911. Sir Bartle Frere presiding’. Gladys Pott was the Anti-Suffrage Movement strongest ammunition. In ‘Campaigning for the Vote’ Kate Frye gives a wonderful description of watching Miss Pott in action – ‘ a most harsh, repellent and unpleasing woman. She began by saying we should not get sentiment from her and we did not. ,,’ Certainly you get the flavour of her style from this Lecture – particularly in the treatment of questioners – all faithfully reported. The Lecture was published by the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. 16pp – very good – I am not sure whether it was issued with a paper wrapper but, if so, that isn’t present now. COPAC records a copy held by LSE Library – and nowhere else. Scarce £95
81. PUNCH CARTOON [12767] 13 July 1910, full-page – the caption is ‘Excelsior!’ as Suffragist puts her shoulder to the boulder of ‘Women’s Suffrage’ and says, ‘It’s no good talking to me about Sisyphus; he was only a man’ £10
82. PUNCH CARTOON [12768] 13 March 1912, full-page, suffragettes wield hammers in the background as Roman-type matron, bearing a paper labelled ‘Woman’s Suffrage’ comments ‘To think that, after all these years, I should be the first martyr’. the heading is ‘In the House of Her Friends’ £10
83. PUNCH CARTOON [12772] 10 January 1912 -full page – ‘United We Differ’. Lloyd George and Lewis Harcourt are back to back on a platform. Lloyd George addressing his side, where a Votes for Women’ banner is to be seen, cries ‘Votes for Women! Don’t you listen to my esteemed colleague!’. While addressing his, male, crowd cries ‘No Votes for Women! My esteemed colleague is talking nonsense!’. Asquith’s cabinet was split on this issue. Very good £10
84. PUNCH CARTOON [12777] 21 January 1912 – full page – ‘The Suffrage Split’. Sir George Askwith (the charismatic industrial conciliator), as ‘Fairy Peacemaker’, has tamed the dragon of the Cotton Strike – and Asquith, wrestling to keep a seat on the Cabinet horse turns to him ‘Now that you’ve charmed yon dragon I shall need ye to stop the strike inside this fractious gee-gee.’ £10
85. SUFFRAGETTE FELLOWSHIP Roll of Honour Suffragette Prisoners 1905-1914 Suffragette Fellowship no date [1966] [13107] 16-pp, double column, listing all the suffragette prisoners that the Suffragette Fellowship knew of. A couple of names have been added in ink. Internally fine – cover has shelf markings etc – withdrawn from the Women’s Library. Scarce £150
86. ‘THE VOTE’ POSTCARD ALBUM [13274] An original green cloth-covered postcard album – sold by the Women’s Freedom League. It has a faded white and gold central panel containing its title ‘The Vote Album’ [ I think the design was by Eva Claire – showing the Suffragists at the door of the State, which is barred and bolted against them. Seeking entrance are the Women of the Nation; graduates in academic dress standing side by side with working women.] This particular album once belonged to Mrs Louisa Thomson Price, who was born Louisa Catherine Sowdon in 1864 and died in 1926. She was the daughter of a Tory military family but from an early age rebelled against their way of thinking and became a secularist and a Radical. She was impressed by Charles Bradlaugh of the National Secular Society. In 1888 she married John Sansom, who was a member of the executive of the NSS. She worked as a journalist from c 1886 – as a political writer, then a very unusual area for women, and drew cartoons for a radical journal, ‘Political World’. She was a member of the Council of the Society of Women Journalists. After the death of her first husband, in 1907 she married George Thomson Price. She had no children from either marriage.
Louisa Thomson Price was an early member of the Women’s Freedom League, became a consultant editor of its paper, The Vote, and was a director of Minerva Publishing, publisher of the paper. She contributed a series of cartoons – including these 6 that were then produced as postcards. The ‘Jack Horner’ cartoon was also issued as a poster for, I think, the January 1910 General Election. Louisa Thomson Price took part in the WFL picket of the House of Commons and was very much in favour of this type of militancy. In her will she left £250 to the WFL. and £1000 to endow a Louisa Thomson Price bed at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. When she died Mrs Thomson Price was living at 17 Belsize Park Gardens, Hampstead, and her will was witnessed by Edith Alexander, a professional nurse, who, I’m sure, ran a nursing home at that address. Also living at that address were Miss Edith Alexandra Hartley and Miss Martha Poles Hartley, the latter being the elder sister of the father of the novelist, L.P. Hartley. Interestingly, when they were young, the son and daughter (Olga and Leonard – born ‘Lion’) of Mrs Beatrice Hartley, leading light in the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage, to whom Kate Frye makes constant reference in her diary (see ‘Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s Suffrage Diary’) sent a birthday card to Edith Alexander at 17 Belsize Park Gardens, referring to her as ‘Aunty Edith’. They were no blood relations to Edith Alexander, their mother having married their father, Lion Herz, in 1880 and, after 3 children and a separation, at some time between 1893 and 1898 changed the family surname from ‘Herz’ to ‘Hartley’.. As far as I can tell there is no tie of blood between Mrs Beatrice Hartley and Miss Edith Alexandra Hartley – I can only presume that, with Miss Edith Alexander, they were all close friends. The card from Olga and Leonard, together with many more addressed to Edith Alexander, are still held in the postcard album. I assume that after Mrs Thomson Price’s death ‘The Vote Postcard Album’ remained in 17 Belsize Park Gardens and was taken over by Miss Alexander as a place to put her own postcards – none of which have any suffrage relevance. But the Album itself is an extremely scarce example of Women’s Freedom League merchandise £750
87. VOTES FOR WOMEN, 16 August 1912 [13190] Complete copy – although the pages are detached. The main news in this issue is of the sentencing in Dublin of Mary Leigh and Gladys Evans. Fair reading copy – scarce £60
88. VOTES FOR WOMEN, 27 September 1912 [13176] At this date the paper, owned and edited by Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, was still the mouthpiece of the WSPU. However this issue contains both news of the Pethick-Lawrences’ imminent return from Canada and that of the WSPU’s move from Clement’s Inn to Lincoln’s Inn House. The two items – and that describing the large meeting to be held in the Albert Hall – were not unconnected, I think. This is one of the last issues of the paper before the Pethick-Lawrences were ousted from the WSPU. In fair condition – splits on spine – and some annotation, probably contemporary. Scarce £95
89. VOTES FOR WOMEN, 27 September 1912 [13496] Complete issue. Chipped and rubbed and with some – interesting – annotations £60
90. VOTES FOR WOMEN ADVERTISEMENT [13262] for a WSPU meeting to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on 29 April 1909 – to be chaired by Mrs Pethick Lawrence, with Mrs Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst as speakers with a ‘Special Presentation to Women who have suffered Imprisonment for Woman Suffrage’. This ‘Special Presentation’ was that of the ‘Holloway’ brooches given, for the first time, to released prisoners. The advertisement appears in the programme for the Royal Adelphi Theatre in which John Galsworthy’s play ‘Strife’ was running. The play, produced by Granville Barker, had Lillah McCarthy in the cast and had had its first performance at the Duke of York’s Theatre on 9 March 1909. On the illustrated cover of this 4-pp programme is written in hand the date 1 April 1909. The proprietors of the Adelphi were A. & E. Gatti – and the coloured cover illustration shows happy customers doubtless enjoying an after-theatre supper at their restaurant.. In fair condition – £25
91. WOMEN’S NATIONAL ANTI-SUFFRAGE LEAGUE On Suffragettes: extracts from ‘What’s Wrong With The World’ by G.K. Chesterton WNASL c 1909 [13151] ‘They do not create revolution; what they do create is anarchy’. 2-sided leaflet – noo 30 in the WNASL’s series of leaflets – very good – very scarce £78
92. WOMEN’S NATIONAL ANTI-SUFFRAGE LEAGUE Woman’s Suffrage and Women’s Wages WNASL c 1909 [13156] ‘The leaflet concludes Woman Suffrage therefore has nothing to do with wages, and the interests of woman workers can be promoted, and are constantly being promoted in quite other ways.’ One of the ways that the League thought would help solve the problem of the inequality of wages between the sexes would be ‘The more even distribution of the female population throughout the terrotory of the Empire, by means of emigration’. Two-sided leaflet – very good – very scarce £65
93. THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION A Reply to Mr Gladstone: Frog-marching in Liverpool Prison [13396] One (no 65) of the large format leaflets produced by the WSPU during the Jan 1910 General Election. This one specifically addresses the Home Secretary on the treatment of Suffrage prisoners. Fine – has been folded and with tag where it has been fixed in Kate Frye’s diary £100
94. ROBERTSON, Margaret Working Men and Women’s Suffrage NUWSS Aug 1913 [12937] Margaret Robertson was a university graduate and NUWSS organiser. This pamphlet was written at a time when the NUWSS had set up its Election Fighting Fund to support Labour Party candidates – and was intended for distribution amongst trade unionists. Small format, 24pp in card covers £35
95. ARREST OF CAPT. C.M. GONNE [12914] Member of the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement, Parliament Square, November 18th, 1910.’ Capt Gonne was photographed by the ‘Daily Mirror’ being escorted by two policemen during the ‘Black Friday’ tumult. Capt Charles Melvill Gonne (1862-1926), Royal Artillery, was the author of ‘Hints on Horses’ (John Murray, 1904), an active suffragist, who supported his wife, a tax resister, and was a cousin of Maud Gonne, the Irish nationalist heroine. Very good -unusual – unposted £120
96. CICELY HAMILTON [12954] photograph by Lena Connell. Fine – unposted £120
97. COUNTESS RUSSELL [13241] real photographic postcard – headed ‘Votes for Women’ of ‘Countess Russell Member of National Executive Committee Women’s Freedom League’. The card depicts Countess Russell photographed in a studio setting – and is signed in ink ‘Yours sincerely Mollie Russell’. She was the second wife of Frank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell, the elder brother of Bertrand. Mollie was described by George Santyana as ‘a fat, florid Irishwoman, with black curls, friendly manners and emotional opinions: a political agitator and reformer.’ The photograph in no way belies the physical description. She and Russell were divorced in 1915. Fine – unposted – scarce – I have never seen this card before £120
98. DESTRUCTION OF GRAND STAND BY SUFFRAGETTES AT HURST PARK SUNDAY JUNE 18 1913 [13542] Real photographic postcard by Young’s, Teddington. The scene left by Kitty Marion and Clara (Betty) Giveen after they had lit a beacon for Emily Davison – who had died, unbeknownst to them, a few hours earlier. (See full details https://womanandhersphere.com/2013/06/07/suffrage-stories-kitty-marion-emily-wilding-davison-and-hurst-park/). Fine – the message on the reverse is dated 5 July – the card was posted at Molesey Park – so the sender was clearly a local resident who, in fact, mentions that she (I’m sure it is a ‘she’) had ‘just returned from Kingston’. Very scarce £180
99. DR THEKLA HULTIN [13168] The Finnish MP is photographed at her desk. She sent the card from Helsingfors (Helsinki) on 12 April 1917 to Mrs Louisa Thompson-Price of the Women’s Freedom League. From the message on the reverse it would appear that the two women shared a birthday ‘I wish you all the best (including the vote) in the following 50 years…’ Very good – posted – very unusual £120
100. EDITH CRAIG [12955] photographed by Lena Connell, published at The Suffrage Shop, 31 Bedford Street (therefore the card dates from c 1910 – before its removal in 1911 south of the Strand). Fine – unposted £120
101. FORTISSIMO [12875] – real photograph, – toddler holds the songsheet for ‘Bother the Men’, dating from the 1880s. Published by Rotary Photo, this is one in a series. Posted by Dick on 21 December 1908 to Master Harry Day of 9 Arthur St, Pembroke Dock, with the message ‘Harry boy – learning Dada’s Xmas Song.’ Good £28
102. GREAT VOTES FOR WOMEN DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK [13163] The WSPU rally on Sunday 21 June 1908. Crowds as far as the eye can see – with massed banners, including those of Cardiff and Newport, waving in the breeze. Fine – published by Sandle Bros – unposted £85
103. HATHERLEIGH CARNIVAL [13558] Hatherleigh in Devon has staged a carnival each year in November since 1903. This postcard is a sepia photograph of three children – I rather think they are all boys – dressed as women – glamorously bedecked in flowers – standing beside a vehicle that I think is a bicycle – which is similarly decorated – with flowers and paper lanterns (?) – and bears a large notice ‘Votes for Women’. Good – unposted £55
104. MISS GRACE ROE [12958] The caption is ‘UNDAUNTED’!’ She is being marched out of the WSPU headquarters, Lincolns Inn House, by police, arrested in May 1914. She was not released from prison until under the amnesty in August. The postcard photography was by courtesy of the ‘Daily Mirror’. An iconic image. Fine – unposted – scarce. £190
105. MISS MARY GAWTHORPE [13553] The caption is ‘Votes for Women’ and she is described as ‘Organiser, Women’s Social and Political Union,
4 Clement’s Inn, Strand, W.C. The card was posted in South Kensington on 31 Oct 1908 – the writer says ‘This is one of the speakers I heard on Thursday. She is splendid…’. The sender probably heard Mary Gawthorpe at the WSPU meeting held in the Albert Hall on Thursday 29 oct 1908. Good £65
106. MRS EMMELINE PANKHURST [13240] real photographic postcard. She is wearing a shield-shaped WSPU badge – in the chevron design. Fine – unposted – a rather unusual image – the first I’ve had in stock since 2000. £75
107. MRS HENRY FAWCETT, LL.D [13239] ‘President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies’, is the caption below her photograph by Lizzie Caswall Smith. Probably dates from c 1910. Fine – unposted -although written on the back in pencil is ‘Return to Mrs Thomson-Price 42 Parkhill Road, Hampstead N.W.’ The card comes from the collection of Louisa Thomson-Price, one of the leading members of the Women’s Freedom League. £60
108. MRS LILIAN M. HICKS [11634] – photographed by Lena Connell – an official Women’s Freedom League photographic postcard. Mrs Hicks had been an early member of the WSPU, but left to join the WFL in the 1907 split, returning in 1910 to the WSPU. Fine – unposted £35
109. MRS MARTEL [13255] Real photographic postcard captioned ‘Mrs Martel National Women’s Social and Political Union, 4 Clement’s Inn, W.C.’ Cornish-born Nellie Martel had emigrated to Australia and on her return devoted herself to the WSPU. She had a reputation as a gaudy dresser and certainly here she is dripping in flounces and jewllery – with a rather charingly amused smile. Very good – unposted – scarce. £90
110. PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OUTSIDE THE WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE COMMITTEE ROOM [13549] in Hoe Street, Walthamstow. The photograph shows a group on the pavement outside the Committee Rooms with a board on which is written ‘New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage’. In front of them, on the road, is parked a large motor car, to the front of which is attached another large board inscribed in large letters ‘New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage’. Sitting in the car and waving a large flag is an elegant, grandly be-hatted woman. I have never before seen a photograph of the New Constitutional Society at work, as it were. Kate Frye, our main source of information on the NCS, was not yet quite involved in that society – in fact on the day this card was posted, 28 October 1910, she was attending a meeting of the Actresses’ Franchise League at their office – so I can give no inside information on the NCS campaign at this Walthamstow by-election. This by-election was of particular interest to suffrage campaigners because the Liberal candidate was a cabinet minister, Sir John Simon. Election day was on Tuesday 1 November and the sender of the card, who posted it from Leyton at 7 pm on Friday 28th Oct, was one of the NCS campaigners. She tells her correspondent that ‘We are frantically busy working at Walthamstow By Election. Meetings every day and evening.’ She does not, alas, sign her name – but the recipient was Mrs Radcliffe Crocker of Brant Ridge, Bourne End, Bucks. This is something of a coincidence because Kate Frye called on Mrs Crocker the following 1 May (1911) when she was canvassing for support for a new NCS suffrage society in Bourne End (her home town). Mrs Crocker, the widow of an eminent dermatologist, was, Kate tells us, ‘in, but no good’ – so doubtless hadn’t been particularly impressed by the postcard sender’s Walthamstow campaigning. From the photograph I think that the NCS must have been sharing a committeee room with the Men’s Suffrage League – it certainly is not the Committee Room taken by the WSPU. Above the door is a sign ‘Men’s League Walk In’ – the windows are lined with posters and, with the Men’s League, the Women’s Freedom League and the WSPU, the NCS took part the following day in a procession through Walthamstow that ended with a meeting in Walthamstow Palace Theatre. There is no photographer or publisher of the postcard named – the photo may have been taken by a NCS member – and the image is of the sepia type – rather than crisp black and white. However the image is quite clear – most interesting on a variety of counts – and extremely unusual – I won’t say unique because there were clearly more than one card issued – but I should imagine the chances of finding another were extremely remote. £200
111. ‘RUINS OF ST KATHERINE’S CHURCH, BURNT DOWN MAY 6 1913 [11824] Real photographic card. There are several images published on postcards of the ruins of St Catherine’s (this is the correct spelling; the card’s publisher was a bit slapdash) Church at Hatcham in Surrey, for the burning of which the suffragettes were thought responsible – but I have never seen this one before. £35
112. ‘SUFFRAGETTE’ POSTCARD [13243] real photographic card – though it must be staged. Set in what appears to be the country – with trees and flowers – it shows a woman in loose-fitting jacket and long skirt – with one of the shield-shaped chevron WSPU badges pinned to her lapel, being apprehended by a policeman in helmet and uniform and sporting an imposing display of medals. The point of the photograph is that the woman is holding out for him to see a copy of the ‘Suffragette’ newspaper. I have never seen this image before. It is issued as a postcard – but no photographer or publisher is cited. Most unusual – unposted – very good (with a slight crease at the bottom right-hand corner where it has been held in (Louisa Thomson-Price’s) postcard album £120
113. SUFFRAGETTE PROCESSION [13545] Real photographic postcard – an unusual view of the 1911 ‘Coronation Procession’. The photograph, published as a postcard by J. J. Samuels, 371 Stramd, London W.C., shows the ‘Pageant of Great Women’ part of the procession walking the street that goes out of Trafalgar and merges into Pall Mall. The photograph has been taken from an upper window of one of the buildings on the south side of the street and gives an excellent view not only of the procession but of London’s buildings decorated for the Coronation. The streets are packed with onlookers. Unposted – reverse a little grubby but the front is in very good condition. Unusual £120
114. THE WOMEN’S GUILD OF EMPIRE [12877] ‘souvenir packet’ of 6 postcards, in their original printed paper envelope, published by the Women’s Guild of Empire. The cards are: 1) ‘Women’s Guild of Empire Committee’ – the 6 members of the Committee, who included Flora Drummond and Elsie Bowerman, sit around a table; 2) Mrs R.S Henderson, president; 3) Mrs Flora Drummond, Controller-in-Chief; 4) WGE banner ‘Peace Unity Concord’ surrounded by members; 5) Banner Making for the Great Demonstration April 17th 1926 – Mrs Drummond under an ‘Effeciancy and Entrprise’ banner; 6) ‘Women Pipers from the Lothians’ – with Mrs Drummond in control Scottishness was to the fore. An extremely rare set – I have never seen any of these cards before – and, in general, there are few images of the Guild of Empire and its work. The printed envelope carries details of the ‘Objects’ of the Guild and of its work. All cards in pristine condition – dating, I assume, to c 1926. As a set £220
115. VOTES FOR WOMEN [13256] one of those real photographic ‘comic’ cards with young man dressed as a woman standing behind a table and a large ‘Votes for Women’ blackboard. He is holding a large knife (I think) in one hand and a bottle of beer – Benksins Watford – in the other. It is signed across the bottom right corner ‘Your old Pal Dan’ £35
116. WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Miss Sarah Benett [12950] photographed by Lena Connell. In this studio photograph Sarah Benett is wearing her WFL Holloway brooch; she was for a time the WFL treasurer. She was also a member of the WSPU and of the Tax Resistance League. This photograph by Lena Connell was also used on a WFL-published postcard – but this one is not attributed to the WFL. The background to the image is little irridescent. £100
117. WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Mrs Amy Sanderson [12919] Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London WC. She had been a member of the WSPU, and, as such had endured one term of imprisonment, before helping to found the WFL in 1907. She is, I think, wearing her WFL Holloway brooch in the photograph. Card, published by WFL, fine – unusual – unposted £150
118. WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Mrs Edith How-Martyn , ARCS, BSc [12917] Hon Sec Women’s Freedom League 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London WC. She is wearing herWFL Holloway brooch. Photographed by M.P. Co (London) – which I think is probably the Merchants Portrait Co in Kentish Town that did a fair amount of work for the WFL. The card is headed ‘Votes for Women’ and was published by the WFL. Fine – unposted £120
119. WOMEN’S FREEDOM LEAGUE Mrs Marion Holmes [12921] card headed ‘Votes for Women’ published by the Women’s Freedom League, 1 Robert St, Adelphi, London WC. Mrs Holmes was joint editor of the WFL paper ‘The Vote’. She is photoraphed wearing herWFL Holloway badge as well as one of the WFL enamel badges. Fine – unusual – unposted £120
WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE POSTCARDS: COMIC
120. ‘HI! MISS! YER TROWSERS IS A-COMING DOWN’ [12507] shouts tyke to elegant young woman sporting ‘harem’ trousers. Pre-First World War, pub by Felix McGlennon. Not actually ‘suffrage’ but of the time. Very good – very glossy £25
121. ‘NOT IN THOSE TROUSERS’ [12506] is the caption to a hand-painted postcard (the artist has initialed it ‘K.S.’). The subject of the remark is a lady in a purple and green outfit – a long tunic over ‘harem’ trousers – wearing a green and purple hat and carrying an umbrella. The author of the remark, a dapper gentleman, stands in the background. The colouring may indicate that a suffrage inference might be drawn – the style of dress certainly points to an early-20th-century date. Very good – unposted £15
122. THIS IS THE HOUSE THAN MAN BUILT [13551] And this is the policeman all tattered and torn/Who wished women voters had never been born,/Who nevertheless /Tho it caused him distress/Ran them all in,/In spite of their dress:/The poor Suffragette/Who wanted to get/Into The House than man built. With House of Commons in the background, a policeman is battered by one suffragette as he attempts to aprehend another – virgagos both, of course. In the BB London Series. In very good condition – posted on 30 April 1909 £45
123. THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT MAN BUILT [13550] ‘And these are the members who’ve been sitting late/Coming out arm in arm, from a lengthy debate…’ Fashionably dressed couple, he in top hat and frock coat emerge, engaged in reasonable discussion, from the Houses of Parliament. An ink line at under the text carries the message ‘Will we ever live to see this.’ In BB London Series. Very good – posted in Clapton on 12 May 1909. £45
124. THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT MAN BUILT [13552] ‘And this is the home of the poor suffragette/And there’s room for a great many more of them in it yet…’ Burly suffragette being taken in hand by a policeman – with the towers of Holloway in the background. In BB London series. Very good- unposted £45
125. COMPANIONS IN DISGRACE [13555] – the sweet girl graduate stands, robed, alongside a convict in his arrowed suit. The heading is ‘Polling Booth’ and the caption ‘Companions in Disgrace’ refers to their shared characteristic. The verse below explains further: ‘Convicts and Women kindly note,/ Are not allowed to have the vote…’ etc. Drawn by ‘C.H.’ and published by the Artists’ Suffrage League. Very good – unposted £65
126. YOUNG NEW ZEALAND [13230] cycles on her modern bicycle with its two wheels equal in size. The front one is labelled ‘Male and Female’ and the back one ‘Equal Electoral Rights’. She calls out to old John Bull who is struggling atop a penny farthing, ‘Oh Grandpapa! what a funny old machine. Why don’t you get one like mine?’ The artist is JHD [Joan Harvey Drew]. Published by the Artists’ Suffrage League. Very good- unposted – v scarce £95
WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
127. BARTON, Edith And CODY, Marguerite Eve in Khaki: the story of the Women’s Army at home and abroad Thomas Nelson, no date (1918) [12577] Part I – in England by Edith M. Barton. Part II – In France by Marguerite Cody. The First World War and the early years of the WAAC. Very good £38
128. CABLE, Boyd Doing Their Bit: war work at home Hodder and Stoughton, 2nd imp 1916 [8646] Includes a chapter on ‘The Women’. Good £18
129. CAHILL, Audrey Fawcett Between the Lines: letters and diaries from Elsie Inglis’s Russian Unit Pentland Press 1999 [11675] Soft covers – mint £15
130. DEARMER, Mabel Letters from a Field Hospital: with a memoir of the author by Stephen Gwynn Macmillan 1916 [12640] In April 1915 Mabel Dearmer, the wife of the Christian socialist Rev Percy Dearmer, went out to work with Mrs Stobart in Serbia. She died of enteric fever in July. Very good internally – cream cloth cover a little grubby – scarce £75
131. DENT, Olive A V.A.D. in France Grant Richards Ltd 1917 [12636] Autobiographical account of nursing in France in the First World War. Very good, with atmospheric pictorial cloth cover £75
132. FARMBOROUGH, Florence Russian Album 1908-1918 Michael Russell 1979 [12645] Photographs taken both before and during the First World War by Florence Farmborough, who first went to Russia in 1908 – and left in 1918. At the outbreak of war she served with the Russian Red Cross. An amazing collection. Large format, fine in d/w £28
133. [HALL] Edith Hall Canary Girls & Stockpots WEA Luton Branch 1977 [12884] Memories of life in the First World War – and of the ’20s and ’30s. During the War Edith Hall’s mother was landlady to munition workers – ‘the Canaries’ (so called because the chemicals turned their skin yellow) at the Hayes factories.
Soft covers – signed by the author £10
134. MCLAREN, Eva Shaw (ed) A History of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals Hodder & Stoughton 1919 [12638] A very full history of the work of the SWH in the First World War. With 57 illustrations, including a marvellous pull-out panoramic photograph of the Salonika hospital in 1918 – huts and tents as far as the eye can see. 408pp – very good -with new endpapers and a little foxing – scarce £65
135. MARLOW, Joyce (ed) The Virago Book of Women and the Great War Virago 1998 [11926] Hardcover – fine in fine d/w £12
136. (ROSS) Ishobel Ross Little Grey Partridge Aberdeen University Press 1988 [12153] ‘First World War diary of Ishobel Ross, who served with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals Unit in Serbia.’ With an introduction by Jess Dixon. Paper covers – fine £10
137. STONE, Gilbert (ed) Women War Workers: accounts contributed by representative workers of the work done by women in the more important branches of war employment George G. Harrap & Co 1917 [12631] With a foreword by Lady Jellicoe. Chapters on: munition work; the land; work as a postwoman; banking; as a bus conductor; driver of butcher’s delivery cart; nursing at the Front in France; work as a V.A.D.; working with ‘Concerts at the Front’; and welfare work. Includes a chapter on War Organisations for Women, full of facts and figures – with 12 photographs. Very good – a surprisingly scarce book £60
138. WALKER, Dora M. With the Lost Generation 1915-1919: From a V.A.D.s Diary A. Brown & Sons (Hull) 2nd imp 1971 [12879] ‘A “Girl’s Eye View” of work in some of the famous War Hospitals of 1914-1918.’ – written at the time by the author to her father. Dora Walker worked in hospitals in Britain, France and Belgium. With 20 photographs. Fine – scarce £25
WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR: EPHEMERA
139. DENNYS, Joyce Portrait of Nurse Winifred Whitworth [11472] Winifred Fanny Whitworth (b.1891) was a VAD nurse at the Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital, Truro, when she was commended for ‘valuable service in connection with the war’ in the London Gazette 29 Nov 1918. She was the only daughter (with 6 brothers) of Mr & Mrs R. Whitworth of Truro. Joyce Dennys (1893-1991), illustrator and humourist, was herself a VAD, working in hospitals in Devon. She was commissioned c 1915 to draw the pictures for ‘Our Hospitals ABC’, pub by John Lane. She must have visited the Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital at Truro c 1917, when she was working in the VAD adminsitration office. The pastel and gouache portrait of Nurse Whitworth is one of 31, unsigned drawings, that were contained in a sketch book. Research by an art dealer, specialising in art of the First World War, established that the sketch book was the work of Joyce Dennys. Plenty of scope, I feel, for further research on Nurse Whitworth and her fellow Cornish VADs. Very good – mounted £95
140. GRANT, LILIAS and MOIR, ETHEL ‘Uncensored Diary’ and ‘Uncensored Letters’ [12590] Lilias Grant wrote the ‘Uncensored Diary’ and her friend, Ethel Moir, the ‘Uncensored Letters’ while on service together – as orderlies – with Dr Elsie Inglis’ Serbian-Russian Unit of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in Rumania and Russia between August 1916 and April 1917. Also in that unit were Elsie Bowerman and Yvonne Fitzroy – and many other figures now well known to students of the SWH make frequent appearances. Ethel Moir did further service with the SWH between Feb 1918 and Jan 1919 with the ‘Elsie Inglis Unit’ in Salonika, Verbiliani and Hordiack and recorded that experience in a second section of the ‘Uncensored Letters’. These foolscap typescripts (or, in the case of the Moir Letters, a xerox of the tss) have been bound and were each inscribed by Lilias Grant (by then Mrs Lilias Dyson) and given in 1972 to her friends Nina and Ian Cameron of North Petherton, Somerset. Laid in the Moir volume is a letter from her husband, Dacre Dyson, explaining that there are only 3 copies of the Moir tss (and, by inference, also of the Grant Diary). One set is this set, owned by the Camerons, one is in the possession of Ethel Moir’s sister and the Dysons’ own set is destined, in due course, to be given to Edinburgh Central Library. Lilias Dyson died in 1975 and her husband in 1980 and their set of tss is now in the ECL. Indeed it was after reading the tss there that the playwright Abigail Docherty wrote her SWH play ‘Sea, Land and Sky’, staged at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow in 2010. Audrey Cahill published excerpts from the diary and letters in ‘Between the Lines’ (see item # ). Although she been unable to find anything further about Lilias Grant, the extra information provided in the laid-in letter and note that accompanies these volumes has made it possible to establish that, born in York in 1880, in 1922 she married Dacre Dyson, a Ceylon tea planter. They lived in Ceylon until at least 1938 and after the Second World War were living in Burley in Hampshire. Ethel Moir and Lilias Grant, who were both living in Inverness, had been friends before, together, joining the SWH The whereabouts of the third set of the tss is at the moment unknown.
The tss have been very well bound and are in fine condition (with one very small scuff on the spine of ‘Uncensored Letters’) – with presentation inscription from Lilias Grant and laid-in letter and note from her husband. Extremely scarce £500
141. SCOTTISH WOMEN’S FIRST AID CORPS [12892] natural-coloured linen canvas satchel with the initials ‘S.W.F.A.C.’ [Scottish Women’s First Aid Corps] machine-embroidered in red on the front.The satchel hangs from a long red grosgrain ribbon strap which has a buckle for altering its length. The bag still contains an Esmarch’s Triangular Bandage – printed with images of how to apply, in a variety of ways, the bandage to wounded men, together with two packs labelled ‘Scottish Women’s First Aid Corps First Field Dressing’, supplied by J. Gordon Nicholson, Pharmaceutical Chemist, 15 Hanover Street, Edinburgh, and two small safety pins on a piece of card, presumably to be used for fixing the bandages. Luckily this SWFAC member was required to put the bandages to the test. The SWFAC had been formed in 1909 by Mary E. Macmillan and came into its own in the First World War, appealing to middle and upper-middle class women who wanted to ‘do their bit’. The SWFAC ran classes in First Aid and sick nursing and some of its recruits then went out to nurse in Italy and Serbia. Very good – an unusual survival £120
142. YOUR KING & COUNTRY WANT YOU a woman’s recruiting song Chappell & Co 1914 [12802] Sheet music – words & music by Paul A. Rubens. The cover is illustrated by John Hassall. ‘The entire profits from the sale of this song will be devoted to Queen Mary’s “Work for Women” Fund’. ‘Oh! we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go. For your King and your Country both need you so; We shall want you and miss you but with all our might and main. We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you when you come back again’. Makes the spine creep. 6-pp – very good £38
WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR: NOVEL AND POETRY
143. MACAULAY, Rose Three Days Constable & Co 1919 [12622] Poems. Already an established novelist, during the First World War Rose Macaulay worked as a VAD nurse and a land girl and in early 1917 joined the War Office. Good – a little chipped on spine – in wrapper cover. £25
144. MARCHANT, Bessie A Girl Munition Worker: a story of a girl’s work during the Great War Blackie [1916] [13002] Novel of the First World by ‘the girls’ Henry’. This would appear to be a first edition -with an ownership inscription for ‘Xmas 1916’ on free front end paper In original pictorial cloth cover – cloth rubbed and corners bumped – very scarce £45
GENERAL STOCK
145. BULKELEY, John And BYRON, John The Loss of the ‘Wager’: the narrative of John Bulkeley and John Byron Boydell Press 2004 [9784] Two survivors of the loss of the ‘Wager’ tell a tale of mutiny, hardship and tenacity after the loss of their ship on the Patagonian coast in 1740. Soft covers – mint £7
146. CASSON, Stanley Some Modern Sculptors OUP 1928 [7634] Good – library bookplate on front pastedown. Hardback/no d/w £8
147. CHARATAN, Kira And CECIL, Camilla Under Fire in the Dardanelles: the Great War Diaries and Photographs of Major Edward Cadogan Pen & Sword Military 2006 [9279] Fascinating diaries – packed with illustrations. Mint in mint dustwrapper £15
148. DE GAMEZ, Gutierre The Unconquered Knight; a chronicle of the deeds of Don Pero Nino, Count of Buelna Boydell Press 2004 [8627] A chronicle dating from the early part of the 15th century. This edition, with introduction by Joan Evans, first published in 1928. Soft covers – mint £8
149. GLANFIELD, John Bravest of the Brave: the story of the Victoria Cross Sutton 2005 [9275] Mint in mint dustwrapper £10
150. (GOYA) Julia Blackburn Old Man Goya Jonathan Cape 2002 [10975] Follows Goya through the last 35 years of his life. Very good in d/w £8
151. GREEN, Benny Britain at War Colour Library 1994 [7811] The Second World War. V fully illustrated. Very good – large format – heavy £4
152. HART-DAVIS, Adam What the Past did for Us: a brief history of ancient inventions BBC Books 2004 [8632] Mint in dustwrapper £10
153. HUGHES, Les Henry Munday: a young Australian Pioneer Next Century Books 2003 [9291] Henry Munday left Bow Brickhill in Buckinghamshire in 1844 to emigrate to Australia. In later life he wrote his reminiscences of life in his English village as it had been 70 years previously, his voyage to Australia and his life there. V. interesting, detailed and well illustrated. Large format – weight of book has caused split at inside front cover – otehrwise fine £9
154. LONGMATE, Norman The Real Dad’s Army; the story of the Home Guard Arrow books 1974 [9971] Soft covers – good £5
155. MAYERS, Kit North-East Passage to Muscovy: Stephen Borough and the first Tudor explorations Sutton 2005 [9274] The attempt to find the north-east passage to China. In 1553 Stephen Borough’s ship managed to reach Russia and set up favourable trading terms with Ivan the Terrible – leading to the creation of the first joint-stock overseas trading company, the Muscovy Company. Mint in mint dustwrapper £14
156. PLOWDEN, Alison In a Free Republic: life in Cromwell’s England Sutton Publishing 2006 [9786] Mint in d/w £10
157. ROBINS, Gay Women in Ancient Egypt British Museum Press 1993 [11867] Soft covers – fine £6
158. WASSERMAN, James An Illustrated History of the Knights Templar Destiny Books (Vermont) 2006 [9777] Soft covers, large format, heavily illustrated – mint £10
159. (WOODHOUSE) Ronald Woodhouse John Woodhouse: a remarkable Mormon pioneer Trafford Publishing 2006 [9772] Records the known information about the life of a Mormon pioneer in the late 19th century – starting in Yorkshire the trail reaches throughout the USA. Soft covers – mint £6
160. (FROUDE) Ciaran Brady, James Anthony Froude: an intellectual biography of a Victorial prophet OUP 2013 [13437] Mint in d/w (pub price £45) £30
161. (DOYLE) Douglas Kerr Conan Doyle: writing, profession and practice OUP 2013 [13424] A study of the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle – and a cultural biography Mint in d/w (pub price £30) £20
162. CREW, Bob The History of Maidenhead Breedon Books 2007 [10658] Hardback – mint in mint d/w £8
163. MACKIE, Alastair Some of the People All the Time Book Guild Publishing 2006 [10659] Autobiography of a former H-bomber pilot who became vice-charman of CND £9
164. STOKER, Bram Dracula OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13440] Edited by Roger Luckhurst. Soft covers – mint £5
165. TOLSTOY, Leo War & Peace OUP 2010 [13444] ‘The definitive (Maude) translation newly revised and edited and with an introduction by Amy Mandelker. Hardover – very heavy -1350pp – mint in d/w £12
166. TROLLOPE, Anthony Can You Forgive Her? OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13445] Edited by Dinah Birch. Soft covers – mint £5
167. TROLLOPE, Anthony The Duke’s Children OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13443] Edited with an introduction and notes by Katherine Mullin and Francis O’Gorman. Soft covers – mint £5
168. TROLLOPE, Anthony Phineas Finn OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13439] Edited by Simon Dentith. Soft covers – mint £5
169. TROLLOPE, Anthony Phineas Redux OUP (World’s Classics) 2011 [13442] Edited by John Bowen. Soft covers – mint £5
170. ANDREWS, Malcolm Dickensian Laughter: essays on Dickens & humour OUP 2013 [13418] Examines and reflects on Dickens’ techniques for making us laugh. Mint in d/w (pub price £20) £15
171. DARWIN, Charles Evolutionary Writings: including the autobiographies OUP (World’s Classics) 2010 [13441] edited with an introduction and notes by James A. Secord. Soft covers – mint £5
172. FLESHER, Caroline McCracken The Doctor Dissected: a cultural autopsy of the Burke & Hare murders OUP 2012 [13434] Canvasses a wide range of media – from contemporary newspaper accounts and private correspondenc to Japanese comic books and videogames to analyse the afterlife of the Burke and Hare murders and consider its singular place in Scottish history. Mint in d/w (pub price £41.99) £28
173. JAMES, Simon Maps of Utopia: H.G. Wells, modernity, and the end of culture OUP 2012 [13414] Begins with the late-Victorian debate about the effect of reading, especially reading fiction, tha tfollowed the 1870 Education Act and considers WEls’s best known scientific novels, important social novels, as well as less-known texts.Mint in d/w (pub price £53) £28
174. OTTER, Samuel Philadelphia Stories: America’s literature of race and freedom OUP 2010 [13423] An account of Philadelphia’s literary history. Hardback – mint in d/w £12
175. RIGNEY, Ann The Afterlives of Walter Scott; memory on the move OUP 2012 [13416] ‘Breaks new ground in memory studies and the study of literary reception by examining the dynamics of cultural memory and the “social life” of literary texts across several generations and multiple media.’ Mint in d/w (pub price £58) £28
176. TOMAN, John Kilvert’s World of Wonders; growing up in mid-Victorian England Lutterworth Press 2013 [13419] Presents the diarist Francis Kilvert as a typical mid-Victorian, excited by the scientific and tchnological forces ushering in the modern world. Describes the diarist’s upbringing and education to show the origins of his outlook. Soft covers – mint (pub price £25) £18
177. KURZEM, Mark The Mascot: the extraordinary story of a young Jewish boy and an SS extermination squad Ebury 2007 [10655] Mint in d/w £10
178. The Frye Family’s Christmas card for 1903. Kate and her sister, Agnes, are boating on their Bourne End lawn, flooded by the Thames. Their home, The Plat (which is still there in 2013), is seen in the background.
Good – the photograph is a little spotted £55
AND FOR MANY MORE BOOKS AND ITEMS OF EPHEMERA FOR SALE
DO LOOK AT MY LATEST FULL CATALOGUE: No 182
https://womanandhersphere.com/2013/11/22/books-and-ephemera-for-sale-catalogue-182/
Collecting Suffrage: Suffragette Jewellery And ‘The Antiques Trade Gazette’
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on May 17, 2013
This week’s issue of the Antiques Trade Gazette contains a letter from me protesting against the mis-describing of random pieces of Victorian/Edwardian jewellery that have a combination of metals and/or stones approximating to the purple, white and green of the WSPU, as ‘suffragette’.
Here is the text of the letter:
‘As a long-established dealer in suffragette memorabilia I must try once again to take a stand against the mis-labelling as ‘suffragette’ of any pieces of jewellery that contain stones approximating to some shade of purple (or pink or red), white and green.
I see on page 32 of this week’s ATG that two auction houses so described 3 brooches/pendants. I have no idea if the intrinsic value of the items was commensurate with the sale price achieved, but of one thing I am certain – there was nothing in the lot descriptions that convinced me that these pieces had any association with the suffragette movement. I only hope that those bidding were not doing so with any thought that they were acquiring a piece of suffragette history. It should be obvious to anyone with any historical sense that it is necessary to have a much more detailed provenance – a documented history – other than some woolly description about ‘purple, white and green’.
The ‘colours’ were the invention of one of the leaders of the WSPU, Mrs Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, as a way of creating a ‘brand’ for the WSPU and were first used in June 1908 at a grand rally held by the WSPU in Hyde Park.‘The Public Meeting Act’ of December 1908, mentioned in the ATG piece, was intended, although notably unsuccessful, to prevent suffragettes from heckling ministers – not to prevent suffragettes themselves from holding meetings. It was not until years later – in April 1913 – that there was any prohibition on the WSPU holding meetings in public parks. Moreover, Britain was never such a repressive country that suffragettes found it necessary to wear jewellery ‘in the colours’ as a secret token of allegiance. Quite the reverse; women wore their badges (also now very collectable) proudly –advertising the WSPU and many other suffrage societies.
Since each of these societies followed the WSPU lead and adopted an individual combination of colours of their own I am surprised that auction houses and dealers have not yet leaped onto that bandwagon. For instance, the colours of the main suffrage society – the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies – were red, white and green. Just think how many pieces of jewellery with stones in those colours could be described as ‘suffragette’ if we were seriously to follow the ‘purple, white and green’ rule.
I have studied the suffragette movement in depth – in all its manifestations – and can report that there is no evidence that ‘suffragette’ jewellery was made in anything like the quantity flooding the auction houses and, of course, Ebay. Moreover the only commercial company known to have made and retailed ‘suffragette jewellery’ as such was Mappin and Webb (Stanley Mappin was a convinced supporter of the WSPU – joining in the suffrage boycott of the 1911 census). I would be interested to learn of any documentation citing any other commercial company as maker of ‘suffragette jewellery’.
Other jewellery was made by individual artist craftswomen- such as the well-known enameller Ernestine Mills – to sell at fund-raising suffragette bazaars and may well have included references to suffragette colours and motifs. On occasion one can find pieces that demonstrate clearly their suffragette provenance. One such is a pendant made – in purple, white and green enamel – from a design by Sylvia Pankhurst. The pendant is long since sold but I use the image of it as the identifier on my website – womanandhersphere.com – on which those who really want to know about ‘suffragette’ jewellery can find more information – as they can in the entry under ‘Jewellery and Badges’ in my The Women’s Suffrage Movement; a reference guide, published by Routledge. Ignorance should not be a reason for allowing auction houses and dealers to perpetuate the ‘suffragette jewellery’ myth. As I say, I specialize in suffragette memorabilia but could not possibly bring myself to sell something as ‘suffragette’ if I was not certain that it had an authentic provenance.’
I don’t suppose this will make a jot of difference – but I try. A suffrage collector told me recently that, after buying an item on Ebay and then doing a little research, he realised that the item was not of original suffragette provenance. When he protested to the Ebay seller, he was told, ‘Prove it’. That was not a valuable item, so it was not worth the trouble of engaging in a prolonged battle with a seller who lacked both historical knowledge and a conscience. However, I am sure there are cases, particularly of jewellery, where sales are made that would not have been without the spurious ‘suffragette’ description.
Caveat Emptor
Buy only from a reputable dealer.
Suffragette Autograph Album To Be Auctioned: Save It For The Nation – And Future Researchers
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on December 8, 2012
A very interesting autograph album is to be auctioned by Dominic Winter Auctions on Wednesday, 12 December 2012. How I wish it would be bought by a British library or museum so that all researchers would have access to it. It would be an ideal fit in the collections of either the Museum of London or the Women’s Library. Neither, alas, are likely to be bidding. Is there any other institution that could come to the rescue?
Below is the entry from the Dominic Winter catalogue.
Lot 380* Suffragettes. A rare and historically important autograph album containing approx. fifty autographs of suffragettes and sympathisers, 1909 and later, but many dated from the time of the WSPU’s second window-breaking campaign, March/May 1912, the majority signed below quotations and epithets relating to the cause, written mostly in pen and occasionally pencil and inscribed to thirty-four leaves (mostly rectos) with some leaves blank, prisoner (?) pencil number 94472186/3 to front free endpaper, contemp. cloth, rubbed and soiled, oblong small 8vo, 11 x 14.5 cm, together with an Edwardian 9ct gold circular locket, engraved with initials M.E.P. within a shield cartouche amongst foliate scrolls, enclosing two colour portrait photographs of a lady (possibly wearing this locket) and a gentlemen of similar age and social status, Birmingham, 1905, suspended on a 9ct gold belcher link chain, plus an Edwardian 9ct rose gold bar brooch, set with a facet cut blue stone within pierced wavy gold mount, stamped ‘9ct’, 8cm wide with gold safety chain, plus a vignette b&w photo postcard portrait (cut down), showing an unidentified woman and on the verso the same identification number (94472186) as the autograph album, all included in an early 20th-century Mackintosh’s rectangular toffee tin, lid embossed with heraldic knights, sides with geometric scrolls, base printed with retailer’s logo and ‘John Mackintosh & Sons Limited, Toffee Town, Halifax, Eng’, 15 x 23 x 6 cm
In order, the autographs are as follows, (names in bold are given separate biographical entries in Elizabeth Crawford, ‘The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928’: Emily Redfern, 8th December 1909; Adeline Redfern Wilde, 18th March 1911; J. L. Guthrie (Laura Grey), quotation by Robert Louis Stevenson in pencil, and possibly not in Guthrie’s hand as her name was Joan Baillie Guthrie; Charlotte Despard, 22 October 1911; Emily Diederichs Duval; Sarah Benett, in pencil, 2 March 1912; Janet A. Boyd, in blue pencil; E. Sylvia Pankhurst, ‘Bravely and willingly we bear our share of the world’s burdens. Why then deny us the right to vote which would dignify our labour and increase our power of service?’, below which Pankhurst family friend George Bernard Shaw has inscribed: ‘Ungrateful Sylvia! Did I ever deny it?, Hanley, 15/2/11; Helen A. Archdale, 2nd March 1912; Jennie (?)Itenmy; M. Violet Aitken, Holloway Prison, 6th March 1912; Dorothea Benson, Holloway Prison, 1st March 1912; Anna F. Hutchinson, Bow Street, 6th March 1912 (and details of three previous imprisonments at Holloway); Kitty Marion, Bow Street Station, 6th March 1912; Vera Wentworth, 6th March 1912; Ethel Haslam, 6th March 1912; Janie Tererro, in pencil; Isabella J. A. Casey; Olive Fargus, window breaker, 1st March 1912; L. Caron (?), Winson Green Prison, 1st May 1912; Winifrid Bray, May Day, 1912, Birmingham Prison; Hilda Burkitt, Winson Green, 1909 (one month), Holloway, March 1912 (4 months); Elizabeth Redfern; Clara Giveen, Birmingham Prison, 1st May 1912; V[iolet] H. Friedlaender, Winson Green Prison, 1st May 1912; a further autograph of V. H. Friedlaender to verso of the same leaf with a previously published poem titled ‘The Road’ written in her holograph noting it was published in ‘Votes for Women’ on 19th August 1910 and set to music in the Fabian Songbook, 1912; L. Archibald, Winson Green, May 1912; John Watts; W. Leonard Page; Josiah C. Wedgwood, 9th December 1923; G. M. Cook, Winson Green Prison, 28th April 1912; Cynthia Mosley; Florence Ward, Winson Green, 1st May 1912; Kathleen O’Kell, Birmingham, 1st May 1912; Cicely Neale; Olive Wharry, Winson Green, Birmingham, 1912; Edith M. (?) Begbie, Winson Green, 1st May 1912; Janet Green, in pencil, Winson Green Prison, April 1912; Evelyn Hudleston, Winson Green, March 1912, Charlotte Blacklock, Birmingham Prison, 1st May 1912, with V. H. Friedlaender initialled pencil riposte below; Alice Farmer, 1st May 1912, Emma Bowen; Caroline L. Downing; Aida Knott; Fred J. Kepple, 28 February 1924; Norah Kathleen Lackey, Birmingham Prison, 1st May 1912; Constance Bryer, 2nd May 1912, Birmingham Prison (4 months); Madeleine Caron Rock (in pencil), DX.1.30, March 1912; Hugh Graeme Topping.
Following a WSPU window-breaking campaign on 21 November 1911, some 220 women and three men were arrested, about 150 of whom were given short sentences of imprisonment. Subsequently, Lloyd George joined Herbert Asquith in opposition to women’s suffrage furthering outrage among the suffragettes. Mrs Pankhurst told members of the WSPU that ‘the argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics’. A protest planned to take place in Parliament Square on 4 March 1912 was pre-empted when, without warning on 1 March 150 women armed with hammers and instructions as to their timing and use, broke shop and office windows in London’s West End causing an estimated £6,600 worth of damage. This time around 220 arrests were made and sentences of up to six months handed out. The sheer number of imprisoned suffragettes caused disruption to the prison service with an overflow from Holloway being dispersed to Aylesbury and Winson Green in Birmingham. On 5 April the members held in Aylesbury went on hunger strike and were quickly followed by members in London and Birmingham, including members noted here. This led to the contentious force feeding of hunger strikers, and a year later the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, where weakened prisoners were released to recover and immediately arrested again upon any further wrong-doing.
Provenance: The tin with contents originally come from a house in Stoke-on-Trent, but the identity (or identities) of the owner of the locket, the woman in the photograph and the owner of the album have not been established. The most likely suggestion is that the autograph album was compiled by one or other of the Redfern sisters. Adeline, Elizabeth and Emily (whose rallying call begins the album) were the daughters of Frederick and Elizabeth Redfern of Hanley, Stoke. (George Bernard Shaw signed the album in Hanley while there lecturing on the ‘Ideals of Socialism’ in February 1911). The sisters were all active in the Birmingham area and Adeline Redfern-Wilde founded the Stoke-on-Trent WSPU in 1908. The last autograph page in the album has a pencil note: ‘Left Stoke for Birmingham October 16th 1919’. The journal ‘Votes for Women’ (15 March 1912, pp. 380-81) gives details of some of court cases at Bow Street on 7 March, noting several of the names above including Adelaide (sic) Redfern Wilde: ‘charged with breaking windows value £20 at 129, New Bond Street, said: “It was one more blow for freedom”. She was committed for trial.’
(5)
£3000-5000
Collecting Suffrage: The WSPU Holloway Brooch
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on October 19, 2012
This is the ‘Holloway Brooch’ presented to members of the Women’s Social and Political Union who had undergone imprisonment. As such it is now a very desirable addition to any suffrage collection. If you are hoping to own one of your own, I have one for sale – see https://wp.me/p2AEiO-1CV
The first presentation of the brooches took place at a mass demonstration organised by the WSPU in the Albert Hall on 29 April 1909. It was held to coincide with the meeting in London of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. The presence on the platform of a large number of ex-WSPU prisoners and,to honour their sacrifice, the ceremonial presentation to them of the first ‘Holloway’ brooches was designed to make an international impression.
The brooch was designed by Sylvia Pankhurst. The portcullis symbol of the House of Commons, the gate and hanging chains are in silver, and the superimposed broad arrow (the convict symbol) is in purple, white and green enamel. Some of the brooches, but by no means all, are marked with dates of imprisonment.
The brooch was first mentioned in Votes for Women, the WSPU newspaper, in the issue of 16 April 1909, described as ‘the Victoria Cross of the Union’. However, in April 1909 WSPU prisoners had not yet begun using the hunger strike as a tool in their battle with the authorities. In recognition of that, which was considered the greater sacrifice, the WSPU instituted the hunger strike medal, the first of which was presented four months later.
Mrs Pankhurst chose to be photographed wearing her ‘Holloway’ brooch in this photograph- as, 65 years later, did the elderly suffragettes, Leonora Cohen and Grace Roe . The latter two, like many other women, had received both of the WSPU accolades.
Collecting Suffrage: Emily Wilding Davison’s Funeral Programme
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on October 4, 2012
For the last 100 years the strange death of Emily Wilding Davison has transfixed the public. It is likely to be the one thing that the ‘man – or woman – in the street’ knows about the suffragette movement. Bizarrely the last seconds of her conscious life are still with us –growing in impact as the internet allows everyone to view footage of film that was in the past relatively difficult to access. In this piece by Andrew Marr the BBC has worked its wonders on the Pathé News original, allowing us to see details that the passing years had blurred. I have always wondered if it was by chance that she chose to position herself alongside a section of the Derby racecourse that was in full view of the film camera. The camera was mounted on a stand and would have been clearly visible. However the camera was, presumably, positioned there in order to capture pictures of the horses entering the final straight and Emily Davison may have chosen to be there for the very same reason.
With the 100th anniversary less than a year away media attention is mounting. All material related to Emily Wilding Davison’s funeral is scarce – and very collectable – however one of the scarcest is the 4-page ‘Official Programme, Timetable and Route of the Funeral Procession, Saturday June 14th 1913.
I must say that I do find it rather odd that this item should be so very scarce for, as you can see from film and photographs, the streets of London were packed on the day. The hordes must have failed to arm themselves with the Programme or, if they did, to have then discarded it.
In Campaigning for the Vote, Kate Frye, who followed the procession through Piccadilly to Bloomsbury and then on to Kings Cross, in her long diary entry comments on the vastness of the crowd. But even she, who was an inveterate hoarder of suffrage memorabilia, does not seem to have acquired a copy of the Funeral Procession Programme. The result is that, in nearly 30 years of dealing in suffrage artefacts, I have only seen one copy of this item for sale. In fact, if a spate of them were now to hit the market, I shall be very suspicious!
Collecting Suffrage: The Game of ‘Suffragette’
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on September 17, 2012
I will shortly be issuing a new book and ephemera catalogue – number 175. It will comprise books and ephemera by and about women – with special sections on Women’s Suffrage and Women in the First World War. If you would like a copy of the printed or email version please let me know. A short time after these have been sent out, I shall post the catalogue on this website.
Amongst several rare items that I shall be including in the ‘Women’s Suffrage’ section is ‘The Game of “Suffragette”‘.
This card game was invented by the Kensington branch of the WSPU, probably in the late summer of 1907, and, as such, is, I think, the earliest of the games that were marketed as a tool of suffragette propaganda. It was described in the second issue of ‘Votes for Women’, November 1907.
The first issue of ‘Votes for Women’, October 1907, had on its cover the picture of the ‘Haunted House’ by David Wilson, which had first appeared in the ‘Daily Chronicle’ in April 1907. Depicting a seated woman brooding over the Houses of Parliament, a demand for ‘Votes for Women’ in her hand, this image appears on the reverse of every card in this game – and on the base of the box. David Wilson (1873-1935) was an Irish-born illustrator, soon to become chief cartoonist for ‘The Graphic’.
The game comprises 54 cards (all present) divided into 13 sets of 4 cards each – one of the odd ones being known as ‘The Bill’ – and the other a spare which has been used to record the score of a game played long ago by 6 people, designated by their initials. All the sets have names: eg. Prominent Supporters, Arguments, Freewomen, Voteless Women etc – and each card poses a series of questions. Some of the cards also carry photographs – of Christabel Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Mrs Fawcett, Elizabeth Robins, Israel Zangwill, and Mary Gawthorpe.
Along with the cards – and the original box – is the original, all-important, set of rules. These describe in detail the various ways in which the game can be played – it seems very inventive.
This is an incredibly scarce item. Although I wrote of it in The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide, this is the first set I have ever seen. An amazing survival.
Book of the Week: A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset
Posted by womanandhersphere in Book of the Week, Collecting Suffrage on September 12, 2012
A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset: Eagle House, Batheaston by B.M. Willmott Dobbie for The Batheaston Society, 1979. Soft covers – very good condition (with a newspaper cutting of an obituary of Bristol suffragette, Victoria Lidiard, laid in). £26 (plus postage) For sale – from my stock of books and ephemera about the suffrage movement. To buy – email e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
The story of the Blathwayt family – Col Linley Blathwayt, his wife Emily and daughter Mary -who lived at Eagle House, Batheaston, where for some years they offered a haven to WSPU activists. Annie Kenney – and her sisters – were particular favourites.
Col Blathwayt organised the planting of trees to commemorate visits by both suffragists and suffragettes – such as Lady Constance Lytton.
‘Annie’s Arboreteum’ and ‘Pankhurst Pond’ were just two of the features created on the estate. Col Blathwayt was a keen photographer and many of the photographs he took of visiting suffragettes are included in this book. The text includes extracts from the diaries that the Blathwayts kept and which provide us with such a disingenuous view of some of the leading suffragette personalities
For more about Eagle House (and a little about Rose Lamartine Yates and Dorset Hall, Merton, of whom, coincidentally, I wrote in yesterday’s post) see here. For ‘Suffragettes in Bath’ see here. The diaries of Col. Blathwayt, Mrs Emily Blathwayt, and dear Mary Blathwayt, who I describe in the Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide, as the ‘Mr Pooter of the suffrage movement’, are held in Gloucestershire Archives.
Collecting Suffrage: The Hunger Strike Medal
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 11, 2012
One of the most iconic items to add to a suffrage collection is a WSPU hunger-strike medal.
These medals were first presented by the WSPU at a ceremony in early August 1909, given to women who had gone on hunger strike while serving a prison sentence handed down as punishment for an act of suffrage militancy.
The medals comprise a silver pin bar engraved ‘For Valour’, a hanging length of ribbon in the purple, white and green colours, and either a silver or a striped enamel bar, from which hangs a silver circle with the name of the presentee on one side and ‘Hunger striker’ on the other. If the ribbon terminates in a silver bar, this is engraved with a date denoting the day of the owner’s arrest. The enamelled purple, white and green bars are engraved on the reverse, for example sculptor Edith Downing’s medal that I once sold is engraved with ‘Fed by Force 1/3/12’. This was the date of her imprisonment that resulted in a hunger strike and forcible feeding.
Some medals, such as the one Emily Wilding Davison is wearing in my 6 August ‘Suffrage Stories’ post, carry more than one bar, indicating multiple hungerstrikes.
Each medal was presented in a purple box, with a green velvet lining. As can be seen in the photograph, a piece of white silk that originally went inside the lid was printed in gold with: ‘Presented to [name] by the Women’s Social and Political Union in recognition of a gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship a great principle of political justice was vindicated’.
These medals were made by Toye, a well-known Clerkenwell firm, and cost the WSPU £1 each – the medals now sell for thousands of pounds. They were treasured by their recipients who , in their old age, still proudly wore them on suffrage occasions; they are treasured today by collectors who recognise the bravery of the women to whom they were awarded.
Collecting Suffrage: Punch cartoon: Ulysses and the Steam Sirens
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 10, 2012
ULYSSES AND THE STEAM SIRENS -full page from 8 July 1908 issue of Punch.
Asquith is tied to the Embankment as a tug bearing suffragettes with loudhailers and a ‘Votes for Women’ saild approaches. The reference is to the boat the WSPU used to announce to the House of Commons, from the river, their forthcoming Hyde Park demonstration.
Very good condition – £12 post free. NOW SOLD
To buy contact e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Collecting Suffrage: Belfort Bax, The Legal Subjection of Men
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 9, 2012
E. Belfort Bax, The Legal Subjection of Men, The New Age Press, new edition, 1908.
There have been few agitations in history which have been characterised by such hard lying and shameless perversions of fact as the so-called ‘Woman’s Movement’.. The ‘Woman’s rights’ (?) agitator has succeeded by a system of pure impudent, brazen, ‘bluff’, alternately of thh whimpering and the shrieking order, in inducing a credulous public to believe that in some mysterious way the female sex is groaning under the weight of the tyranny of him whom they are pleased to term ‘man the brute’. Bax, who wrote extensively on socialism, acknowledges the part played by an Irish barrister, now deceased, in the writing of this anti-suffrageist apologia. Together they set out all the legal advantages enjoyed by women – such as ‘the punishment of hanging has been practically abolished for women who murder mere men. If they murder some other woman or babies of some other woman it is quite a different thing. They are, however, exempt from hanging if they murder their own babies.’
Very good – 64pp – rebound in cloth – with original paper covers bound in. £28 plus postage.
To buy: contact e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Collecting Suffrage: Punch cartoon
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 8, 2012
21 January 1912 – full page – ‘The Suffrage Split’. Sir George Askwith (the charismatic industrial conciliator), as ‘Fairy Peacemaker’, has tamed the dragon of the Cotton Strike – and Asquith, wrestling to keep a seat on the Cabinet horse turns to him ‘Now that you’ve charmed yon dragon I shall need ye to stop the strike inside this fractious gee-gee.’
In very good condition £10 plus £1 postage.
To buy contact: e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Collecting Suffrage: Punch cartoon
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 7, 2012
PUNCH CARTOOON – 2 December 1908 – a Bernard Partridge full-length illustration shows Asquith (Andromedus) chained to his rock – beset by the sea monster taunting him with her Votes for Women triton and searching for salvation from Persea – the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League.
In very good condition £12 post free
To buy: contact e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
[The Women and her Sphere logo is not, of course, on the original]
Suffragette postcards: When Women Vote: Washing Day
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 6, 2012
Father is in the kitchen bathing baby, while his wife and her friends sit in the parlour playing cards and eating chocolates – commenting ‘Yes, my old man is a lazy old wretch’.
And that’s what will happen when women have the vote.
The card was published by Mitchell & Watkins, who had been producing postcards – both topographical photographic and artist-drawn – from c 1906.
This card was posted – on 10 September 1907 – to Miss Ida Currell – who had been born in 1882 and was one of 4 surviving children of the 10 born to a Hertfordshire farmer and his wife. The Currells farm, at 2 Ware Road, Hertford, was called ‘The Chaplains’.
The card is in very good condition and is £45 post free.
To buy: contact e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Suffragette Jewellery
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 4, 2012
One of my bêtes noires is the misnaming of any vaguely Edwardian piece of jewellery that comprises stones approximating to some shade of purple (or pink or red), white and green as ‘suffragette’. I have long ago ceased remonstrating with reputable auction houses – they should know better. Ebay, of which one cannot expect very much, is, of course, rife with a lack of historical awareness.
While such pieces may be decorative and even of some intrinsic value, I would be very sorry if anyone paid over the odds for a piece of such jewellery thinking that they were buying an association with the suffrage movement. There are plenty of unscrupulous or ignorant dealers who peddle such notions. I think the term ‘suffragette jewellery’ should be reserved for pieces that have a provenance associated with a suffrage society or an individual who either made or wore it with ‘suffrage’ intent.
Above is an example of what I mean – a ‘true’ piece of suffragette jewellery – a silver and enamel pendant, bearing the ‘Angel of Freedom’ device designed in 1908 by Sylvia Pankhurst. I bought – and sold it – some years ago – and have never found another. As second best to owning the real thing, I have ever since used the image on my trade cards.
I will tell the stories of some other pieces of ‘true’ suffragette jewellery in future ‘Collecting Suffrage’ posts.
Here and here are two articles that attempt to demistify the subject of ‘suffragette jewellery’. Or you can read the entry on ‘Jewllery and Badges’ in my The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide.
Suffragette postcards: ‘Who said Votes for Women!!!’
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 3, 2012
Very British Bulldog – with specs and a pipe – sits foursquare against a background of the Union Jack. It doesn’t look as though he would be interested in allowing women to vote.
The handwritten message on the reverse – from Will – begins ‘Dear Alf, I think the back of this card describers the question of the age.’ Good – posted from Cowes to Rotherhithe in February 1909.
In very good condition. £12 post free. [The ‘Woman and her Sphere’ logo does not, of course, appear on the original.]
To buy: contact e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Collecting Suffrage: Victory 1918
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 2, 2012
Women Suffragists’ Celebrations
Flyer for the celebrations held at Queen’s Hall, Langham Place on Thursday 21 February 1918 – ‘To Welcome the Extension of the Franchise to Women’. The flyer includes the long list of societies that were taking part – the WSPU was a notable exception. On the list was the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage – and this flyer bears the annotation in ink ‘Please get tickets from’ followed by the NCWS’s rubber stamp with their address in Knightsbridge.
The leaflet is in very good condition and is rather rare. £55 post free.
[The ‘Women and her Sphere’ marking is not, of course, on the original]
Suffragette postcards: harem pants 2
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on August 1, 2012
‘Not In Those Trousers’ is the caption to a hand-painted postcard (the artist has initialed it ‘K.S.’). The subject of the remark is a lady in a purple and green outfit – a long tunic over ‘harem’ trousers – wearing a green and purple hat and carrying an umbrella. The author of the remark, a dapper gentleman, stands in the background.
I think that, in this case, the deliberate choice of colours may indicate that a suffrage inference might be drawn. The style of dress is, again, very Paul Poiret – see this week’s ‘Suffrage Stories: ‘Madame Mantalini’ post.
Very good – unposted. The reverse of the card has a rectangle marked – in the top right – to receive a stamp ‘Inland Postage 1/2d. Foreign Postage 1d.’ £15 post free.
To buy: email e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
[Woman and her Sphere logo on the image here is not, of course, on the original card]
Suffragette postcards: What Women Want
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on July 31, 2012
‘WHEN WOMEN VOTE It won’t be lawful for a man to remain single’. All the men are being rushed into marriage – tweaked by the nose and carried under the arms of women – and all because they have a vote!
The card was published by Mitchell & Watkins, who had been producing postcards – both topographical photographic and artist-drawn – from c 1906.
This card was posted – in, I think, 1913 (the postmark is obscured) – to Miss Ida Currell – who had been born in 1882 and was one of 4 surviving children of the 10 born to a Hertfordshire farmer and his wife. The Currells farm, at 2 Ware Road, Hertford, was called ‘The Chaplains’.
The card is in very good condition and is £45 post free.
To buy: email e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Suffragette postcards: harem pants
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on July 30, 2012
A comment on the ‘look’ that Paul Poiret was promoting c 1909 – although perhaps not to Margot Asquith – see ‘Suffrage Stories’ post -‘Madame Mantalini’.
‘HI! MISS! YER TROWSERS IS A-COMING DOWN’ shouts tyke to elegant young woman sporting ‘harem’ trousers. Pre-First World War, published by Felix McGlennon, who having been a rather successful song writer and music publisher, jumped on the bandwagon and added the publication of postcards to his repertoire as the postcard craze swept Edwardian Britian.
Not actually ‘suffrage’ but very much of its time. In very good condition – very glossy- £25 post free.
To buy email e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk
Suffragette postcards: real photographic portrait
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on July 28, 2012
Here is an example of a real photographic postcard issued by a suffrage society – in this case by the Women’s Freedom League. Its subject is Mrs Lilian Hicks (1853-1924) who, with her daughter, Amy, was at that time of its publication a leading member of the WFL – as well as a supporter of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage, the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage and the Tax Resistance League. Both mother and daughter, by then members of the Women’s Social and Political Union, heeded the call to boycott the 1911 census.
The Hicks’ association with a wide range of suffrage societies, of which I had written a few years earlier in their joint entry in my Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide, was made manifest in the magnificent collection of badges and awards – including a hunger-strike medal – that many years ago I acquired from a woman to whom they had been indirectly bequeathed. They are now held in a private collection.
Lilian and Amy Hicks lived here, at 33 Downside Crescent, Hampstead. At the other end of the street was the home – probably the rather unhappy home – of Margaret Wynne Nevinson, a fellow member of the Women’s Freedom League. I realised that a bond of friendship existed between the two women when, all those years ago, I recognised – hanging on the wall of the sitting-room in the small cottage of the woman from whom I was buying the collection of Hicks’ memorabilia – a large painting by Margaret’s son, C.R. Nevinson. It was in the guise of ‘the mother of the Futurists’ that Margaret went when she attended a dinner given by the Women Writers’ Suffrage League at the Hotel Cecil on 29 June 1914. Unfortunately there is no record of the form of dress that this witty allusion took.
The photograph of Mrs Hicks on this official Women’s Freedom League postcard was taken by Lena Connell and probably issued around 1909/10.
Mrs Lilian Hicks was a member of the Women’s Freedom League
Suffragette postcards: suffragettes and policemen 3
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on July 27, 2012
Another in this week’s theme of ‘suffragettes and policemen’.
Two burly policeman are playing games with tiny (elegant, for a change) suffragette. Waving the tools of her trade – a hammer and flags, she is held aloft by one who looks as though he intends to lob her over to the other, who is waiting with outstretched arms. A ‘Votes for Women’ placard lies on the ground between them. Published by Inter-Art Co., Red Lion Sq, London WC. Good – slightly rubbed at edges – posted in 1913. £35 post free.
Suffragette postcards: suffragettes and policemen 2
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on July 25, 2012
Here is another card in the ‘Philco Series’, titled ‘SUFFRAGETTES ARE GOING ABOUT STICKING BILLS IN PROMINENT PLACES’ and in this particular case that is pasting a ‘Votes for Women’ on the back of a policeman, who is in the process of accosting another bill-sticking suffragette. Needless to say the women are the usual stereotypical trilby-wearing, bespectacled harridens. In the scene a pillar box and a dog have also been plastered with V f W posters. The message on the reverse – written in pencil from the same sender to the same recipient as that of the card in the previous ‘Collecting Suffrage’ post – that is Win to Mrs James – reads ‘And the best of wishes for a happy Christmas. The suffragettes what and how they do things in London.’ Very good – unposted £45 post free. NOW SOLD
Suffragette postcards: suffragettes and policemen
Posted by womanandhersphere in Collecting Suffrage on July 24, 2012
The increased activity of the women’s suffrage campaign in the early years of the 20th century coincided with the golden age of the postcard. It proved to be a subject very popular with the burgeoning number of commercial postcard publishers and cards with a ‘suffragette’ theme outnumber those relating to other contemporary campaigns – such as Tariff Reform and Home Rule.
Without too much effort, anyone interested can still build up a collection of cards reflecting the varying views of Edwardian society on women’s desire for citizenship – and their methods of achieving it. The suffrage societies themselves all produced cards – portraits of their leaders or photographs of great suffrage occasions – although they are vastly outnumbered by cards produced by the commercial publishers.
The incongruence of women battling with policemen – as on ‘Black Friday’ in November 1910 – certainly caught the publishers’ attention and there are many variations on the theme. This card was published by Philco Publishers, whose office was in Holborn Place – very close to WSPU headquarters. This card was not posted but is written to ‘Mrs James’. The message reads ‘I do not know what you will think of this. But this is suffragettes in vengeance and in their battle array.’
The stereotypical harridan (trilby hat, glasses, high-colouring, big nose) wearing ‘Votes for Women’ sash wields her umbrella as she kicks a policeman. In the background another, similar, scene is enacted. There is a tall clock tower – which might just be intended as Big Ben – at the very back of the scene, attached to a misty building. This card, which is in good condition, was one of a series. It is available for sale from me: £45 post free. NOW SOLD
See the August 2012 issue of BBC History Magazine for Prof June Purvis’s article on ‘suffragette’ cards published by commercial publishers and click here for details of her very interesting and informative accompanying podcast (June’s piece begins 20 minutes into the recording).