Votes for Women

Small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery to mark 100 years since the passing of the Representation of the People Act which gave women the vote.

This was part of a series of displays which the gallery is running over the year and this one focused on the main figures who campaigned for the vote and pioneering political women since. The earliest picture was of Harriett Mill, the wife of John Stewart Mill, and was a picture from a different world to the other Victorian and Edwardian images.

There was a nice picture of Millicent Fawcett, who presented the first petition to Parliament in 1861. I always forget that Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first women to qualify as a doctor, was her sister.  Mrs Pankhurst was represented by the famous pictures of her being arrested at Buckingham Palace and giving a speech in Trafalgar Square. The Christabel Pankhurst portrait by Ethel Wright was there plus a lovely portrait of Sylvia by Henry Cole shown here.  

Looking ahead to significant political women there were photographs of Nancy Astor, the first women to sit in parliament, Ellen Wilkinson who led the Jarrow Marches and Margaret Thatcher, well I suppose she had to be in there.

Closes on 13 May 2018

 

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