So this is the 'Taking liberties: Women's suffrage in Liverpool' display.
We developed it with the 1918 Club, which is a local women's organisation which was
actually set up by Eleanor Rathbone in 1918 when the Representation of the
People Act was introduced. We worked with the ladies, they selected the
items from our collections, they wrote the labels to put across the
importance of the women's suffrage movement in Liverpool and
there's some really key objects from our collection and I think it looks really great.
In the display case we have a range of objects. We have this lovely
scarf, which is one of my favourites. It's a motoring scarf and it's in colours of
the Women's Social Political Union. It's the colours which people normally
associate with the suffragette movement but of course there were the suffragists
which were non militant campaigners and the suffragettes which use violence.
So we have the green, purple and white of the WSPU here in the scarf and we see
'Votes for women', which is obviously a well-known slogan for the campaign.
This was sold for about three shillings, you could buy it mail order or in the WSPU
shops and of course items like this were were sold to raise money for the cause,
for the campaign for women to continue fighting.
We have various documents here, we have this kind of Christmas message written
by a suffragette from the Wirral, Isabel Abraham. This was actually written on
Christmas Day and you can see very closely that the the letterhead has
'Votes for women', a little icon in the in the top there. So she was, even on
Christmas Day she was thinking about spreading the word and sending suffrage
message to fellow supporters. We have this beautiful illuminated scroll which
was presented to Eleanor Rathbone. She was a suffragist, as opposed to a
suffragette. She is very well known in the city as a women's campaigner and
supporter and she was instrumental in helping to secure women the vote for the
first time in 1918 with the Representation of the People Bill.
Obviously there were campaigns right across the country
from various different suffrage groups, some using militancy and some using
campaigning but also talking to local politicians, trying to persuade them.
But for a lot of people this peaceful campaigning took too long,
nothing happened and that's when 'Deeds not words' really came in,
actions not talking. Lots of people thought that nothing was going
to be achieved, nothing had happened so far after decades and decades of talking
to politicians and the Liberal government. Asquith wasn't a supporter of
women's rights so that's when militancy came in. The WSPU was started in
Manchester in 1903 with the Pankhursts and in Liverpool there was the
mix of suffragists and suffragettes. In fact across the city people planted
bombs in pillar boxes in the Cotton Exchange, windows were smashed in the
Free Trade Hall in Kensington. So there was that mix of campaigning in the city
as well but like I said, Eleanor Rathbone was very much a suffragist, she didn't
use the the militancy campaign. She was part of the NUWSS, which is the National
Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and that was a national organisation and
Liverpool had its own branch. So in 1918 when some women over the age of 30 who
owned property, or if their husbands owned property, were given the vote, that was
about 40 percent of women in the country. So it was a landmark bill giving women
the vote for the first time but let's not forget it wasn't for everyone. People
who had campaigned, who had been jailed, who had undergone forcible feeding,
some of these people still didn't get the vote after this time if they weren't
of the right age or the right class. But this illuminated scroll, this
casket and a cheque was presented to Eleanor by the Liverpool Suffrage
Society in thanks for what she'd done, heading the organisation the NUWSS in Liverpool.
We have a bit of a mystery object in the corner here.
Obviously it's a telescope made of brass and leather.
But actually it's inscribed to Amy Johnson 1906 from the Liverpool Suffrage
Society. We've looked into who Amy Johnson may be, we think she may be associated
with the Sunderland Suffrage Society but we don't know why the Liverpool suffrage
group presented her with his telescope in 1906. It might be to do with the
formation of the Liverpool branch but we're not entirely sure so we'd love
to find out more and if if anybody has any information please do let us know.
We have a lovely cat figurine in the middle here. It has 'Votes for women' around
the bottom of the edge and at first I think a lot of people's reaction is
'Oh isn't that lovely, that's a lovely kind of souvenir of the suffrage
campaign', but actually it can be viewed in two different ways. There were lots of
anti-suffrage groups set up by both men and women who didn't want women to have
the vote, and in a lot of these campaigns which poked fun at the suffragettes
they used cats to kind of promote this idea of mewing women or
vicious women. You'll see in postcards sometimes that the cats are very vicious
and it's kind of this attack of women wanting to remove themselves from that
domestic sphere where a lot of people thought that's the only thing that they
were good for. So really you can view this little cat in two different ways.
We think it's an anti-suffrage campaign item because you'll see the cat
is a very mewing kind of cat. But later of course there's the connection with
the cats with the 'Cat and Mouse' Act as well, where women who were in prison and
forcibly fed many many times over and over again, it was very very harsh on the
body, lots of people were affected for the
rest of their lives the effects of being forcibly fed in prison.
So the 'Cat and Mouse' Act was introduced by the Liberal government. Once the
women were deemed to be just about okay to be released without
causing them further harm, which of course would produce a
martyr for the campaign, lots of these women were released from prison only to
be caught again and brought back. So it's this 'Cat and Mouse' Act, being let go,
being caught again, being brought back to prison and the whole cycle starting again really.
Just here on the right is a lovely range of suffrage
campaign badges. We have the WSPU, the 'No vote, no tax' badge there's a badge here
of Christabel Pankhurst, who was Emmeline Pankhurst's daughter, a leading
figure of the suffragette campaign. 'Give women the vote' and 'Votes for women', again the WSPU.
Fashion and the colours of the campaign were very important to the suffragettes.
Obviously they wanted to be visible but the leaders of the
campaign used fashion in a very clear way. They wanted the ladies to
look very respectable, to wear their best clothes, but also to have the colours of
their respective campaigns. In relation to the WSPU it would be the
green, the white and the purple, but other suffrage groups had their own colours as well.
So when we look at black and white photographs you don't always see that
kind of range of colours on display, but looking very respectable and
having the colors and really being very clear in their campaign was very
important to the suffrage societies and what they were trying to achieve.
This fantastic mosaic sculpture is 'Mary Bamber - a revolutionary woman' by
artists Carrie Reichardt and Nick Reynolds. Mary Bamber was a fantastic figure in Liverpool.
She campaigned for women's rights, particularly working class women's rights.
She wasn't a suffragist or a suffragette, but she was very much a campaigner
for women working in factories and also the dissemination of contraceptive advice.
For a lot of women in Liverpool she was a very radical campaigner
for the rights of women and she's remembered in this statue, but also her
daughter was Bessie Braddock the Liverpool Labour MP,
so obviously her radical ideals were passed on to her daughter
who continued to fight for the rights of Liverpool women.