Deeds or Words

I've mentioned before on this blog that it is 100 years this year since women, over 30 and who owned property, were granted the right to vote in parliamentary elections in Great Britain. (It wasn't until 1928 that women gained electoral equality.) There's been an interesting exhibition in Shipley College, showing letters, papers and ephemera recently acquired by the Saltaire Archive that had belonged to Isabel Salt. 

Isabel was the daughter of Titus Salt Jnr (and therefore granddaughter of Sir Titus Salt). She was well-educated, well-travelled and was a noted Suffragist. I had not fully appreciated that there were two strands in the battle for women's suffrage. There were the Suffragettes, women like Emmeline

Pankhurst, who engaged in direct action and civil disobedience in their fight for women's rights. There were also the Suffragists, women who campaigned and were vocal in their call for women's right to vote but who disagreed with the militant methods of the Suffragettes.

We're familiar with the purple, green and white colours of the Suffragettes. I hadn't realised that the Suffragists wore red, green and white. There were newspaper clippings in the archive that showed that Isabel, after speaking at a meeting, was described in a newspaper as a Suffragette and wrote a polite but robust denial, claiming herself to be a Suffragist. 

The exhibition was accompanied by a short, original drama, describing the various positions held by Thomas, a soldier (soldiers were not allowed to vote); Isabel Salt, a Suffragist; Maggie, Thomas's sister and a Suffragette; Rev. Oates, a man 'sitting on the fence'; and Mr Henry Beecher, a Conservative MP and prominently opposed to women's suffrage. I believe the actors were members of Bingley Little Theatre, though there didn't seem to be any note of their names anywhere. 

The displays at the exhibition included, with my permission, three of my photos (blushes...) that I took at the Women's March in May. (See HERE) So that was gratifying!