Tag Archives: suffrage

Suffering Suffragettes

Currently walking past this fine Lego suffragette each day, in the foyer of the Wills Memorial Building. It has got me wondering whether her location was chosen in the knowledge that the WMB, though it was not there at the time, was just about opposite the site of the WSPU shop and HQ which was trashed by a mob of anti-suffragists and/or enraged Bristol University students in 1913, without much, if any, of a police response. See, e.g., this

It also brings back good memories of some good seminars I organised with a colleague here at the Law School in 2013, on this subject, and of a fun bit of animation I assisted with at home – still out in the ether here.

GS

22/10/2023

Recent read: R Wallace, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales 1866-1928 (Cardiff, 2009)

DRAFT

Yes, I know it’s not new, but I have just getting around to reading this. It was a pleasure to read something outside my usual historical period, to broaden out rather than going into ever greater detail. The book itself is clear, thorough and unquestionably filled a need. It is surprising, really, that the Welsh aspects of the suffrage campaign had not been treated in sustained form like this before 2009. Given the targeting of Lloyd George and McKenna (a Monmouthshire MP) by the WPSU and the complex interaction between nationalism, the language, trade unionism, nonconformity and the campaign for votes for women, it is a fascinating area. The chapter on anti-suffrage campaigning was particularly good, and, having seen many bone-headedly misogynist newspaper articles (and some truly Vogon-level anti- suffrage poetry) from Wales in this period, it was a revelation to me to learn about the enlightened pro-suffrage line of the Cambrian News.

GCS

13/3/2014