Archive for category Collecting Suffrage

Collecting Suffrage: Suffragette Fakery

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.

, , , , , ,

2 Comments

‘Collecting The Suffragettes’: A Fully-Illustrated Video Talk

If you are interested in discovering something about the wide range of objects produced during the course of the women’s suffrage campaign in the 19th and early 20th centuries, you may like to view a talk I gave recently, hosted by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association and the Institute of English Studies, University of London. Click here to watch.

, , , , , , , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Free Online Talk 22 June

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

,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: The ‘Census Resisted’ Badge

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

, , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Gladice Keevil Photographed by Lena Connell

 

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

, , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Mrs Amy Sanderson, Scottish Speaker For The Women’s Freedom League

 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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Anna Munro, Organizer For The Scottish Council Of The Women’s Freedom League

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Photograph Of Cicely Hamilton By Lena Connell For The Suffrage Shop

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

, , , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Mrs Charlotte Despard Photographed by Christina Broom

 

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

, , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: This Is The House That Man Built

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

, ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Portrait Postcard Of Christabel Pankhurst, c. 1908

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

, ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Photograph of Mrs Fawcett, 1890

 

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

, , ,

2 Comments

Collecting Suffrage: Photograph Of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst c 1907

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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Questions To Lloyd George Asked By The Women’s Social And Political Union

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

, ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: 1907 Programme For ‘Votes for Women’, Play By Elizabeth Robins

 

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.

, , , , ,

1 Comment

Collecting Suffrage: The Women’s Guild Of Empire

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

, ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: ‘Punch’ Cartoon, 17 January 1906

 

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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Photographs Of The Equal Rights Rally, 3 July 1926

 

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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: ‘Punch’ Cartoon, 21 October 1908

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

, ,

2 Comments

Collecting Suffrage: The Church League For Women’s Suffrage Paper

 

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

,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories: Celebrating The Centenary Of The Representation Of The People Act, 6 February 2018

Well, 6 February 2018 was well and truly celebrated. I’m not sure if I ever remember the media getting behind another political anniversary with such verve  – the coverage was akin to that of a royal wedding. All the talking heads that could talk, talked.

You can catch me talking about the suffrage campaign on Woman’s Hour

And talking about my new book, Art and Suffrage: a biographical dictionary of suffrage artists  on the Robert Elms Show on Radio London (starting at c. 2hrs 37 mins)

Kate Frye, whose diaries I edited as Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Frye’s suffrage diary and whose biography I wrote as Kate Parry Frye: the long life of an Edwardian actress and suffragette, had a starring role on BBC Radio 4’s PM Programme (from c 23mins) – preceded by an excellent exposition of the Representation of the People Act 1918 by Dr Mari Takayanagi (from c 18.40 mins)

Kate Frye also featured in yesterday’s special suffrage edition of StylistShe would have been amazed and thrilled to think of her daily round being immortalised in this way.

I also gave interviews to Radio Stoke, Radio Northampton, Radio Bristol, Radio Sheffield, Radio Lincolnshire, and Radio Derby – talking about suffrage activists in their areas.

Clare Balding’s programme Secrets of a Suffragette – about Emily Wilding Davison – in which I make an appearance – was shown again last night on Channel 4 and is available for 29 days on catch-up.

And, in my dealing capacity, I put together this list of the Top Twenty Collectable Suffrage Antiques for an antiques website.

What a day!

1 Comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: The WSPU Car

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Emmeline Pankhurst, Emmeling Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenney photographed in the WSPU car

Emmeline Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Annie Kenney photographed with the WSPU car

Most of the previous items that I have described in the daily ‘Countdown to the Release of the Film “Suffragette”‘ posts over the past month have already been sold – but for this final week I shall describe items that are currently for sale.

All three women are wearing motor scarves to protect their hats. I think the car is ‘W.S. 95′ [ie Women’s Suffrage’], an Austin, painted and upholstered in the colours, with white wheels and a green body lined with a narrow purple stripe

This is the car that the WSPU presented to Mrs Pethick Lawrence on her release from prison in April 1909.The cloth-capped driver is Mr Rapley from Holmwood, Surrey, where the Pethick Lawrences had their country house.

The card was published by Sandle Bros and the type face used for the caption is the same as that for the ‘Rush the House of Commons’ postcards that date from October 1909 – so I would deduce that this card was published around the same time.

The card is for sale – £120. To buy email me: elizabeth.crawford2017@outlook.com

Suffragette Film Poster 2Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’:’The Empire Car’ In The Suffrage Coronation Procession 1911

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

The 'Empire Car' - Suffrage Coronation Procession, 1911

The ‘Empire Car’ – Suffrage Coronation Procession, 1911

Most of the previous items that I have described in the daily ‘Countdown to the Release of the Film “Suffragette”‘ posts over the past month have already been sold – but for this final week I shall describe items that are currently for sale.

This is a stereoscope photograph of ‘The Empire Car’ – one of the elements of the ‘Pageant of Empire’ that was included in the procession staged by the suffrage societies on 17 June 1911 to mark the Coronation of George V.

To stage the procession the Women’s Social and Political Union, the Women’s Freedom League and the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies worked together, alongside a wide range of smaller societies – bringing together militants and constitutionalists in one grand, consciousness-raising display.

This particular image is interesting, for with the imminent release of ‘Suffragette’ there has been a minor flurry on Twitter deprecating the lack of inclusion of women of colour in the film and particularly citing a couple of images, such as this, as evidence that supporters of the movement did include women from India.

That is true. However the handful of wealthy, aristocratic Indian ladies who were supporters lived lives far removed from that of Maud, the East End laundry worker whose story is central to the film, and there is no plausible reason why their paths should have overlapped.

Indeed, there are thousands of women – including all the members of the NUWSS – whose stories do not feature in the film. This in no way detracts from the engrossing story of Maud Watts, whose fictional life makes explicit to us just why it was that women did need the vote.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Selling ‘The Suffragette’ Paper

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Selling 'Votes for Women'

Selling ‘The Suffragette’

All the previous items that I have described in the daily ‘Countdown to the Release of the Film “Suffragette”‘ posts over the past month have already been sold – but for this final week I shall describe items that are currently for sale.

Thus I begin with this photographic postcard depicting a small, smart cart carrying an advertising hoarding for The Suffragette, the paper published by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and edited by Christabel Pankhurst.

The cart is stationary, the horse waiting patiently as his lady driver poses for a photograph, piles of the newspaper at her feet.

My observations leave me to think that the photograph was taken in Kingsway – close to the WSPU office in Lincoln’s Inn House – opposite the entrance to Wild Court. The building on the corner of that street (now a Belgo) has changed little since 1913 when this photograph would have been taken.

The postcard is in very good condition, despite having been posted, on 11 November 1913, to South Africa. It carried no message – proving that, as the hoarding proclaims, it appealed to ‘Suffragettes Everywhere’.

The card is for sale – £150. To buy email me: e.crawford@sphere20.freeserve.co.uk

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Christabel Pankhurst In Her Office In Clement’s Inn

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Christabel Pankhurst photographed in her office in Clement's Inn

Christabel Pankhurst photographed in her office in Clement’s Inn

The postcard was published by H. Sergeant of Ladbroke Grove and the photograph would have been taken on the occasion of his visit to Clement’s Inn in 1910/1911 when he also photographed Mrs Pankhurst in her office.

Christabel’s room – or at least that section of it in shot – betrays little of the homeliness that her mother had added to hers – although there is a vase of flowers on the desk. Behind her is a bookcase filled with serious-looking books – as befits a lawyer – with a page from Votes for Women pinned to it.

While Christabel looks directly at the camera, her young secretary keeps working, bent over her notebook, pen in hand.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

 

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’:Mrs Pankhurst In Her Clement’s Inn Office

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and Mrs Mabel Tuke photographed in Mrs Pankhurst's office in Clements Inn

Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and Mrs Mabel Tuke photographed in Mrs Pankhurst’s office in Clements Inn – probably in 1910/11.

Mrs Pankhurst and Mrs Tuke are sitting at a paper-laden desk. Mabel Tuke was honorary secretary of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Very pretty – as we can see – her nickname was ‘Pansy’.

This photograph gives us an opportunity to deconstruct the surroundings. What pictures did Mrs P. have on the walls? Well there is a poster for a Suffrage Fair and above that a portrait sketch that looks very like that of Christabel Pankhurst by Richard Mathews that is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

There is at least one photograph and one sculptured bust of a child – probably by Desiderio da Settignano. And a small vase of flowers on the mantlepiece. A wonderful picture.

The publisher of the card was H. Sergeant, 159 Ladbroke Grove – who took many photographs for the WSPU.

 

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

 

, ,

2 Comments

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Dora Meeson Coates’ Poster

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Poster designed by Dora Meeson Coates and published by the Artists' Suffrage League

Poster designed by Dora Meeson Coates

In 1907, with this design, Dora Meeson Coates (c 1870-1955), an Australian artist living with her husband in Chelsea, won a competition organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and the Artists’ Suffrage League.

The poster shows ‘Mrs John Bull’ holding an empty dish labelled ‘Votes for Women’ while six boys – ‘Primrose League’, Trade Unions’, ‘Liberal Federation’, ‘Women’s Liberal Association’, ‘S.D.F’ and ‘I.L.P’ – clamour for more soup from a large bowl labelled ‘Political Help’. She says: “Now you greedy boys I shall not give you any more until I have helped myself.”

It was one of three exceedingly rare posters that I bought at auction a few years ago,

Dora continued to work closely with leading members of the Artists’ Suffrage League, such as Mary Lowndes and C. Hedley Charlton as well as designing the ‘Commonwealth Australia’ banner that was carried in the 1911 suffrage ‘Coronation Procession’. That banner is now on display in Parliament House, Canberra.

You can read much more about Dora Meeson Coates’ association with the suffrage movement in my The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

 

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Flyer for WSPU Window-Smashing Demo on 21 Nov 1911

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

WSPU invitation to demonstrate outside the House of Commons on Tuesday 21 Nov 1911

WSPU invitation to demonstrate outside the House of Commons on Tuesday 21 Nov 1911

As Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence mentions in this leaflet, she – with Christabel Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Mabel Tuke, Lady Constance Lytton and Elizabeth Robins – had represented the WSPU in a joint deputation from all suffrage societies to Asquith and Lloyd George to protest against the government’s intention to introduce a manhood suffrage bill, which just might, if the House of Commons desired, be amended to include women. This had been a bitter blow to suffrage campaigners who had pinned their hopes on putting before Parliament a Conciliation  Bill – which would have enfranchised a proportion of women.

The deputation had received no comfort from Lloyd George and Asquith and this flyer was the WSPU’s response.

Kate Frye, whose diary I have edited as Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s suffrage diary (click here for details), went along to Parliament Square that Tuesday evening. In fact it was she who laid this very flyer between the pages of her diary and thus preserved it. She was an organiser for the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage [NCSWS] but rather sympathetic to the WSPU – and always liked to be on the scene of any dramatic action.

This is what she wrote of the evening in her diary:

‘I went in to Lyons and had coffee and a sandwich. Who should I happen to sit next but Miss Ada Moore [an actress and active member of the WSPU] and 2 ladies – ready for the fray. I wonder I wasn’t arrested as one – for I soon realised I was dressed for the part to the life. Long cloth ulster or coat, light hat and veil was the correct costume – no bag purse – umbrella or any extra. I only had enough money to get home with in my coat pocket – the rest I had put in the suit case – the latch key was slung round my neck. It was awfully exciting – one felt like a red revolutionist.

Miss Moore & party left at 7.30 – her work lay in Whitehall, she told me – but she looked very white and strained and we did not talk much. I began to feel pretty green with all the force of strife in the air – I felt I too should only be in my rightful place when officially performing.

I left Lyons at 7.45 and strolled about. At the stroke of eight there was smashing of glass at some government office – the War Office I took it for – and I saw several – 8 or 9 or more – ladies  led off – all very quietly done – no rough usage – no struggling. I followed them down Whitehall to Canon Row. More arrests – more broken glass – more crowds, a little jostling – people being moved on this way or that way – for the most part silent crowds – growing bigger and bigger – a rush to see another  arrest – a bigger crowd surging up the street following the policeman with the arrested women but oh! what a different scene from last year when the women were so brutally knocked about.

I suppose the crowd was worse over the other side of Parliament Square but I was too timid to wander far, and I met Mrs Hartley [a founder of the NCSWS], her daughter, 2 friends and Miss Green and we all kept together, and we shouted whenever a prisoner was led along – “Bravo” “Well Done”. People took it up – but for the most part stood and watched silently. As far as I could see there no ill feeling whatever from the crowd to the women – the men stared solemnly at the proceedings.

We met Mrs Chapman and Miss Forsyth. Mrs Chapman [president of the NCSWS] was anxious as her daughter, Mrs Mansel,  was ‘in’ it. We stood talking and got a crowd round us so had to “move on”.

We saw Mrs Pethick Lawrence led into Canon Row. There was a good deal of excitement then a huge crowd pushing along with her and other ladies. It was awfully cold and it was all very dreadful but I have never seen work better done – nearly every window in Whitehall with a large round hole right in the centre. Downing St was guarded. No one was allowed near.

Then people seemed drifting away so I made my way to Charing Cross – got my suitcase from the cloak room.’ 

This demonstration was the first to use mass window-smashing tactics – a later, similar, event is shown near the beginning of the film ‘Suffragette’. On 21 November 1911 220 women and 3 men were arrested and the next day around 150 of these were sentenced to period of between five days’ and two months’ imprisonment.

Kate Frye cover

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: The ‘Woman’s Rights’ Kerchief

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

 

Woman's Rights Kerchief 1

‘Woman’s Rights 1861/1981 And What Came Of It’

This is a white cotton kerchief ,measuring 22.5″ x 24″. It dates – presumably – from 1861 (the Design Registration No is 364805) and the very stylish illustrations printed on it show what the world would be like 120 years into the future – ie in 1981 – when women had won their Rights.

Thus women appear as barristers and judges, as admirals, captains and sailors, as athletes, as telegraph girls, as astronomers, scientists and – and who can now restrain their laughter – as politicians. The men, meanwhile, mind the babies, do the tatting and are parlour maids and house maids.

The kerchief – designed four years before the presentation of the first suffrage petition – contains all the tropes – the embodiment of light-hearted, but deeply-rooted prejudice – that are now so familiar to us through the comic postcards that were produced in response to the suffragette campaign in the years before the First World War.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: The WSPU Flag

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – wfor which I was an historical consultanthich contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

 

A WSPU Flag

A WSPU Flag

The flag is 68.5cm ( 27 “) wide x 132cm (52”) long and comprises three linen sections, stitched together very neatly – one each of purple, white and green (from the top in that order).

This item would not, I have thought, been free flying – but rather pinned up at a WSPU meeting or in a shop or at a bazaar.

Pankhurst meeting flags

One can see such flags draped here behind the platform where Mrs Pankhurst, Christabel and Mrs Pethick-Lawrence are addressing a suffrage meeting (with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson sitting immediately to Mrs Pankhurst’s right).

Presumably after it had had its day, the flag was neatly folded up and consigned to an attic – to reappear 100 years later. This is the only example of a WSPU flag that – in over 30 years of dealing – I have ever had for sale and I’m pleased to report that it went to a very good home – the House of Commons.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: ‘The Suffragette’ – A 1913 Feature Film

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

 

Today’s image:

Britannia Films still 1

Yesterday I was invited to the cast and crew screening of ‘Suffragette’ and had my second opportunity to see the film. It gets better each time. Travelling home on the bus I realised that today’s post just had to be about a 1913 film coincidentally – although perhaps not surprisingly – called ‘The Suffragette’.

Above is a still from the film – one of a sequence in a photograph album that I discovered.

On the front cover of the album was the remains of a printed label for ‘Britannia Films’. This film company was set up by Pathé at the end of 1911 to produce British feature films, while Pathé continued to produce newsreels.

At the end of 1913  ‘The Suffragette’ was one of the films released by Britannia Films. The description given of the film by the British Film Institute – which I faithfully recorded in the list of ‘suffragette films’ in The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide–  is of the vaguest – ‘A disowned schoolmistress’s uncle destroys her father’s amended will ‘ And yet this hokum plot can be followed through the first 17 film stills in this ‘Britannia Films’ album.

The scene shown above is set in a suffragette office, its walls lined with (real) newspaper posters – such as one recording the death of Emily Davison at the 1913 Derby. In another the heroine is setting light to a fuse leading inside a house – suffragette arson.

Another still shows two women lighting a fuse that trails back into a house. I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that there is a rather similar scene in ‘our’ ‘Suffragette’.

The International Movie Data Base (see here for details) names the actress playing the heroine as Agnes Glynne and a male lead as James Carew (who was, or had been, the very much younger husband of Ellen Terry).

As there is no extant copy of the film and the British Film Institute holds no archival stills – these images are the only known surviving record of this once topical film.  As so few records survive of the spate of films that featured suffragette themes this one, clearly filmed between June 1913 (because it features the Derby poster) and December 1913 (its release), is an important survivor.

 

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: ‘The Suffragette Puzzle’

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

The Suffragette Puzzle

The Suffragette Puzzle

Yet another game based on the difficulties encountered by suffrage campaigners.

‘The Suffragette Puzzle’ was produced by F.H. Ayres Ltd, 111 Aldersgate Street, London and was launched in 1908. It required considerable dexterity ‘To get the Women’s Suffrage Bill through the Houses of Parliament’ – although rather less than the real-life  effort demanded of the suffrage societies;

This game is extremely scarce – I’ve only had this one example for sale in over thirty years of dealing in suffrage ephemera.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

 

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

 

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: ‘Panko’

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (with which I had a slight association) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Panko

Panko

Panko was a card game, published by Messrs Peter Gurney Ltd. The cards were designed by E.T. Reed, a Punch cartoonist.

Panko was first advertised in the issue of Votes for Women for 10 December 1909, claiming ‘Not only is each picture in itself an interesting memento, but the game produces intense excitement without the slightest taint of bitterness’.Panko Rules - Copy

Mary Blathwayt – the ardent Bath suffragette – gave her mother a pack as her Christmas present and I’ve no doubt that Panko was in many another suffragette’s Christmas stocking that year.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

 

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: ‘Elusive Christabel’

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Elusive Christabel

Elusive Christabel

‘Elusive Christabel’ is an optical toy produced by the Flashograph Co in 1912. It alludes to Christabel Pankhurst’s escape to France in March 1912 as the police closed in on Clement’s Inn and arrested the other leaders of the Women’s Social and Political Union and charged them with conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

When – as commanded – you move the paper control ‘up and down gently’ the scene changes to this:

Elusive Christabel 1

The WSPU had a lot of fun at the expense of the police, publishing photographs of Christabel in Votes for Women and asking readers to guess where she might be. The Flashograph Co clearly had an eye for topicality.

Needless to say ‘Elusive Christabel’ lives up to its name and is exceptionally elusive nowadays. I’ve only ever had one pass through my hands in over thirty years of dealing in suffragette material.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: ‘Pank-A-Squith’

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Pank-A-Squith

Pank-A-Squith

Pank-A-Squith was a board game, first advertised in Votes for Women, 22 October 1909.

The board is green and purple and the spiral track illustrates the difficulties encountered by Mrs Pankhurst and her supporters. It is played by throwing a die to move figures around the board – like Snakes and Ladders.
As issued the board was square but this particular board was altered at some point in order to set it within a circular wooden frame.

All too often the figures that were issued with the game – and were moved around the board – are missing.

In December 1909 Mary Blathwayt, a keen WSPU supporter from Bath, recorded in her diary that she had bought a game of Pank-A-Squith and in July 1910 that she and Annie Kenney played it together as they passed an anxious time while Annie’s sister, Jennie Kenney, was being operated on at Mary’s home, Eagle House, Batheaston.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

 

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: The WFL ‘Holloway’ Brooch

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

Today’s image:

Women's Freedom League 'Holloway' brooch

Women’s Freedom League ‘Holloway’ brooch

This is the award that was given by the Women’s Freedom League to its members who had been imprisoned. The brooch is in silver with the reverse engraved with the name of the prisoner and the date of arrest. The one in the picture was presented to Elsie Cummin upon her release from Holloway in July 1909.

Elsie Cummin had been born in 1877, one of the large family of Rev Joseph Cummin and his wife, Elizabeth. By 1901 the family had moved into Easebourne Vicarage, where Joseph Cummin was vicar. Mrs Cummin, who died in 1910, had been a suffrage supporter and gave the West Sussex branch of the Women’s Freedom League its velvet banner. Elsie Cummin was both honorary sec and honorary treasurer of the branch, which had been founded in 1908. She spoke at local WFL meetings and held WFL ‘At Homes’ at Easebourne Vicarage.

The Times, July 13, 1909

‘Four members of the Women’s Freedom League were charged on remand with obstruction. [Among] the defendants were ….Elsie Cummin, 32, Easebourne Vicarage, Midhurst….

Chief Inspector Rolfe said that on Friday afternoon he saw the defendants Hicks and Cummin standing by the doorway of the Prime Minister’s residence in Downing-street. They were carrying a roll of paper bearing the word ‘Petition’ and they said that they wished to present their petition personally to Mr Asquith. They were afterwards joined by the other two defendants. Meanwhile Miss Hicks had handed her petition personally to Mr Asquith when he alighted from a motor-car at his residence. At one time there were 300 people in Downing-street, and considerable obstruction was caused. After seeing Mr Asquith’s private secretary the witness told the defendants that Mr Asquith could tell them nothing further, but would send them an acknowledgment in due course. The defendants said that they wanted a date and time fixed for the reply; otherwise they would wait until they got it..

Police Constable 109A said that when Mr Asquith drove up one of the defendants said, ‘We have a petition, will you receive it?’. Mr Asquith asked her to hand it to his messenger, and Miss Hicks replied, ‘No, we want to hand it to you personally.’ Mr Asquith then said, ‘Very well, hand it to me,’ and he then received the petition from Miss Hicks.

[Defence counsel] submitted that the defendants did nothing but stand upon the pavement in a perfectly orderly manner.

The magistrate said that if the defendants would undertake that there should be no kind of disturbance of any description until the appeal in the somewhat similar case of Mrs Pankhurst had been decided he would adjourn the case sine die.

[Defence counsel] said that he could not give any undertaking on behalf of the defendants.

The defendants, on oath, denied that they caused any obstruction.

The magistrate imposed a fine of £3 in each case, with the alternative of three weeks’ imprisonment in the second division.’

Elsie Cummin and her three co-defendants refused to pay the fine and went to Holloway – and it was on her release that she was presented with the ‘Holloway’ brooch.

The reverse of Elsie Cummin's Holloway brooch

The reverse of Elsie Cummin’s Holloway brooch

Elsie continued her association with the WFL for at least two more years. On the night of the 1911 census she was at home with her father and one sister. However, the census enumerator recorded two other of the sisters, who were not present, as ‘Suffragettes wandering about all night’. Elsie Cummin reported that seven members of the branch had boycotted the census. Clearly the Cummin family took the question of women’s suffrage seriously.

The Women’s Freedom League had first presented these brooches as early as December 1908 when Muriel Matters and Mrs Emily Duval received theirs from Mrs Despard at a ceremony in St James’s Hall, Piccadilly. The Women’s Social and Political Union copied the idea and in April 1909 instituted a Sylvia Pankhurst-designed ‘Holloway’ brooch to reward their members who had been to prison. As so often, however, it is the WSPU’s insignia which has had the wider publicity.

Sarah Benett, sometime treasurer of the WFL, wearing her WFL 'Holloway' brooch

Sarah Benett, sometime treasurer of the WFL, photographed by Lena Connell wearing her WFL ‘Holloway’ brooch

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: The WSPU ‘Flag’ Brooch

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (with which I had a slight association) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

WSPU flag badge

An enamelled WSPU brooch – in the shape of a purple, white and green flag.

Unusually, it’s possible to date this brooch pretty accurately. It is marked on the back with the maker’s name ‘Toye’, which was in usage between 1898 and 1909 when the passing of a new Companies’ Act meant that henceforward it was known as ‘Toye & Co. Toye produced much of the WSPU merchandise, including the hunger-strike medals. The company is still in business and re-produced the hunger-strike medals that you will able to see being worn in the film ‘Suffragette’.

The 31 December 1908 issue of Votes for Women lists all merchandise that the WSPU was selling at that time – and the flag design is not listed.

However we can see from the 14 May 1909 issue, dating from the time that the WSPU was about to launch its big fund-raising event – the Exhibition at Prince’s Skating Rink in Knightsbridge -, that the number of items the WSPU was selling had increased – and now included this brooch.

It is described as ‘Flag (words “Votes for Women”) 1/- each.’ I fear that over the last 108 years the brooch has rather risen in value. But I think we can be pretty certain that this design was manufactured no later than the Spring of 1909.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

 

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

 

,

1 Comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Christina Broom Photographs The Putney and Fulham WSPU Shop

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

 

Today’s image:

Putney WSPU shop photos 001

My visit yesterday to the exhibition of photographs by Christina Broom at the Museum of London (which I highly recommend – for details see here) reminded me of an intriguing page of photographs that passed through my hands a little while ago.

The key that unlocks the story behind the photographs is the postcard of the Putney and Fulham WSPU shop, positioned in the bottom right-hand corner. This photograph, taken by Mrs Broom, is shown in the exhibition and is discussed in detail by Diane Atkinson in Joannou & Purvis (eds), Women’s Suffrage Movement: feminist perspectives.

The photograph shows a young mother holding her baby, standing outside the shop, which opened at 905 Fulham Road in February 1910. The baby looks to be about 9 or 10 months old. I have identified the copy of Votes for Women that is displayed in the window as the issue for 9 September 1910. The shop windows are packed with WSPU propaganda items – much of which, especially the postcards – such as ones of Christabel Pankhurst, Lady Constance Lytton, Charlotte Marsh and Mary Gawthorpe – are readily recognisable. A poster advertises a meeting to be held by Lady Constance in the Queen’s Hall on 3 October 1910 and there are items of merchandise, such as WSPU scarves and stationery, together with the more homely items, such as eggs and jam that the local branch reported it was pleased to accept to sell for the Cause.

You can see into the shop (the door is open) and there in the background is the banner ‘Taxation Without Representation.is Tyranny’, just as described in the 18 February 1910 Votes for Women issue.

Adjacent on the sheet to the photograph of the shop is a loving shot of the same mother with her baby  – annotated ‘5 months’ – photographed, I would think, in a bedroom. Above that is the same woman and baby, photographed, I think, outside and annotated ‘4 months’. The other three photos are of the baby alone, photographed at 3, 4 and 5 months. Although the photos are glued to the page I’ve peered into their backs and think they were sent to the baby’s grandfather.

The sheet is captioned ‘Joan Morris’ in the same hand as the annotations of the baby’s age, Or, at least, I think it is ‘Joan Morris’. The last two letters of the surname read more like ‘ei’ or ‘el’ than ‘is’ – but there was no ‘Joan ‘born in the baby’s timeframe with a name such as ‘Morrel’, which might be a reading.

There was, however, a Joan Morris born in Fulham on 6 January 1910. In April 1911 she was living with her parents at 19 Arundel Mansions, Fulham Road. If my identification is correct, they are an interesting couple.

The baby’s father was Geoffrey Bright Morris, son of William Bright Morris, the artist (not to be confused with the other William Morris) and his first wife, who was a grand-daughter of Leigh Hunt and who may well have died at his birth.

Baby Joan’s mother was Helen Kathleen Morris (née Macleod), who in the 1901 census, was an actress boarding with William Bright Morris and his family. She would have been about 31 years old in 1910, which, again, accords with the apparent age of the woman standing outside the WSPU shop. The couple had married in January 1909; they had clearly known each other for a long time for William Bright Morris’s second wife was Helen’s aunt. Helen McLeod’s father was a paymaster in the Royal Navy. William Bright Morris died in 1912 – so could have been the grandfather to whom the snaps were sent.

I wish I had been able to find a mention of Helen Morris in the reports for the Putney & Fulham branch of the WSPU – but I must admit that I cannot. She does seem just the kind of person to have taken an interest in suffrage – but, with a young baby to care for, may not in 1910-1911 have been able to devote much of her time to it. However, as Diane mentions in her discussion of the photo, the woman – without coat or hat – and the baby, dressed in a light frock, do seem to have come out from the shop specifically to have been photographed.

In ‘Votes for Women’ the co-organiser of the branch and the shop is given as ‘Mrs H. Roberts’, although no further information about her activities is, as far as I can see from reading through successive copies, ever given and I have been able to find out nothing about her.

So, all in all, an interesting story to be deduced from what might at first glance have appeared to have been an anonymous sheet of photographs. Mrs Broom’s photograph is, of course, the prize. Photographs of suffrage shops are always delightful and this image – taken on an early autumn day more or less exactly 105 years ago – is both artfully arranged and very crisp and clear.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

, , ,

3 Comments

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Christina Broom Photographs The 1911 Suffrage Coronation Procession

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Coronation Procession - NCS Banner

A close-up photograph by Mrs Albert Broom of a section of the 1911 suffrage Coronation Procession showing the tail-end of the ‘Pageant of Queens’.  Immediately behind, as decreed in the plan for the day, is the banner of the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage, one of only two images of it that I have ever seen.

The queens are, mainly, dressed in medieval costume and the photograph allows a clear image of faces, dresses and jewellery. At the head of the New Constitutional contingent can be seen a couple of figures in graduate dress – and I wonder if they are Alexandra and Gladys Wright – for more of whom see Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s suffrage diary.

I am going this very day to visit the Museum of London Docklands exhibition ‘Suffragettes and Soldiers: The Photography of Christina Broom’. See here for details.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: The 1866 Women’s Suffrage Petition

Today – 7 June 2016 – marks the 150th anniversary of the first petition presented in Parliament in support of an attempt to gain for women the parliamentary vote.

I have just attended an event sponsored by the Fawcett Society to celebrate this anniversary – held in the Speaker’s House in Parliament. At this event it was announced that efforts would be made to erect a statue to Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square. See also my post  published some time ago – Make Millicent Fawcett Visible – http://wp.me/p2AEiO-qD

Below is a short article I published earlier setting out the facts behind the petition.

 

 

First page of the 1866 women's suffrage petition

First page of the 1866 women’s suffrage petition

This is – I think – the most important document of the women’s suffrage campaign. It was the foundation for all that came after.

Back in the days when the world was young, there was no internet, and antiquarian booksellers – as well as the layman/woman book-buyer – had to search their quarry among the stacks of brick and mortar bookshops, my time, when not engaged in child care, was spent touring London and the market towns of southern England in search of the books and ephemera with which I and my customers might resurrect the women that were famously ‘hidden from history’.

These days have long passed away – now we need only sit at home and search internet book-selling sites,  trawling through the print-on-demand dross in the increasingly forlorn hope of finding the odd nugget of treasure. The corollary, of course, is that there are now precious few brick and mortar bookshops selling second-hand/antiquarian books.

In those olden days I even thought it occasionally worthwhile to take a tour down Portobello Road on a Saturday morning, not something I have  done  for a long time, now that Portobello’s landlords are handing the antiques arcades over to fashion chain stores. But that particular Saturday-morning visit was memorable because it was in a bookselling alcove in the warrens that stretch behind Portobello Road that I came across one of the most interesting finds of my bookselling career – a copy of the pamphlet edition of the 1866 women’s suffrage petition.

The petition itself comprised  a long scroll onto which were pasted the signatures of the (circa) 1500 women who, in the spring of 1866,  were prepared to put their names to a request (it was certainly not yet a demand) that women who met the requisite  property qualifications , as set out in the Reform bill then under discussion, should be able to cast a parliamentary vote alongside men. The petition had been organised by a group of women who formed themselves into a small informal committee – among their number being Barbara Bodichon, Bessie Rayner Parkes, Elizabeth Garrett, and Emily Davies.  John Stuart Mill, for whom they had campaigned when he had contested – and won – the Westminster parliamentary seat the previous year, had agreed to present the petition.

Emily Davies was the businesswoman of the group and it was she who decided that the names of those who had signed the petition should be printed in pamphlet form and sent to  the weekly papers so that, as she wrote on 18 July 1866 to Helen Taylor (Mill’s step-daughter), ‘ in case they take any notice, they make know what they are commenting on.’  Copies of the petition pamphlet were also sent to members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

The copy of ‘my’ 1866 petition pamphlet is, as you see, addressed to Earl Cathcart –  the 3rd Earl, Alan Frederick Cathcart. I suspect he was not overly interested in the rights of women.

I did sell the pamphlet almost as soon as I found it but, before parting with it, had the sense to take a photocopy. That sounds nothing extraordinary, but back in those days photocopiers were not the casual desk accessory that they are today and in order to process the petition’s 38 pages I had to visit the machine in the local library. How glad I am that I bothered to do so. For having easy access to those 1499 names allowed me not only to build up the pattern of political and friendship networks supporting the suffrage campaign that lies at the heart of The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guidebut also provided a starting-point for researching The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a regional survey, in which the part each region, county and town played in the campaign is detailed.

Petition p 20-21

You can see, if your mind works along the same way as mine, what pleasure can be had in attempting to identify all these women. For instance, on this page – chosen at random:

Mrs Kenrick of 9 Dorset Square in 1873 was a member of the executive committee of the Ladies’ Association for the Education of Women for the Medical Association.

Gertrude King of 18 Carlton Hill East, was a member of the Kensington Society (a group of women who met and corresponded in order to discuss the position and prospects for women) and by 1874 was secretary of the Society for the Employment of Women.

Fanny and Jane King, 9 Eden Grove, Holloway, were the wife and daughter of John King, a pianoforte maker, who was one of the oldest acquaintances of William Lovett, the Chartist leader (one of King’s sons had ‘Lovett’ as a middle name). King was a long-standing member of Lovett’s National Association for Promoting the Political and Social Improvement of the People. Artisan radicals such as the Kings were one of the groups contacted by the organisers of the 1866 women’s suffrage petition.

Notice that appeared in the Alexandria Magazine, May 1st, 1864. NB Isa Craig as member of the committee

Notice that appeared in the Alexandria Magazine, May 1st, 1864. NB Isa Craig as member of the committee

Isa Craig Knox of 14 Clyde Terrace, New Cross  – a close friend of Bessie Rayer Parkes – was assistant secretary of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, a founder of the Kensington Society and a leading member of the Society for the Employment of Women. For more on Isa Craig see her entry in my Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide.

Fanny Aiken Kortright of  21 Eldon Road, Kensington, was a writer of sensational novels.  She must quite soon have regretted signing this petition, for in 1869 she printed for private circulation a pamphlet AGAINST the Woman’s Right movement, entitled Pro Aris et Focis, which won the approval of Queen Victoria and the sympathy of the then Prime Minister. Eliza and Harriet were her older sisters. Another, married, sister also signed the petition.

Miss Kunz (Miss Mina Kunz) of 19 Royal Circus, Edinburgh was in 1868 on the executive committee of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Educational Association and by 1874 was a member of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Debating Society.

Philippine Kyllman, Fallowfield, Manchester, was the wife of Max Kyllman, a wealthy young Manchester businessman interested in Co-operative matters.  Kyllmann provided capital for a mill established in Manchester by George Holyoake and Edward Owen Greening on a profit-sharing basis – though it quickly failed. For more about Philippine Kyllman see her entry in my Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide.

As for Sarah Kersey of Aldeburgh you can find a little more about her in an earlier post I published about Aldeburgh and the petition.

And for many of the others on these two pages – as on all the others that comprise the petition – something can be discovered about the lives of most of the women who were sufficiently bold as to sign it.

As far as I know the only printed copy of the Petition held in a public collection is that which resides in the  Emily Davies Papers in the Girton Archive.

The Parliamentary Archives have now digitised the petion – using my ancient photocopy – see http://www.parliament.uk/documents/parliamentary-archives/1866SuffragePetitionNamesWebJune16.pdf > Many happy hours can now be sent searching to see who the women were who were prepared to put their name to this revolutionay document.

 

STOP PRESS: THE COPY THAT I SOLD HAS BEEN LENT TO THE ‘ENDLESS ENDEAVOURS’ EXHIBITION SHOWING  AT LSE – http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/exhibitions/home.aspx.

 

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Edith Downing’s Hunger Strike Medal

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (with which I had a slight association) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands in the very many years that I have been dealing in suffrage-related books and ephemera.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Edith Downing's Hunger Strike Medal

Edith Downing’s Hunger Strike Medal

Edith Downing was a sculptor, living in Tite Street, Chelsea, who joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1908. Earlier, certainly as early as 1903 – if not before – she had been a member of the London society associated with the non-militant National Union of Suffrage Societies.

Edith Downing in her studio

Edith Downing in her studio

She put her artistic talent to the suffrage cause and in June 1910 she was one of the organisers of the WSPU/WFL’s spectacular ‘Prison to Citizenship’ Procession. As well as the hunger strike medal I also once, quite coincidentally, acquired  a small statuette that she had sold at a suffrage bazaar held to raise money for the WSPU.

Edith Downing was, however, equally prepared to take militant action and in March 1912 took part in the WSPU’s West-End window-smashing raid. As a result she was imprisoned and while in Holloway took part in the hunger-strike and was forcibly fed.

She was awarded the WSPU’s hunger strike medal on her release. For more details of Edith Downing’s involvement with the suffrage cause see her entry in my The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide.

Scenes of both the window-smashing raid and of forcible feeding are shown very effectively in the film ‘Suffragette’. And I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that a hunger strike medal plays a small part in the lead character’s conversion to the cause.

The hunger strike medal awarded to Edith’s sister, Caroline Lowder Downing, is now held in the Houses of Parliament collection –  see here. For details about the Suffragette Season of talks and tours (which will, I’m sure, include a chance to see Caroline Downing’s medal) that Parliament has launched to coincide with the release of ‘Suffragette’ see here.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/ Palmisting For The Cause At A Café Chantant – December 1909

December was always a good month for fund-raising suffrage parties.

Cafe Chantant NUWSS Dec 1909 - Copy

For the suffrage movement was not all about militancy and processions. Money had to be raised to pay for the campaigning and for the management of the rapidly-developing organisations – and much of it was done in the time-honoured way of bazaars and balls. Here is a flyer for a Café Chantant organised by the London Society for Women’s Suffrage in December 1909.

The flyer comes from the collection of Kate Parry Frye, where it lay between the pages of her diary in which she describes the event itself.

She was living at home in North Kensington and had already had some experience as a reader of palms at earlier suffrage fund-raising events. On 6 December 1909 Kate wrote:

‘Agnes [her sister] and Katie [Finch-Smith – neé Gilbey -her cousin] arrived about 12.30. I had lent Katie a white dress as she had not got one and she had brought up the regulation white cap and apron and I also supplied the colours. I wore my best. We started off just before 2.30. One bus to the Grove [that is, Westbourne Grove] and another to Kensington and to the Town Hall for the Café Chantant got up for the Funds of the London Society and National Union.

It began at 3 o’clock. Katie left her things in the cloak room and we all went upstairs together. Agnes had to pay her 3/- to go in and for tea but Katie and I went in free. I found Mrs Rowan Hamilton who had charge of the Palmists and she hadn’t got me a table and I would not begin till she had one brought. I had told her two chairs and a table would be required. I had a little spot close by screens – my name up – ‘Katharine Parry’ – spelt wrong of course. I was just beside the tea tables so I could be near Katie till the fun began. We introduced her to lots of people. I hoped she enjoyed it but I think she got very tired.

 Miss Lockyer [she had been housekeeper to the murdered storekeeper, William Whiteley] with a friend came very early and I am afraid did not enjoy herself much. I just spoke to her but could not leave my corner and she thought 2/6 too much to consult me – it was a lot. There was another Palmist ‘Ravario’ and my crystal gazer – Clare Crystal. Agnes and Katie consulted her and found her rather poor. The Wrights were there, of course. Alexandra only a simple ‘Tea Girl’ but she selected Agnes to have tea with her – such an honour for Agnes. Miss Carl Hentschel was a Tea Girl and her Mother helping everywhere and lots of people I know.

At first I could not get any clients – no-one knew me. The first was a man about 3.30 – a funny sort of thing – then a lady, who was so delighted she went out to boom me and she did – for, for the rest of the day, I was besieged. I could have gone on all night. It was hard work but I enjoyed it. I had such nice interesting people – a few made me feel miserable, they were so unhappy – but some were charming – two insisted upon having my address. One said she would try and get me some engagements – a Miss May Oakley. I kept on till 20 minutes to 6 when Agnes dragged me out to have some tea – and John [Collins, her fiancé] came upstairs – he had been taking tickets from 2.30.

So I had some tea and he had a second tea. We had it from Miss Doake’s table as Katie was away. I had promised to go back at 6 o’clock and there was already a client sitting in the retreat. I kept on till 6.30 when the affair was over for the afternoon and we all four went home feeling very tired. John had to be back before 8 o’clock and we were not back till after 7 – so had to rush about and he had a meal as quickly as it could be got and go off.

Leaving Agnes behind, Katie and I left again at 8 o’clock and went by bus to Kensington. It was all in full swing again. The entertainment going on as before and more theatrical and Ju Jitsu displays and heaps of people. John was taking tickets again as happy as a cricket. I had said I would be back 9 till 10 – but I was pounced upon straight away. I had a horrid few moments when I missed my muff but John found it for me.

We worked till I was nearly done and told about 14 or 16 – and 17 to 20 in the afternoon. I had to refuse more as it was 10.30 and I was so tired – though the people came and begged me to go on. Gladys herself honoured me – and she told me that people were giving up their tickets for the other Palmists to come to me. John seemed playing about all the evening and Katie was serving coffee and cakes. There was an auction of cakes – and I bought a lovely Fullers cake. All the cakes had been given and were simply lovely ones. It was pouring with rain and we had to have a cab to the flat. Got in about 11.30.’

Interesting to see that Edith Garrud was happy to give jujitsu displays for the non-militant society.

For more about Kate Frye and the suffrage movement see here:

Kate Frye cover

 

 

For more about the entirety of Kate Frye’s life see here

cover e-book

Kate was very sympathetic towards the Women’s Social and Political Union and was, briefly, a member. She was particularly concerned about improving the life of her poorer sisters and without a doubt would have loved the film ‘Suffragette’.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: The Morrison Collection

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item – or, in the case of today, items – that have passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s images: The Morrison Suffrage Collection.

Evelyn Morrison's WSPU regalia

The Morrisons’ WSPU regalia

Evelyn Mary Fanny Matilda Murray was born in New South Wales, Australia, c 1850. She was the daughter of Sir Terence Murray, (President of the NSW Legislative Council) by his first wife. She was, therefore, half-sister to Sir Gilbert Murray, later to become Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, who was a son of the father’s second marriage. [Gilbert Murray’s wife was a daughter of Lady Carlisle and for many years president of the Oxford Women’s Liberal Association.]

By the mid-1870s Evelyn Murray was married to a Robert Morrison. They had a daughter, also named Evelyn Morrison, born c 1881. At some point Robert Morrison died and it was as a widow that Mrs Morrison, with her daughter, Evelyn, arrived in Britain sometime between 1891 and 1901. Mrs Morrison ‘worked’ for the Liberal Party before becoming involved with the WSPU.

Her daughter, Evelyn, was a university graduate (possibly of Bedford College, but I am not sure. Certainly she was not a graduate of an Oxford or Cambridge college because she was able to style herself ‘BA.’)

The younger Evelyn was a WSPU speaker and in February 1910 was elected joint honorary secretary of the Kensington WSPU.

DSC00005

Miss Evelyn Morrison was a ‘Group Captain’ in charge of Section One of the WSPU’s spectacular procession to Hyde Park on 21 June 1908.

DSC00028

It would be for this that she made the ‘Group Captain’ sash.

DSC00004 I am pretty sure that the ‘Votes for Women’ sash also belonged to her.

Evelyn Morrison

Here is Miss Evelyn Morrison wearing just such a sash – in a procession alongside Mrs Pankhurst.

Morrison 1910 deputation

This is the ticket issued to Mrs Morrison for a 22 November 1910 WSPU meeting in Caxton Hall. However, as we can see from the hand alterations to the ticket, the date was brought forward.  The collection included two telegrams to Mrs Morrison, dated 15 Nov 1910, rescheduling the date of deputation to Parliament in which she was to take part.

The new date of Friday 18 November became notorious in suffragette history as ‘Black Friday’ when Parliament Square became the scene of a near riot and many women were assaulted by the police. Mrs Morrison was there, wearing the ‘Deputation’ silk insignia that appears in the first photograph. Incidentally, the film’ Suffragette’ includes a scene of frantic suffragette protest immediately outside Parliament

Mrs Morrison was arrested and the collection included the order issued by the Metropolitan Police, ordering her the appear the next day at Bow Street Police Court. The charge was one of ‘wilfully obstructing Police whilst in the due execution of their duty’. The charge against her, as against all the other women arrested on Black Friday was dropped and Mrs Morrison was discharged.

Another telegram was included in the collection, sent from Mrs Morrison to her daughter from Southampton Street close to Bow Street court, dated 19 November, to say that she and all the others arrested with her the previous day had been discharged. The Home Office had decided it was not politic to charge so many women – 220 had been arrested on ‘Black Friday’.

Morrison gun licence

On 4 July 1912, in the genteel setting of Church Street, Kensington, Mrs Morrison was issued with a gun licence. Why should she require to carry a pistol? At this time WSPU militancy was reaching fever pitch – with Mrs Pankhurst being regularly arrested and then released after hunger striking. It is interesting that this particular piece of paper has survived alongside the other, solely suffrage, material. The inference is that the issuing of the licence was not unconnected with Mrs Morrison’s involvement in the suffrage movement.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Letter from Evelyn Sharp to Miss Morrison, dated 21 March 1909 thanking her for organising a WSPU meeting (at which Christabel Pankhurst had been the main speaker)
  • Cyclostyled letter from Christabel Pankhurst – probably to Mrs Morrison – it dates from November 1910 and refers to meetings being held at the beginning of the week after the deputation in which she took part.
  • Gun Licence issued to Mrs Morrison on 4 July 1912. This was at a time when WSPU militancy was reaching fever pitch – with Mrs Pankhurst being regularly arrested and then released after hunger striking. It is interesting that this particular piece of paper has survived alongside the suffrage material. The inference is that the issuing of the licence was not unconnected with Mrs Morrison’s involvement in the suffrage movement.

 

Framed items

 

1) Together in one frame – three telegrams

 

Two telegrams to Mrs Morrison, dated 15 Nov 1910, rescheduling date of deputation to Parliament in which she was to take part. This was to become notorious as ‘Black Friday’ when there was a near riot in Parliament Square and many women were assaulted by the police.

The third telegram (the one in the centre) is from Mrs Morrison to her daughter, sent from Southampton St close to Bow Street court, dated 19 November, to say that she and all the others arrested with her the previous day had been discharged. (The Home Office had decided it was not politic to charge so many women – 220 had been arrested on ‘Black Friday’.

 

  • In the second frame

 

The order issued by the Metropolitan Police when Mrs Morrison was arrested in the course of ‘Black Friday’, ordering her the appear the next day at Bow Street Police Court. The charge was one of ‘wilfully obstructing Police whilst in the due execution of their duty’. As we have seen the charge was dropped and Mrs Morrison was discharged. NB Inspector Crocker, who signed the charge sheet, was involved for many years in pursuing suffragettes.

, ,

1 Comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’:’Justice Demands The Vote’ Poster

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Justicee Demands the Vote 1

This image (courtesy of Schlesinger Library) is of an English poster. I was fortunate enough to buy one of the originals of this poster at auction some years ago. This was before the days of digital cameras, which is why I, alas, don’t have my own record of it.

The poster was issued by the Brighton and Hove Women’s Franchise Society c 1908. This society had been founded – or re-founded, because there had been an earlier suffrage society in the town in the late 19th century – in 1906.  The Brighton and Hove Women’s Franchise Soceity was a local committee of the non-militant London Society for Women’s Suffrage – that is, a member of Mrs Fawcett’s National Society for Women’s Suffrage.

The artist of the poster is not recorded – but there were no shortage of women artists living in and around Brighton. It was printed by Weiners Ltd of Acton, who also printed posters for the Artists’ Suffrage League.

The message that the poster conveys – that middle-class women were campaigning alongside and on behalf of their poorer sisters – is a theme developed in the film, ‘Suffragette’.

For more about suffrage in Brighton see my The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a regional survey (Routledge, 2006)

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

 

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Annie’s Bracelet

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Christabel bracelet

A 9 ct gold bracelet, very pretty, the outer engraved on one side with decorative scrolls. But it is what is engraved inside that is the secret of the bracelet’s significance..

On one arc of the circle:

‘To dearest Annie with all my love & in recollection of our great day out’

Christabel bracelet 1

and, on the other,

Christabel bracelet 2

‘Christabel Pankhurst, Hyde Park June 21st 1908’.

Annie Kenney was Christabel’s most faithful follower, her love and admiration for Christabel – and Christabel’s acceptance and acknowledgment of this loyalty – made clear in letters and in Annie’s autobiography. But this bangle is, as far as I know, the only object that testifies to the peculiar bond between the two young women.
Annie, who had worked in a mill from the age of 10, had first come under Christabel’s spell in the spring of 1905 and a few months later, in October, spent a week in prison with her after they had heckled a Liberal meeting in Manchester. This imprisonment marks the beginning of the WSPU’s militant campaign.

Annie’s life was changed for ever. As she wrote, ‘My pleasure came from seeing Christabel’s face light up with a light that later in life I discovered meant victory. Her confidence in me gave me confidence in myself.’ And when they were together in prison – ‘I remember going to Church and sitting next to Christabel who looked very coy and pretty in her prison cap. She took my hand tenderly and just held it, as though I were a lost child.’

Nevertheless that ‘lost child’, backed by Christabel’s confidence, became one of the WSPU’s leading organisers. Indeed, after Christabel left for Paris, Annie acted as her deputy, putting into effect the absent leader’s commands.

But before that, for the ‘great day out’, ‘Women’s Sunday’, the first great WSPU rally, held in Hyde Park on 21 June 1908, Annie bought a hat from Liberty’s (£1/2/6) and led the procession that started at Paddington – being at the time WSPU organiser in the West of England. Once in the Park she was the principal speaker on Platform 3.

Christabel’s gift of the bracelet recognises the significance of the ‘great day out’, marking the WSPU’s entry into a world of polished performance and Annie as one of its stars.

As Annie wrote many years later in her memoir, ‘There is a cord between Christabel and me that nothing can break – the cord of love. Distance or absence makes no difference.’ Here is a tangible – and unique -emblem of that affection.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

 

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Countdown To 12 October And Release Of The Film ‘Suffragette’: Mrs Albert Broom And The WFL

To celebrate the release on 12 October of the film ‘Suffragette’  (for which I was an historical consultant) I will post each day an image of a suffrage item that has passed through my hands.

For my current catalogue – No 189 – which contains a good deal of suffrage material – as well as general books and ephemera by and about women – see here.

Today’s image:

Coronation Procession - WFL

A ‘close-up’ photograph by Mrs Albert Broom of women from the Women’s Freedom League section of the suffragette ‘Coronation Procession’ held on 17 June 1911. The image is very crisp and clear. Many of the women are wearing academic robes – one is carrying a satchel from which to sell WFL badges and postcards of the WFL leader, Mrs Despard. I think that the figures in the lead (to the left of the picture) are carrying a banner, doubtless that of the WFL, and other smaller banners are also there in the picture.

Suffragette Film Poster 2

For details of the exhibition ‘Soldiers and Suffragettes’ featuring the photography of Mrs Albert Broom see here.

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

2 Comments

Collecting Suffrage: ‘Votes For Women’ Hooks And Eyes

VfW Hooks and Eyes

 

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

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere and are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

 

 

 

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories: Words – As Well As Deeds

This article was published in the March 2003 issue of Antiquarian Book Review.

‘Deeds Not Words’ was Mrs Pankhurst’s motto. The slogan flourished in the early 20th century – it was even embroidered on a banner – a reaction to the apparently unproductive campaign for the enfranchisement of women that had already been waged for nearly 40 years.

Hammersmith deeds The debate as to whether the vote was won by the slow drip of reasoned argument or by the sharp crack of breaking glass is one that still occupies historians. Although it is the deeds of Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes – the spectacle of processions, the breaking of windows, the burning of houses and churches – that has coloured the popular perception of the suffrage campaign, without the ‘words’ that had over many years shaped the idea that women had an equal right with men to citizenship, the ‘deeds’ would have been committed in a vacuum. The women’s suffrage campaign was, during its entire 62 years, underpinned by ‘Literature’ in all its guises.

Works written in support of women’s enfranchisement had little difficulty in achieving publication. The instigators of the movement were members of the articulate radical middle class and were in close contact with communicators. A tentative beginning had been made in 1851 with Harriet Taylor’s article The Enfranchisement of Women, which, shortly after her marriage to John Stuart Mill, was published anonymously in the Westminster Review ( a journal of which Mill had in the past been editor). This was followed in 1855 by a pamphlet, The Right of Women to the Elective Franchise, written by Agnes Pochin, wife of a future Liberal MP, and published by John Chapman, that ‘Publisher of Liberalisms’.

Among the names of the 1500 women who signed the suffrage petition that Mill presented to parliament in June 1866 (marking the formal beginning of the campaign), were several with connections to the publishing or bookselling trades – including  Elspet Strahan, sister of Alexander Strahan, a liberal with a zeal for social reform and the publisher of the eponymous publishing house. He had recently launched the Contemporary Review, in which he published an article on ‘female suffrage’ in March 1867, written by Lydia Becker.

Lydia Becker

Lydia Becker – with books

Based in Manchester, Lydia Becker was to be the driving force behind the 19th-century campaign. Among other signatories to the petition were Louisa Farrah, wife of a radical publisher and bookseller (282 Strand, London); Eliza Embleton, a bookseller from Leeds (Burley Street);  the wife of James Renshaw Cooper, a radical Manchester bookseller (1 Bridge Street); and the wife and daughter (both named ‘Harriet’) of Edward Truelove, radical publisher and antiquarian bookseller (2240 Strand), who had been imprisoned for publishing Robert Owen’s Physiology in Relation to Morals. (See here for an interesting blog by Dr Tony Shaw about Truelove and his grave, on which the two Harriets both appear.)

Edward Truelove's grave in Highgate Cemetery. Photo courtesy Dr Tony Shaw

Edward Truelove’s grave in Highgate Cemetery. Photo courtesy Dr Tony Shaw

Once the campaign had been launched, ‘words’ in support of women’s enfranchisement multiplied rapidly. The societies that had formed to promote the cause published a plethora of pamphlets – one of the first, of which 4500 copies were distributed, was a reprinting of the speech made by Mill to Parliament during the debate on the second reform bill in May 1867.

The accounts of the earliest Enfranchisement of Women Committee show that in its first year of existence over £94 was spent on printing. This was set against receipts from the sale of pamphlets of only £6 11s. Political publishing was not a profitable business. In reality, political publishers who were prepared to put their imprint on books and journals to promote the woman’s cause were not so unworldly as to risk their money. A study of the ledgers of companies, such as Trubner and H.S. King, reveals that many of the suffrage publications, including Lydia Becker’s The Women’s Suffrage Journal, were published only on a commission basis.

Under this arrangement, the author or the society undertook all the risk of publication, while the publishers merely provided the service of printing, binding and distribution, for which they gave the book their imprint, charged a fee and took a percentage of sales. Publishers’ ledgers, where they have survived, provide an interesting keyhole through which to view the suffrage campaign. Lists of payments make it possible to identify an author who published anonymously, the print order for a  book, journal or pamphlet can give us an idea of the ambition of the author or society; and the number of pulped gives a reason why so many of the items are now extremely scarce – and expensive.

The suffrage campaign appeared to have made such considerable progress in its first years that Mill, a canny businessman as well as philosopher, felt the time was ripe to publish the work that he had first drafted in the early 1860s on ‘the woman question’. As he wrote in a letter to The Times on 9 April 1869: ‘It is not specially on the Suffrage question, but on all the questions relating to women’s domestic subordination and social disabilities, all of which it discusses more fully than has been done hitherto. I think it will be useful, and all the more, it is sure to be bitterly attacked’. Mill knew full well the publicity value of controversy.

John Stuart Mill remained a hero to the more constitutionally-minded elements in the suffrage campaign

John Stuart Mill remained a hero to the more constitutionally-minded elements in the suffrage campaign

The Subjection of Women was published by Longmans in May 1869, went into a second edition in the same year, and has remained ever since a central text of the women’s movement.

Helen Blackburn, Women's Suffrage, 1902

Helen Blackburn, Women’s Suffrage, 1902

It took until 1902 for the first history of the campaign to appear. Women’s Suffrage: a record of the women’s suffrage movement in the British Isles with biographical sketches of Miss Becker was painstakingly compiled by Helen Blackburn, who had for many years worked as secretary of the Central Committee for Women’s Suffrage.

The new force that emerged in 1903, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, did not delay so long before giving itself a distinctive history. A series of articles written by Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of Emmeline, as The History of the Suffrage Movement, appeared in the WSPU’s new paper, Votes for Women, starting in the first issue in October 1907 and concluding in September 1909.

Pankhurst SuffragetteThis history was, naturally, shaped to emphasise the Pankhursts’ centrality to the movement. Bibliophiles might like to note that the book that emerged from the articles, The Suffragette: the history of the women’s militant movement, was first published in America in 1911 by Sturgis & Walton and sheets where only then shipped back to Britain, where it was subsequently published by Gay & Hancock.

The publication in 1912 of Women’s Suffrage: a short history of a great movement (TC & EC Jack), written by Millicent Fawcett, did something to redress the balance. She had been involved with the campaign since its earliest days and since 1907 had been leader of those who described themselves as ‘law-abiding’ in contradistinction to the militants.

Metcalfe Woman's EffortAgnes Metcalfe’s Woman’s Effort: a chronicle of British Women’s Fifty Years Struggle for Citizenship (1865-1914), published in 1917, gives a detailed overview of the campaign, concentrating on the efforts of the militants.

womensvictoryaft00fawcuoft_0009

In 1920 Mrs Fawcett completed her history of the suffrage campaign, begun in A Short History, with another pithy summary of events that had led to the passing of the Representation of the People Act, 1918,  granting the vote to women over the age of 30.

All these books were bought (as ownership inscriptions found in them testify) by sympathisers to the cause, were part of the stock of the small lending libraries run by many of the local suffrage societies and also found their way into the public library systems and even into prison libraries. While imprisoned, suffragettes were able to read lives, such as those of Joan of Arc and Garibaldi, that they considered (by analogy) relevant to their cause – the cult of the ‘hero’ clearly appealed to those conscious of their role in history.

Daniel Maclise, John Francis Maguire

Daniel Maclise, John Francis Maguire

Alongside the polemics, the women’s suffrage campaign also provided a rich seam mined by writers of fiction. John Francis Maguire, MP for Cork and an active supporter of the woman’s cause, was the first, publishing in 1871, a year before his death, a three-decker, The Next Generation (Hurst & Blackett). The action was set in 1891, by which time the ‘Rights of Woman’ movement..was a wonderful success [and had] long since been accepted with satisfaction almost universal’. Eighty-nine women MPs sat in parliament and Mrs Bates was chancellor of the exchequer.

The following year, ‘Arthur Sketchley’ in Mrs Brown on Women’s Rights (George Routledge) worked what Maguire had correctly identified as a ‘fruitful theme’, and demonstrated that his comic heroine, Martha Brown, had already got the measure of ‘women’s sufferages’. Mrs Brown surveys her first suffrage meeting: ‘Why, surely no Members of Parlyment aint a-coming to sich a ‘ole as this; for I’d ‘eard Miss Snapley a-braggin’ as Professor Fairplay were a-goin’ to take up the question in the chair, along with a old lady in the name of Mill, and a good many more as all ‘oped to be in Parlyment afore they died.’

The subject also, of course, lent itself to melodrama as well as to comedy. Emily Spender published in 1871 a novel, Restored (Hurst & Blackett, 1871) dedicated to the leader of the Bath society for women’s suffrage, of which she herself was an active member. In the novel a wicked husband, repossessing his young wife, declaims ‘If you had read your Bible a bit more, and John Stuart Mill, a little less, you would have been a better woman, Frederica.’ [Incidentally Emily Spender, the great-aunt of Sir Stephen Spender, spent her later years in Italyand was the model for E.M. Forster’s ‘Miss Lavish’ in Room with a View.]

Throughout the 19th century, a stream of novels used support for, or antipathy to, the suffrage cause as a shorthand by which to delineate characters or to put plot machinery into gear. An indication that the campaign was losing its momentum at the end of the century may be surmised from the fact that between 1900 and 1906 no ‘suffrage’ novels were published.

Robins, The Convert. Photo courtesy of Lorne Bair

Robins, The Convert. Photo courtesy of Lorne Bair (click here to find a 1st US ed for sale)

However, in 1907, the year after the WSPU took its campaign to London, three novels appeared. The most famous of these is The Convert (Methuen) written by Elizabeth Robins, who was a keen supporter of the WSPU and based her scenes and personalities on activities of which she had been an eyewitness. Describing a suffrage rally in Trafalgar Square she drummed home the argument for the existence of the WSPU:

‘You’re in too big a hurry’, someone shouted, ‘All the Liberals want is a little time.’

‘Time! You seem not to know that the first petition in favour of giving us the Franchise was signed in 1866…We must try some other way. How did you working men get the suffrage?, we asked ourselves. Well, we turned to the records and we say. We don’t want to follow such a violent example. We would much rather not – but if that’s the only way we can make the country see we’re in earnest – we are prepared to show them.’

The Convert was in fact Elizabeth Robins’ novelisation of her play Votes for Women!,  written during the autumn of 1906 and  first staged at the Royal Court Theatre in April 1907. For Kate Parry Frye’s description of a visit to see the play on 16 April 1907 click here.

Elizabeth Robins, as author of 'Votes for Women!' featured on a card in 'The Game of the Suffragette'

Elizabeth Robins, as author of ‘Votes for Women!’, featured on a card in ‘The Game of the Suffragette’

In the years that followed, the real-life activities of the suffragettes were reflected by the derring-do of their fictional equivalents in a steady stream of novels. Novelists could now take their middle-class readers into places they might not previously have sought to enter – even the prison cell – and were given legitimate reason to describe the indignities that might be wrought on women’s bodies, whether through the horrors of force-feeding or at the hands of policemen in battle outside the House of Commons. A hero of one such tale (A. Mollwo, A Fair Suffragette) is racked by ‘the picture of [a] fragile, slender little body at the mercy of this yelling, excited crowd, torn first one way, then another, insulted by angry policemen, knocked under the feet of horses.’

Words describing the WSPU Deeds - from Kate Frye's diary

Words describing the WSPU Deeds – from Kate Frye’s diary

All in all, the wide range of  ‘suffrage’ literature published during the course of the campaign – histories, tracts, speeches, leaflets and novels – offers historians and collectors a fascinating lens through which to view not only the political battle in all its complication, but also the changing perception of the position of women that in the end was so necessary to the winning the vote.

, , , , , ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Suffrage Collecting: WSPU Illuminated Address

Illuminated address presented to Adelaide McCarthy

Illuminated address presented to Adelaide McCarthy

Illuminated addresses such as this were first presented to WSPU prisoners on their release from Holloway in September 1908. 

The addresses, signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, were designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and incorporate the purple, white and green colours that the WSPU had adopted three months earlier, in June 1908. The ‘angel of freedom’ device was one that Sylvia was to use on other WSPU artefacts – a neat piece of WSPU ‘branding’.

As ever, the suffrage collector needs to be on guard against modern reproductions that pass as the original. As a dealer I was once offered what appeared to be the address presented to suffragette Clara Codd. However, always rather suspicious, my research quickly revealed it to be a copy sold, entirely legitimately, by Bath-in-Time (the gallery of Bath Central Library). I was told that the unfortunate person offering the address to me had bought it as the real thing from a (presumably) rather unscrupulous source. Caveat Emptor.

 

, , , ,

Leave a comment

Christmas List 2013 – To Give Or Receive

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

FRYE Xmas card 1903 front 001Frye xmas card 1903 inside 001

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.

Kate Frye cover

 

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

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/

, , , , , , ,

2 Comments

Suffrage Stories: Women’s Tax Resistance League Sale, Hampstead, May 1914

Mrs Thomson Price's goods being sold

The photograph above was taken on Monday 18 May 1914 at the sale in Hampstead of goods belonging to Mrs Louisa Thomson Price and others – all of whom had refused to pay their tax. ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ was the motto of the Tax Resistance League.

The Vote  (the paper of the Women’s Freedom League with which Mrs Thomson Price was closely associated) reported (22 May 1914) ‘At Hampstead on May 18 a large group of tax resisters had their goods sold at Fitzjohns Estate Auction Rooms. They were Mrs Thomson Price, Mrs and Miss Hicks, Mrs How Martyn , Mrs Milligan, Mrs Hartley, the Misses Collier, and the Misses Dawes Thompson. A procession with a band marched from Finchley Road station to the auction rooms at Swiss Cottage and after the sale an excellent meeting was held at the corner of the Avenue Road. From a gaily decorated wagonette speeches were made by Mrs Thomson Price, Mrs Nevinson and Mrs Kineton Parkes, explaining the reason of the protest.

Below is the note made by Louisa Thomson Price on the reverse of the photographic postcard.

Reverse of photo

Mrs Louisa Thomson Price 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 Samson, 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 to The Vote, which 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.

I have a very rare suffrage artefact – a Women’s Freedom League postcard album once owned by Mrs Thomson Price -for sale in my catalogue 185.

, , ,

6 Comments

Collecting Suffrage: 14 June 1913 Emily Wilding Davison’s Funeral Programme: Updated

Official Programme for Emily WIlding Davison’s Funeral Procession

I published this post last October, before the extent of interest in the 100th anniversary celebrations of the event commemorated in this 4-pp pamphlet had become clear. I am relieved to report that no suspicious flurry of spurious Emily Davison-related items has appeared on the market. Although the main text of this post is as it first appeared I have updated it with two extra scans of the inside and back cover of the programme. They were made merely for my own research purposes some time before I had a visually-sophisticated blog audience to amuse – so – apologies for their appearance – but I think you will find the details of interest.

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. You will now have had the opportunity of viewing the enhanced footage of the film broadcast by Channel 4 in Clare Balding’s Secrets of a Suffragette.

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.

Inside pages of the programme for Emily Davison's funeral procession

Inside pages of the programme for Emily Davison’s funeral procession

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!

Back cover of the Emily Davison funeral procession

Back cover of the Emily Davison funeral procession

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Suffragette Jewellery And ‘The Antiques Trade Gazette’

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’.

ATG

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.

 

, , ,

8 Comments

Suffrage Stories: Mrs Alice Singer, Miss Edith New And The Suffragette Doll

The arrival of the first issue of the admirable Swindon Heritage  magazine has reminded me of a slight connection I had some years ago with an interesting object created by Edith New – the subject of one of its articles.

Feature on Edith New in Swindon Heritage magazine

It was in 2006 that I was approached by a BBC TV producer planning a spin-off of the Antiques Roadshow -to be called the  Antiques Roadshow Greatest Finds. The idea was that they would take a few of the more intriguing items that had been brought to Roadshows in the previous year and research and discuss them in greater depth. The item that was brought to my attention was a Suffragette Doll. My research into its history and that of the woman who had owned it proved utterly fascinating. In addition I had a most enjoyable couple of days making the film that developed from the research.

I am only sorry that I do not have a photograph of the doll, which was dressed as a suffragette in prison uniform. Items such as this may occasionally appear on ebay or at auction but it is not that difficult to ‘forge’ a Suffragette Doll and what one needs is provenance, linking it to its original owner. This ‘Roadshow’ doll was just such a treasure – handed down through a family. What is more to my great pleasure I was able to discover more of the original owner, Mrs Alice Singer, than, when given the commission, I thought would be possible.  For, like Kate Frye (the subject of my latest book, Campaigning for the Vote).   Mrs Singer had kept a diary which, although a very much more sketchy affair than Kate’s, did reveal a good deal of her involvement with the Women’s Social and Political Union. The diary is now held in Israel by a branch of the family, but they were kind enough to let me have a look at it for the purpose of researching the programme.

Mrs Alice Singer (1873-1955) was born Alice Emma Isabel Isaac, the eldest of three daughters of Stephen Hart Isaac (1850-1877) and his wife Sime Seruya Isaac. Sime Seruya was of Portuguese extraction, although she was living in London when they married in 1872 at Bayswater Synagogue. At this time, and presumably later, when Alice was born, Stephen Isaac was working as the assistant manager of a coal mine at Colwick in Nottinghamshire. When he married he was living at Colwick Hall with his uncle, Saul Isaac, who was the lessee of the mine. Saul Isaac, was at this time MP for Nottingham (1874-80).

When Stephen Isaac died, aged 26, (at 31 Warrington Crescent, Paddington) on 2 January 1877, he was a widower. His death certificate shows that he had been ill for c. 9 months, probably with TB. His wife had died in Lisbon on 4 September 1876, a week after the birth of her third child. It is possible that they were in Lisbon for the sake of Stephen’s health. Lisbon was a place favoured by those suffering from TB. The fact that Sime had family there would have been an obvious attraction.

The three young girls, Alice, Daisy and Sime Seruya Isaac (who was now more than 6 months old) were left under the guardianship of their grandfather, Samuel Isaac, although Sime was brought up by her Portuguese grandparents. Alice, therefore, was orphaned by the time she was 4 years old.  She lived at Warrington Crescent until her marriage, I think. [NB across the road, at no 2 Warrington Crescent, there is a plaque to Alan Turing.  Interestingly –  and the ghosts pile up in London – that was also the address in 1866 of  Louisa Garrett Smith (eldest sister of Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson) the very first secretary of the first London women’s suffrage society.]

Samuel Isaac was an army contractor – his firm was the largest European supporter of the southern (Confederate) states during the American Civil War – and failed on the fall of the Confederacy. After a while he became the main promoter of the Mersey Tunnel, which he was responsible for building.

Samuel (1812-86) and his wife, Emma (nee Hart), with the 2 elder girls, continued living at 31 Warrington Crescent until at least 1881. By 1886, when Samuel died, they were living at 29 Warrington Crescent. [Warrington Crescent, north of Paddington, was a smart address – houses were then new, large and italianate]. In 1891 Sime Seruya Isaac was boarding at a school at Kew. She went on to become an actress – a leading member of the Actresses’ Franchise League and one of the founders of the International Suffrage Shop.

Alice was educated at home by a governess and in 1895 married Julius Singer (1870-1926), son of Simeon and Charlotte Singer. In 1899 her sister, Daisy, married Julius’ brother, David.

Simeon Singer (1846-1906) was a leading light in the Jewish establishment in England, minister of the New West End Synagogue, St Petersburgh Place, Bayswater, from 1878 until his death. He was the translator and editor of the Authorized Daily Prayer Book, still the standard prayer book of Orthodox Jews in Britain. He is clearly still, a hundred years after his death, a strongly felt presence in the synagogue. Julius had four brothers and a sister and the family was clearly at the heart of Anglo-Jewry. Julius died in 1926 (18 Reynolds Close, Golders Green). During the course of the diary Alice is definitely anti-religion – of any kind.

When the census was taken in 1901 Alice and Julius Singer were living at Darby Green Farm, Darby Green, Yateley, Hampshire, which Alice had bought in 1900. Julius was described as a ‘wine and spirit merchant’. However, around 1908 his work seems to have involved the tea industry in some way –probably Lyons – and by then the family had moved to London. In 1911 they were living at 18 Reynolds Close, Golders Green where, on the day of the census, only two servants were at home. There is no trace elsewhere of the Singers – were they evading the enumerator to join in the suffragette boycott of the census?

In 1906 Alice and Julius appear to have been Conservative supporters. In later life Alice lamented that she wished she had been brought up in Fabian circles and, like her sister, Sime, moved dramatically to the Left. She visited Russia in the 1930s. She was keen to use women doctors (Dr Honor Bone) and opticians (Amy Sheppard – who worked at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital for Women). She was keen on passing fads – such as vegetarianism, psychology etc – which clearly infuriated her children!

Alice Singer joined the WSPU after attending one of their meetings on 18 February 1907 and by November was prepared to give some time to the cause, addressing envelopes in the office at Clement’s Inn. A week later, when she and her husband attended a WSPU rally in the Queen’s Hall, Julius bought a copy of the new card game – ‘Suffragette’. for my post about this game click here.  At the end of the month the Singers took the momentous decision to adopt a child – being themselves still childless. In the casual fashion typical of the time a girl, Mary, was found for them by Mrs Ernestine Mills, a fellow suffragist.  (For an example of Ernestine’s work as a jeweller, see here).  The Singers were on very friendly terms with the Ernestine and her husband, on occasion staying with them at their Dorset home at Studland.

The Singers continued to be involved members of the WSPU, Alice’s activities only briefly curtailed in 1909 by a long-awaited pregnancy. Emmeline Christabel Kenney Singer (known as ‘Christabel) was born on 10 December. A studio photograph, taken by Lena Connell, is still held by the family, showing Alice with Mary and Christabel. Baby Christabel has a WSPU badge pinned to the hem of her frock.

It was in 1908/9 that Alice Singer bought the Suffragette Doll – presumably at a WSPU fund-raising event. Remarkably in a diary entry of 1931 she reveals that she had met again, at a Suffragette party, the maker of the doll – Miss Edith New. It was such luck that she chose to put this connection on paper – such an ephemeral link but one that gives the doll such an excellent provenance.

WSPU Breakfast celebrating the release of Edith New and Mary Leigh from Holloway Prison, held at the Queen’s Hall on 22 August 1908 (courtesy of LSE Library)

 On 22 August 1908 Alice Singer had attended the WSPU breakfast honouring Edith New and Mary Leigh on their release from Holloway. For much more about Edith New do read the Spring 2013 edition of ‘Swindon Heritage’ – and in her entry in my The Women’s Suffrage Movement: a reference guide

There is a strong Antiques Roadshow connection linking Edith New and Alice Singer’s Suffragette Doll – for in 2011 a quantity of Edith’s suffragette memorabilia, now held in the Swindon Heritage Centre (see http://www.swindonheritage.com),  was brought to the Roadshow when it visited Swindon. Coincidentally it was the Roadshow expert Hilary Kay who discussed this collection, as she had the Suffragette Doll a few years earlier.

In March 1912 Alice Singer was arrested after taking part in the WSPU window-smashing campaign. When arrested she had a hammer in her hand and when charged said of the windows, ‘I thought it was only one, they seemed like marble, not going to break.’ Alice had chosen to break three windows in the West Strand Telegraph Office, close to Trafalgar Square. Her family thought it appropriate that she, essentially law abiding and a respecter of property, should have chosen quasi-official premises, rather than privately-owned property.

Alice  was remanded in Holloway  until she appeared in court on 13 March. By now the Singers were living in Golders Green and a solicitor was organised by Mrs Lilian Hicks to represent the Hampstead women. Alice was charged under the Malicious Damage to Property Act and in court declared, ‘I only did it as a political protest. I admit I did it, but not for malice. I plead not guilty to malice.’ She agreed to be bound over – that is, not to commit any other such acts – for 12 months. Only one other woman also agreed to be bound over – all the other women (over 100 had been arrested) were sentenced to prison – their sentences varying but some repeat offenders getting as long as six months. Most of the other women were either single or with older families. Christabel was only 2 years old and I imagine Alice could not contemplate being away from home – in prison – for any length of time. The diary does not reveal any guilt at not opting for imprisonment.

Julius was very supportive while Alice was in prison – he visited her – but was kept waiting for 2 hours before seeing her for a short time ‘We forgot all we really wished to say in the fluster of the time limit and presence of wardresses..’

Alice Singer continued to work actively for the WSPU, in 1913 becoming treasurer of the Hendon and Golders Green branch. In November 1918 she was at last able to cast  her first  parliamentary vote – ‘I recorded for Mrs Edith How-Martyn for the new constituency of Hendon’. Edith How-Martyn, who had been a leader of the Women’s Freedom League, was standing as a Labour candidate but was unsuccessful.

The Suffragette Doll, treasured by Alice’s descendants, is silent testimony to her involvement in the ‘votes for women’ campaign and her indirect connection to Edith New, Swindon’s own suffragette.

Copyright

All the articles on Woman and Her Sphere are my copyright. An article may not be reproduced in any medium without my permission and full acknowledgement. You are welcome to cite or quote from an article provided you give full acknowledgement.

, , , ,

7 Comments

Suffrage Stories: Arson at Tunbridge Wells, April 1913

The Nevill Pavilion, Tunbridge Wells on the morning of 11 April 1913

The Nevill Pavilion, Tunbridge Wells, on the morning of 11 April 1913

On Friday 11 April 1913 Percy Lankester, one of Tunbridge Wells’ leading photographers, forsook his studio at 38 High Street and,  on a day as cold as that 100 years later, set off with his camera for the Nevill Cricket Ground, a brisk 15 minute walk away.

He was on his way to photograph a scene very different from his usual views of the elegant and harmonious streets of Tunbridge Wells. For what he recorded, from several different angles, was the all-but destruction of the cricket pavilion – and the complete destruction of the club’s archives. Percy Lankester published his photographs of the ruined Nevill Pavilion as postcards, souvenirs of one incident in Tunbridge Well’s history.

The arson attack was ascribed to the action of militant suffragettes – although no-one was ever held responsible. With Mrs Pankhurst on hunger strike in prison, April 1913 saw an intensifying in the WSPU campaign of protest – with arson becoming an increasingly popular weapon. The Nevill Pavilion was one of the first casualties in this new stage in the long fight for ‘votes for women’.

The above photograph  is one of the  postcards published by Percy Lankester- and I have it in stock at the moment. It has never been posted and – 100 years old – is in fine condition and, a crisp and clear image, is a tribute to Mr Lankester’s photographic skills. NOW SOLD

Other arson attacks -on churches, houses, railway stations etc – were recorded in other localities by other photographers – who then issued the result, as did Mr Lankester, on a photographic postcard. Such scenes make an interesting sub-genre for the collector of suffragette postcards.

 

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories/Suffragette Jewellery: Mary Leigh’s Emily Wilding Davison Brooch

EWD brooch frontThis circular brooch, containing a photograph of Emily Wilding Davison in academic dress, formerly belonged to her friend and champion, Mary Leigh. The photograph of Emily Wilding Davison (for the photographer/publisher of the postcard see here) is rather worn and has a little ink scribble on it – though what the intention – if any – of this is, I cannot say.

The photo is held in the brooch frame by a card showing  Sylvia Pankhurst’s WSPU design, in purple, white and green, of ‘the sower’. This may originally been a component in a WSPU badge.  Written on it in capital letters, in Mary Leigh’s idiosyncratic style, is ‘LIBERTY. NO SURRENDER. E.W.D.’.Reverse of EWD brooch

This is a piece that, unlike so much else on the market, clearly merits the description ‘suffragette jewellery’.  I do not think that this commemoration photo of Emily Wilding Davison was issued by the WSPU in this particular style of circular brooch, but suspect that Mary Leigh herself put the photo in it. The brooch is edged with alternating little pink and white stones. It is worth noting that Mary Leigh, even with her close acquaintance with WSPU imagery and branding, did not bother to select or commission a brooch with stones reflecting more closely the WSPU colours.

, , , ,

3 Comments

Suffragette Autograph Album To Be Auctioned: Save It For The Nation – And Future Researchers

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.

suffragette autograph albumLot 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

 

, ,

1 Comment

Collecting Suffrage: The WSPU Holloway Brooch

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.

 

 

, , , ,

4 Comments

Collecting Suffrage: Emily Wilding Davison’s Funeral Programme

Official Programme for Emily WIlding Davison’s Funeral Procession

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.

Inside pages of the programme for Emily Davison's funeral procession

Inside pages of the programme for Emily Davison’s funeral procession

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!

Back cover of the Emily Davison funeral procession

Back cover of the Emily Davison funeral procession

5 Comments

Collecting Suffrage: The Game of ‘Suffragette’

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.

The Rules of the Game. ‘The Haunted House’ appears on the reverse of every card

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.

, , , , , ,

9 Comments

Book of the Week: A Nest of Suffragettes in Somerset

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

‘Annie’s Arboretuem’ and the Suffragette Rest

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.

Lady Constance Lytton photographed by Col Blathwayt

‘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.

, , , ,

Leave a comment

Suffrage Stories: Suffragettes and Tea Rooms: Suffragette Tea from Suffragette China

WSPU china – ‘Angel of Freedom’ design, 1909

A week of posts on ‘Suffragettes and Tea Rooms’ cannot end without looking at the tea rooms that the suffragette societies themselves ran – in their shops and at their fund-raising bazaars – and the china they commissioned in which to serve that tea .

The best known of the fund-raising events is probably the WSPU exhibition held at the Prince’s Skating Rink at Knightsbridge in May 1909. There the tea room was run by Mrs Henrietta Lowy, with help from her four daughters and another young upper-class suffragette, Una Dugdale. In the spirit of exuberance and professionalism that marked this the first of the WSPU’s fund-raising bazaars, a decision was taken – presumably reasonably well in advance of the Exhibition – to commission a Staffordshire pottery – H.M. Williamson of Longton – to make the china from which the tea would be served in the Exhibition’s Tea Room.

The white china has strikingly clean, straight lines, rimmed in dark green and with angular green handles. The shape is, I am sure, a Williamson standard – but how very different the WSPU pieces look from, say, Williamson’s Rosary design–in which pink and grey ribbons and roses are applied to the same shape and every edge is gilded. In contrast, the WSPU china design is pared back, almost stark.

It is more than likely that, from the range offered by Williamson, Sylvia Pankhurst chose this shape, keeping the design simple so that the ‘angel of freedom’ motif that she had designed specifically for the Exhibition should be shown to best effect. Each piece of the tea service carries this motif; behind the angel and accompanying banner and trumpet, are the initials ‘WSPU’ set against dark prison bars, surrounded by thistle, shamrock, rose – and dangling chains. At the end of the Exhibition, the china – tea pots, cups, saucers, tea plates,  sugar bowls etc – was offered for sale, made up into sets of 22 pieces. Many years ago, early in my ephemera-dealing days I bought – and, of course, immediately sold – a comprehensive service. Although I have subsequently sold individual pieces of the china, I have never again seen such a complete set. Ah well.

Pieces of this design are held in archives such as the Museum of London and the Women’s Library – but one variation design is not, as far as I know, represented in any public collection.

This cup – its design based on Sylvia Pankhurst’s ‘portcullis’ motif which, used on the WSPU’s ‘Holloway brooch’, can be dated to the spring of 1909 – came from a collection that also contained items of the ‘angel of freedom’ china. I bought this wonderful haul some years ago at auction and, although the provenance was not divulged by the auctioneer, I am pretty sure that the china had once been belonged to Mrs Rose Lamartine Yates who held fund-raising teas for the Wimbledon WSPU on the lawn of Dorset Hall, her 18th-century Merton house. This  ‘portcullis’ cup does not carry any maker’s mark but, as the shape is identical to the Williamson pieces, I think we can be pretty certain that they probably also made this. As, in the early 19th-century, when women set their tea trays with ‘anti-slavery’ china, so in  the early 20th, suffragettes who bought these tea services  could – like Mrs Lamartine Yates – use them as propaganda tools -promoting the movement, most elegantly, in a bid to convert their ‘anti’ neighbours.

 I have only ever had in stock – and that only fleetingly – this cup and saucer (see left), part of the third identifiable range of WSPU-commissioned china. I believe, however, that the People’s Palace in Glasgow holds a similar two pieces . They formed part of the Scottish version of the Prince’s Rink tea service, commissioned from the Diamond China Co, another Longton pottery, for use at the refreshment stall at the Scottish WSPU Exhibition held in Glasgow at the end of April 1910. Here the ‘angel of freedom’ is allied, on white china, with the Scottish thistle, handpainted, in purple and green, inside transfer outlines. After the exhibition this china, too, was sold  – Votes for Women, 18 May 1910, noting that ‘a breakfast set for two, 11s; small tea set 15s , whole tea set £2, or pieces may be had singly’. It will hardly surprise readers to learn that WSPU china – now so very rare – commands a very high price.  But what a wonderful addition a piece would make to any suffrage collection.

Although the china they used was probably more basic, some of the shops and offices run by both suffragette and suffragist societies offered their members – and the general public – a tea room. For instance, the Birmingham NUWSS office at 10 Easy Row included a shop at which tea could be taken and suffrage papers read. And the Glasgow WFL shop, at 302 Sauchiehall Street, as befitting the city  in which Miss Cranston perfected the art of the tea room, served tea in its ‘artistic hall’, decorated in the WFL colours. (By the way, when in Glasgow do not fail to visit the De Luxe Room in The Willow Tea Rooms, also on Sauchiehall Street, originally designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Miss Cranston  – it may be a reconstruction, but it’s lovely).

As a final thought, the WSPU not only sold their own china, but also their own tea – much advertised in Votes for Women. Unfortunately, the only reference I have ever come across to anyone buying the tea was an aside by Mary Blathwayt, who noted in her diary that she had had to return a bag that was ‘off’ to the Bath WSPU shop. But I am sure that merely reflects the fact that the hundreds of satisfied customers had no need to comment and I will end this sequence of posts by conjuring up the image of a WSPU tea party, cucumber sandwiches sitting delicately on the elegant  WSPU plates, as the assembled company receive WSPU tea into their WSPU cups from the WSPU pot. How, then, could the ensuing conversation be of anything other than ‘Votes for Women’?

, , , , , , , , ,

3 Comments

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Suffragette Jewellery

Pendant made for Margaret Murphy by Ernestine Mills

‘Prison to Citizenship’ – Three pendants earned by two Irish suffragettes

In previous posts I have mentioned how necessary it is to observe the provenance of an item of jewellery in order to be able to label it with certainty as ‘suffrage’. In that way the collector is less likely of  falling into the trap of buying an item – vaguely Edwardian with vaguely purple, white and green stones – that an auction house or dealer has chosen to label ‘suffragette’  In this post I will bring to your attention three items of jewellery – made for two Dublin sisters – that are indisputably ‘suffrage’.

‘Margaret’ and ‘Jane Murphy’ were the pseudonyms of two middle-class women from Dublin – whose real names were Leila (b. 1887) and Rosalind Cadiz (b. 1886). They were members of the Irish Women’s Franchise League. They both took part in the window-smashing campaign in London in March 1912 and were sentenced to two months in Holloway. They went on hunger strike (c 16 April) and were forcibly fed. They were released c 15 May. The pendant above is engraved – “Holloway Prison No. 15474, Maggie Murphy, 2 months hard Labour, E.4 Cell.12., Hunger Strike 16th April 1912, Forcibly Fed – and was made by the suffragist and enameller, Ernestine Mills. As you can see the lily motif is rendered in purple, white and green – in this case a ‘true’ use of the colours.

Margaret and Jane Murphy, top row far right and second from right, pictured in Votes for Women, 25 June 1912.

A couple of months later the Murphy sisters took part in the first window-smashing campaign in Dublin and were again sentenced to two months’ imprisonment – but in Dublin they were given the status of political prisoners.

Margaret Murphy requested to be treated by her own doctor, Kathleen Maguire, ‘as I am undergoing treatment owing to having been forcibly fed in Holloway,… Dr Maguire understands my constitution.’ To this the Medical Officer in Mountjoy replied (5 July 1912) ‘I beg to report that I regard her [Margaret Murphy] as a woman of neurotic temperament who suffers from indigestion, an ailment frequently complained of by women of this type.’

The Murphys eventually succeeded in not only getting a suffragist doctor, Kathleen Maguire, to treat them, but also in getting their own dentist. ‘Miss Jane Murphy will attend her own dentist at her own expense’ (July 1912).

The Murphys clearly had a way about them for ‘with reference to Margaret Murphy’s complaints of the possible effect of the whitewashed walls of her cell on her eyes, the governor agreed to have the walls recoloured, and to have a new gas burner fitted in lieu of the existing one, and her request for a special kind of disinfectant to be used in her cell was referred to the Medical Officer.’ 25 July 1912 Minutes of Mountjoy Prison.

Finally the sisters went on hunger strike for the last 92 hours of their sentence (along with 2 other Irish suffragettes) in sympathy with three English suffragettes (Mary Leigh, Gladys Evans and Jennie Baines) who had received harsh prison sentences in Dublin and who had not been given political prisoner status. The Murphys were not forcibly fed – the end of their sentence arriving before this became necessary. They were released, together, from Mountjoy Prison on 19 August, welcomed by members of the Irish Women’s Franchise League.

Here are the pendants that the sisters either commissioned for themselves or, more likely, with which they were presented after their release. Each pendant is of shield shape, surmounted by a green enamelled shamrock, hallmarked Dublin, Hopper and Hannay, 1912. One is engraved on the obverse “From Prison to Citizenship” and on reverse “J. Murphy 20.6.12 to 19.8.12” and the other “M. Murphy 20.6.12 to 19.8.12”. Thus do three items of jewellery commemorate the efforts of two Irish sisters to win ‘Votes for Women’.


, , , , , , ,

10 Comments

Suffrage Stories/Collecting Suffrage: Mrs Pankhurst’s portrait

In a previous post on Suffragette Jewellery I commented on the danger of assuming that any piece of jewellery that a dealer described as ‘suffragette’ had, in fact, anything to do with the suffragette movement. However it is still possible to discover items the provenance of which cannot be doubted.

Below is one such.

PENDANT – MRS PANKHURST – ICONIC PAINTED PORTRAIT MINIATURE -presented to Mary Leigh, leader of the WSPU Drum and Fife Band, devoted friend of Emily Wilding Davison, and ardent suffragette.

        

         The image for this original painted miniature portrait of Mrs Pankhurst is derived from the photograph of her by the Kensington photographer, Martin Jacolette (see below). In it she is wearing a Holloway brooch, which dates the photograph to no earlier than April 1909.

The portrait miniature is very pleasingly painted and, although no artist’s signature is visible, I did wonder if it might not be by one of the Brackenbury sisters (Georgiana’s much later portrait of Mrs Pankhurst is in the National Portrait Gallery). The portrait is set in a metal pendant, on the back of which is inscribed ‘Presented to Mrs Marie Leigh Drum Major by the N.W.S.P.U. Drum and Fife Band in memory of her courageous fight for woman’s freedom December 1909’.

In the autumn of 1909 Mary Leigh had been forcibly fed while serving sentences in Winson Green and Strangeways prisons and in December an action for damages was brought on her behalf by the WSPU against the Home Secretary. The WSPU newspaper, Votes for Women, reported that, on 16 December 1909, ‘Ushered to the strains of “See the Conquering Hero Comes” , played by the WSPU Band, Mrs Leigh, the Drum Major received a royal welcome at St James’s Hall. Looking rather pale but as determined as ever, she delivered a stirring address.’ As Christabel Pankhurst, who was presiding, commented, ‘The Government did not know with whom they were dealing.’ The pendant was probably presented on this occasion.

The pendant, which has its original chain, has set around its edge three little stones – one white, one purple and one green. In this case the choice of stones clearly did have WSPU relevance. The pendant is in its original box – similar in material to that used for the hunger strike medals. Contemporary painted portraits of Mrs Pankhurst are exceedingly rare and with this particular provenance – unique. I have never seen another pendant like this, but wonder whether Mary Leigh was the only recipient of such an object. Might there be others waiting to be discovered?

Mary Leigh (right) and the WSPU Drum and Fife Band

 

, , , , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: The Hunger Strike Medal

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.

The reverse side of the medal

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.

Grace Roe (right) and Leonora Cohen (centre)wearing their hunger strike medals in 1974

, , , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Punch cartoon: Ulysses and the Steam Sirens

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

, , , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Belfort Bax, The Legal Subjection of Men

 

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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Punch cartoon

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

, , , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Punch cartoon

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]

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: When Women Vote: Washing Day

WHEN WOMEN VOTE

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

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette Jewellery

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.

 

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: ‘Who said Votes for Women!!!’

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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Collecting Suffrage: Victory 1918

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]

 

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: harem pants 2

‘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]

 

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: What Women Want

‘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

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: harem pants

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

, , ,

2 Comments

Suffragette postcards: real photographic portrait

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

, , ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: suffragettes and policemen 3

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.

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: suffragettes and policemen 2

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

, ,

Leave a comment

Suffragette postcards: suffragettes and policemen

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).

, ,

Leave a comment