The campaign for the vote was not all stone throwing, picture slashing, placard waving and building burning. Of more importance was the struggle for hearts and minds. This blog will look at the role of the visual arts, pictures, posters and postcards, in the women’s suffrage movement. Two organisations were at the forefront of this campaign: the … Read more
The Women’s Suffrage movement is not often associated with male supporters in the popular imagination. Whilst we often remember the women who fought for the vote, their male counterparts can be left by the wayside. But the women’s suffrage movement did have its male supporters, the most famous of which included James Keir Hardie, founder … Read more
For many people, organisations dedicated to women’s issues, and feminist groups, are one and the same. The first British Women’s Institute (WI) was founded in Anglesey in September 1915, to encourage the rural community to engage with food production for the war effort. By the end of World War One, 760 local WIs had been … Read more
The strikes at the Ford factories in Dagenham in 1968 and 1984 are considered landmark disputes in labour-relations. A limited-edition plate (c.1984), that belongs to the collections of the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics, commemorates the strikes and their legacy. The message of the plate is clear; the strikes were instrumental in … Read more
‘Those who formed the Open Door Council have for some time been viewing with increasing alarm the present tendency to legislate with the ostensible object of improving the lot of the woman worker.’ [1] So began the first report of the Open Door Council (ODC) in 1927. On the surface, legislation to improve the lot of … Read more
If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens and published in December 1843, is a much loved Christmas tale. Its … Read more
By virtue of being a free-man, I conceive I have as true a right to all the privileges that doe belong to a free-man, as the greatest man in England, whatsoever he be ….. and the ground and foundation of my freedome, I build upon the Grand Charter of England John Lilburne was a seventeenth … Read more
The call for votes for women did not emerge out of a vacuum. In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, called for women to have a voice in Parliament; the great radical orator, Henry Hunt, wanted the Great Reform Act of 1832 to be amended to include women; and Susanna … Read more
“Things would not go well with England until everything was held in common….”[1] The summer of 1381 saw widespread discontent among ordinary workers, which resulted in the largest popular uprising in Medieval England.[2] Peasants, agricultural workers, craftsmen and villagers marched on London and demanded freedom from the bonds of serfdom. For two whole days they … Read more
The Provisions of Oxford are often seen as the starting point of the modern parliament in Britain. But what were they and why were they so important? Like his father before him, King John, Henry III had a difficult relationship with his barons. The First and Second Barons’ War between the kings and their barons … Read more
