MAPPING WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 1911
2020 FESTIVAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
Mapping Women’s Suffrage is thrilled to announce that we are taking part in this years ESRC Festival of Social Science, 2020. The Festival is an annual celebration of the social sciences which last year saw over 88,000 attendees across 275 events spread throughout the UK, covering a broad range of topics.
This year ESRC is taking a new approach to the Festival making it a digital-first event, to be held from 7-15 November. Mapping Women’s Suffrage, with thanks to the University of Warwick’s Prof. Sarah Richardson, will be hosting a series of free, exciting live and pre-recorded events during festival week, celebrating women’s suffrage and activism with a variety of wonderful guest speakers.
Speakers include Vicky Iglikowski- Broad (Diverse Histories Records Specialist, The National Archives) presenting her favourite suffrage boycott stories from the 1911 census archive; Dr Ben Kyneswood (Coventry University) discussing his work on the new Coventry Atlas digital mapping project with Mapping Women’s Suffrage; Hannah Squire (Assistant Curator of Public Programmes, National Trust) discussing the Trust’s work on Women and Power in 2018, and current Trust research; Dr Gillian Murphy (Curator, The Women’s Library, LSE) writing on Sex and Suffrage; Jennifer Godfrey author of Suffragettes of Kent features in a 'hidden suffragettes' community video montage; Local and family historians Margaret Scott and Clare Wichbold take us on a practical and inspiring journey through useful resources for suffrage research from Northumberland to Herefordshire to Lewisham for our live launch event; and Helen Pankhurst, author, activist, great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders of the British suffragette movement, will be taking your questions on past and current activism in our live wrap-up Suffrage Legacies event alongside other guests. And much more…
PROGRAMME OF EVENTS
The full programme and scheduling for all our events, which run over festival week between the
7th -14th November, is now available below.
You can register for our first live launch event on the 7th of November 2020, and our live wrap-up event on the 14th November via the Eventbrite links below
SATURDAY 7 NOVEMBER - 19:00 TO 20:00
LIVE LAUNCH EVENT
CLARE WICHBOLD & MARGARET SCOTT (LOCAL HISTORY & FAMILY RESEARCHERS)
AND TARA MORTON (MAPPING WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE) WITH PROFESSOR SARAH RICHARDSON (WARWICK UNIVERSITY)
Mapping Women’s Suffrage and Me: Researching your Suffrage History
Our first live launch event will bring together local history and family researchers, Clare Wichbold and Margaret Scott who take us on an inspiring journey through useful suffrage resources for local and family research as well as revealing some of their fabulous new suffrage findings from Herefordshire to Northumberland including local discoveries about suffragette Emily Wilding-Davison. They will be joined by Mapping Women’s Suffrage project co-ordinator and researcher, Tara Morton, and the event will be chaired by expert on women and political culture, Professor Sarah Richardson, University of Warwick.
PRE-RECORDED EVENTS
Our pre-recorded events will be available on this page and/or via the Mapping Women’s Suffrage YouTube channel and will be released each day consecutively between Monday 9th November 2020 – Friday 13th November 2020 at 10 a.m. Links to access each event, once released, will appear in the relevant programme box below.
MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER
Available to view here from10.00am
VICKY IGLIKOWSKI-BROAD (THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES)
‘No vote, no census’: The 1911 census and suffrage protests
The National Archive records offer a great insight into campaigns for women to get the vote. These government records often focus on the most militant actions and the campaigners behind them. Yet one of the best sources for all types of suffrage supporters is the 1911 census records. These offer a snapshot of the national women’s suffrage movement and the whereabouts of many campaigners at a high-point of the campaigns.
Despite continuing government resistance to female suffrage, Votes for women supporters across the country remained determined – and in 1911 their means of putting on pressure, was a mass census boycott. The argument was simple: if women were not treated as citizens with a political voice, they would not let themselves be counted on the government census survey. The 1911 census was unique - as the first census where the forms which were completed by a member of the household in their own hand have survived. This allows a peep into people’s domestic lives and enables us to explore individual acts of census protest by campaigners all over the country.
My talk will focus on The National Archive's census records, what they can start to tell us about the passionate individuals behind the movement for women’s suffrage all over England, including some of my very favourite suffrage census stories from the archives.
TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER
Available to view here from 10.00am
DR GILLIAN MURPHY (THE WOMEN'S LIBRARY, LSE)
Sex & Suffrage: Sexual Revolutionaries
From the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts in the 1870s and 1880s onward, British feminists have been talking about sex. This conversation was primarily about ways to protect women from undesired sex and of preventing men acting out their undesirable sexual advances. ‘In or about December 1910, human character changed’, wrote Virginia Woolf in her essay ‘Character in Fiction’ (1924) as a moment of social evolution.
Yet before, and long after this date, the women’s movement had been involved in discussions about relationships, from free love to chastity. Marriage was another topic: the ideal state for some, but legalised slavery for others. Then there was the question of men – were they allies or brutes? Frances Swiney (pictured), who led the Cheltenham branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies believed that ‘the male’ was ‘Nature’s greatest experiment in the utilisation of waste product’. These topics will be explored in my blog, through publications, archives and oral histories held in The Women’s Library at LSE.
WEDNESDAY 11 NOVEMBER
Available to view here from 10.00am
PROFESSOR SARAH RICHARDSON (UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK) AND TARA MORTON (MAPPING WOMEN"S SUFFRAGE)
Suffrage Music & Songs: Empowering voices past and present
In this film, Professor Sarah Richardson (University of Warwick) expert in women and political culture, and Tara Morton (Project Coordinator, Mapping Women’s Suffrage) discuss the role of music and song in the women’s suffrage campaign. Prof. Richardson looks at how music was used by Votes for women campaigners in a variety of contexts, from pageants to prison yards, as well as highlighting some of those who composed suffrage music and lyrics such as Dame Ethel Smyth and artist and playwright Laurence Housman. Sharing some current research, Tara Morton focuses on suffragist Margaret O’Shea and suffragette Kathleen Streatfeild, less prominent figures in the movement, who crafted words for suffrage songs - one for suffragettes to sing together while ‘evading’ the government’s census survey during the night of the 2nd April 1911.
Ultimately, the film explores music as an enduring tool of hope and empowerment, as relevant for women’s activism today as in the suffrage past. It concludes by playing a new song reinterpreting suffrage activists called ‘Deeds’, written and performed by powerful, female vocal trio ‘The Pips’ and inspired by the Mapping Women’s Suffrage project.
THURSDAY 12 NOVEMBER
Available to view here from 10.00am
DR BEN KYNESWOOD (COVENTRY UNIVERSITY)
In conversation with Coventry Atlas
In this video, Dr Ben Kyneswood (Director of Coventry Digital) chats with Tara Morton (Mapping Women’s Suffrage) about his work on a new digital mapping project called Coventry Atlas including some of the exciting new ways that Mapping Women’s Suffrage Coventry campaigners will feature in the project through local walking trails. A sociologist by training, Ben is interested in how the digital opens new pathways to local narratives that allow the re-imagining of the social city, as well as focusing on ways of making archives relevant and useful, including the use of participatory methods.
This snapshot preview of Ben’s Coventry Atlas work as part of Coventry Digital and Coventry City of Culture 2021, is a must see for historians, archivists, museum and community projects, interested in exploring how the digital map repository can bring together and enhance public engagement with the city by interweaving layers of landscape, community, history, and current events.
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER
Available to view here from 10.00am
JENNIFER GODFREY (SUFFRAGETTES OF KENT) WITH TARA MORTON (MAPPING WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE) & GUESTS
Sharing suffrage stories: Mapping Women’s Suffrage and ‘Our Ethel’ in Kent
The Mapping Women’s Suffrage project aims to bring people together from diverse places and communities to discover, share, and understand more about the lives and materials of as many ordinary Votes for Women campaigners as possible ready for the suffrage centenary in 2028 – marking 100 years since women got the Vote on the same terms as men.
This video montage celebrates that coming together. Introduced by Mapping Women’s Suffrage Project Coordinator, Tara Morton, Kent researcher and author of ‘Suffragettes of Kent’ Jennifer Godfrey tells us about her fascinating work on previously ‘hidden’ working class suffragette, Ethel Baldock, followed by recorded memories from some of ‘Our Ethel's’ ancestors Eileen and Patricia. Finally, we hear the lively voices of mum Sarah and daughter Isabeau, current residents of the house where Ethel grew up as a child. Can knowing you live in a 'suffragette's house' change how you think and feel about the Votes for Women campaign? Can it even change what you do?
SATURDAY 14 NOVEMBER - 19:00 TO 20:00
LIVE WRAP-UP EVENT
HELEN PANKHURST CBE (GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER OF EMMELINE PANKHURST)
AND HANNAH SQUIRE AND HELEN BRATT-WYTON (THE NATIONAL TRUST)
Legacies of the Suffrage Movement
Our final live event will consider the legacy of the suffrage movement and how it speaks to contemporary events and activism today. What is its resonance for movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter and how might an understanding of a community’s suffrage past lead to re-interpretations of established local and place histories? Our keynote speaker for this event is women’s activist and writer, Helen Pankhurst, great granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst. Other speakers include Hannah Squire and Helen Bratt-Wyton, National Trust.
OUR SPEAKERS
Helen Pankhurst CBE
Helen Pankhurst is a women’s rights activist, an international development practitioner working partly in Ethiopia, an author, a Professor at MMU and the Chancellor of the University of Suffolk. She is also the granddaughter of Sylvia, great granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, leaders of the British suffragette movement. To reflect on the progress since the struggle for the vote, in 2018, she wrote Deeds Not Words, the Story of Women’s Rights, then and Now. @HelenPankhurst
Dr Gillian Murphy (The Women's Library, LSE)
Dr Gillian Murphy is the Curator for Equality, Rights and Citizenship at LSE Library. She moved to LSE with the Women’s Library in 2013, where she had worked as an archivist for many years. Gillian promotes the Women’s Library collection and the Hall-Carpenter Archives through exhibitions, talks, blogs and workshops.
Dr Ben Kyneswood (Coventry University)
Dr Ben Kyneswood is Director of Coventry Digital, the city digital archive. He is a sociologist by training whose work addresses the challenges of social storytelling with communities using photography and how the digital opens new pathways to local narratives that allow the reimagining of the social city. He has also been advising the City of Culture on digital mapping projects as part of the build-up to the year of City of Culture in 2021 on a new project called Coventry Atlas.
Vicky Iglikowski-Broad (The National Archives)
Vicky Iglikowski-Broad, Principal Diverse Histories Records Specialist, The National Archives. Vicky has worked at The National Archives since 2012 and has an MA in women and gender history from Royal Holloway University, where her dissertation focused on the late 19th-century British women’s movement. She specialises in communicating her research through public engagement activities, working with community groups and artistic practitioners to reach wider audiences. Her developing research interests include the history of British society and culture, gender and sexuality, and 20th-century social change and protest.
Clare Wichbold MBE
Clare Wichbold is a professional fundraiser and bid writer who has worked in Herefordshire for over 20 years, at Herefordshire Council, Hereford Cathedral, and now at The Courtyard Centre for the Arts. Formerly an archaeologist, Clare has never lost the thrill for discovery. She became interested in the women’s suffrage campaign as chairman of the Hereford Three Choirs Festival which celebrated the votes for women centenary in 2018 through music, talks and exhibitions. Her involvement in a Heritage Lottery Fund project at the cathedral also revealed several clergymen, and their wives, were part of the suffrage story. Clare is currently compiling a book that reveals Herefordshire as more significant in the struggle for women’s suffrage than previously thought. She is also a community contributor to the Mapping Women’s Suffrage project.
Margaret Scott
Margaret grew up in Lincolnshire, trained as a teacher in Newcastle on Tyne and taught in Lancashire and Northumberland. She has lived in Longhorsley, Northumberland for over 30 years, where Emily Wilding Davison’s mother ran the village shop in the early 1900s. Following a Longhorsley Local History Society exhibition commemorating Emily’s life, Margaret published the book Emily’s Longhorsley, to record her life in Northumberland. Margaret’s interest in genealogy was inspired by her two daughters and husband, Glyn. She has spent many years working through fascinating family stories, lots of old photographs, taking research trips around the country. She recently discovered suffrage workers in her own family – an unexpected and exciting bonus! Margaret is also a community contributor to the Mapping Women’s Suffrage project.
Hannah Squire, Assistant Curator, National Public Programmes, National Trust
Hannah has volunteered and worked for the National Trust for over 10 years and is committed to researching, communicating and championing inclusive histories. Her developing research and interests include the 19th and 20th century British history of the fight for gender and LGBTQ+ equality and representation in art, culture and society. She has an MRes in History of Art from University of Birmingham, where her dissertation focused on 19th century female artists, their activism and engagement in public life. She has curated exhibitions of 19th and 20th century female artists work including, Elizabeth Siddal and Evelyn De Morgan.
Helen Bratt-Wyton, House & Collections Manager, Wightwick Manor, National Trust
Helen is a well-known speaker on Wightwick Manor, its family and the Morris/Pre-Raphaelite group of artists. She has contributed papers to numerous conferences on this group, particularly the women within it. In 2019,Helen curated an exhibition on Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Rossetti: Pre the Pre- Raphaelites
Professor Sarah Richardson, University of Warwick
Sarah Richardson is Professor of British History at the University of Warwick. She specialises in the history of politics and gender. Alongside her academic work, Sarah is a popular speaker on radio and television, she has produced podcasts and articles for BBC History Magazine and speaks on women and politics at many community events.
Tara Morton, Project Coordinator, Mapping Women's Suffrage
Tara Morton is creator and Project Coordinator for Mapping Women’s Suffrage. She is passionate about facilitating and promoting access to suffrage lives and materials through community and online engagement. Alongside community focused events, she populated the online database and other materials for the Women's Suffrage: History and Citizenship Resources for Schools Project (HM Government & Historical Association) and has authored several articles on the women’s suffrage movement - most recently for Suffrage and the Arts: Visual Culture, Politics and Enterprise (Bloomsbury, 2019). Her interests include 19th and 20th century feminism; women and visual culture; spatiality and gender politics. Her doctoral thesis employs multiple concepts of mapping to re-examine suffrage artists diverse interventions in gender power relationships.
Jennifer Godfrey
Jennifer Godfrey is the author of ’Suffragettes of Kent’ published by Pen & Sword. ‘Suffragettes of Kent’ delivers a thought provoking insight into the many stories and journeys of hope, determination, courage and sacrifice of those involved in the women’s suffrage movement in Kent. Included is the previously untold story of a Kent working class maid, Ethel Violet Baldock, arrested for her part in a suffragette protest. Previously a Solicitor, Jennifer trained to accurately convey accounts of an event or situation and as a first time author, she enjoys listening to and learning from other people’s stories. She has also worked for a mental health charity, using these skills to create resources for young people. Jennifer is currently working for a district council in Kent supporting residents and communities and is also an advocate for historic Kent voices.