The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910Pankhurst, E. Sylvia (Estelle Sylvia)
History
The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910
Pankhurst, E. Sylvia (Estelle Sylvia)
Women -- Suffrage -- Great Britain
On more than one occasion the little box or the chair used as a
platform was overturned by a gang of hooligan youths, and the meeting
had to be abandoned. But, whatever may have happened at the first
meeting in a fresh place, we always found that at the second meeting
the majority of the audience were sympathetic. At the third meeting all
was harmony, and we were generally seen to our homeward trams or busses
by cheering crowds.
Those splendid people, the Suffragettes of Kensington, not only
contrived to carry on a constant campaign of meetings but at the same
time to make all their own banners and bannerettes.
In the meantime the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies,
in conjunction with a number of other organisations, had decided to
organise a women's procession, and on June 13th, a week and a day
before the Hyde Park demonstration, some 13,000 Suffragists assembled
on the Embankment and marched to the Albert Hall where a meeting
was held. It was a striking pageant with its many gorgeous banners,
richly embroidered and fashioned of velvets, silks and every kind of
beautiful material and the small bannerettes showing as innumerable
patches of brilliant and lovely colour, each one varying both in
shape and hue. Seventy of the large banners had been prepared by the
Artists League for Women's Suffrage. Some were blazoned with the
figures of women great in history, amongst them, Boadicea, Joan of
Arc and Queen Elizabeth; others bore emblems commemorating women's
heroic deeds, or reforming achievements,--Elizabeth Fry, Lydia Becker,
and Mary Wollstonecraft, being amongst those recalled. Walking in the
procession were many of Lydia Becker's comrades and contemporaries,
including the aged Miss Emily Davies, Dr. Garrett Anderson, and her
sister, Mrs. Fawcett, the President of the National Union of Suffrage
Societies. After these came a contingent of international Suffragists;
Australians, Americans with their Stars and Stripes headed by Dr.
Anna Shaw, and representatives from Hungary, Russia, South Africa,
and other countries, each with their national flags and colours. The
professional women were led by Mrs. Ayrton and other scientists and
a great band of medical women in their splendid robes of crimson and
black, with hoods of purple, red and blue. Other graduates followed and
the representatives of Newnham and Girton were in great force. Amongst
the women writers, headed by the Scrivener's banner, were Beatrice
Harraden, Elizabeth Robins and Evelyn Sharpe. Then came the artists,
the actresses. Next, the nurses, all in uniform, and, after these, a
host of others, gardeners, pharmacists, physical trainers, typists and
shorthand writers, shop assistants, factory workers, and home-makers.
Next came the militant Women's Freedom League, the Women's Co-operative
Guild, the National Union of Women Workers, and the members of various
women's organisations connected with the political parties including
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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